The Transpersonal Spectrum in the work of Stanislav Grof

Diego Pignatelli

Stan Grof’s broad framework forms a detailed category of transpersonal experience (Grof S., The Adventure of Self-Discovery, Albany, N.Y., State University New York Press, 1988.) OOBE, clairvoyance, telepathy, channelling, time travelling outside the normal channels, holographic travelling and parallel universes are just some of the arguments that pervade the copious spectrum of transpersonal phenomena. Other universes exist in connection with our universe, outside the conventional channels. Another phenomenon is that of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) in correlation with the phenomena of NOSC (Non Ordinary States of Consciousness) (Bache C., Dark Night, Early Dawn, SUNY, University of New York Press, 2000.) One of Grof’s main contributions is his theoretical and eschatological constructions of BPMs (basic perinatal matrices) which act as sequential dynamics inside the spectrum of phenomena. It is possible to have embryonic and foetal experiences as a temporal expansion of consciousness, followed by ancestral, phylogenetic and collective experiences, karmic memories and memories of past lives like collective events, archetypal experiences and complex mythological sequences.

Experiences of the consciousness’s spatial dilation as a transcendence of the normal confines of the ego and the identification with people in dual unity experiences lead towards a planetary and extra-planetary consciousness until, with the help of imagination and holographs, we reach OOBE and spatial travelling.

Holographic trips are part of a highly transpersonal experience. They are holotropic to use one of Stanislav Grof’s terms.

If we focus on these experiences then pre-cognitive, telepathic, clairvoyant and astral OOBE and time travelling phenomena open up. At the same time we come across mediumistic experiences and encounters with other beings or superhuman beings. It is possible to encounter inhabitants of other universes and encounter various divinities which lead us to an intuitive understanding of the symbols of the universe by activating the cosmic consciousness and kundalini chakras until we reach the meta-cosmic void. Reviewing these categories as transpersonal domains we open the door to the great holotropic universe introduced by Stanislav Grof. We can observe how these experiences are possible according to Grof in a universe where everything is possible within the technology of consciousness.

There are other universes, perhaps other parallel realities which are the subject of transpersonal studies according to the wide range of Grof’s experience. Chris Bache, professor of Religious Studies at Youngstown University links Grof’s ample terminology to the experiences of mystical types of non ordinary states of consciousness, reviewing the study of BPM matrices and NDE. Chris has managed to find interesting parallels to the interface between both phenomena. As matter is the interface of anti-matter and the two represent a unicum in consciousness, so the two phenomena identified by Bache appear as a superimposed interface (Bache, C.M., A Perinatal Interpretation of Frightening Near-Death Experiences. A Dialogue with Kenneth Ring.)

The figure of Shiva also reoccurs in the mythology often used by Grof, as the interface between consciousness and is represented by Thanatos, the destructive and mortal force of the god. If we take the metaphor of Thanatos and Eros, we can construct a parallel between NDE and BPM, between the experience of death and rebirth. This life/death interface is recurrent in Stanislav Grof’s work because it acts as a “holotropic” and transpersonal vessel. It is a vessel capable of changing death and rebirth experiences.

If we add symbolic images and archetypes from various aborigine and shamanic cultures to this energy transforming vessel, the experience of rebirth passes through a holographic tunnel - a space-time vortex - and encounters other domains.

All of this is activated in non ordinary states of consciousness which Grof has studied in detail for 40 years using scientific research with or without the help of LSD. Grof has turned around work on non ordinary states of consciousness and has explored intra-uterine dimensions and BPM, experimenting on himself with the use of LSD and psychedelic substances as a powerful means of exploration thus facilitating access to transpersonal dimensions and “non ordinary states of consciousness.”

The spectrum of transpersonal experiences has been widely accepted by the transpersonal current to which Grof refers but not by mainstream academic science which puts spirituality on a level with schizophrenia. Grof is fighting to legitimise his theory which has meanwhile gained success amongst physicists like Capra, Fred Alan Wolf, Nick Herbert and Amit Goswami who are intent on getting rid of the old Cartesian paradigm which still dominates academic science.

Karl Pribram’s holographic model of the brain, David Bohm’s Holomovement (holoflux) and Ervin Laszlo’s psi-field have notably influenced Grof’s ideas. Representing a revision of the Cartesian paradigm, Grof has filled his books with terminology borrowed from Philisophia Perennis (Grof, S., 1998, The Cosmic Game: Exploration of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness).

Grof’s latest book, The Ultimate Journey (2006), is a shamanic adventure. It is an investigation of relatively modern studies of the mysteries of death and rebirth and NDEs. He expands on the new cartography model of the psyche immersed in 50 years of research into psychedelic and holotropic therapies and Spiritual emergency crises.


Bibliography

Bache M.C., Dark Night,early Dawn SUNY University of New York Press 2000
Bache M.C..,A Perinatal Interpretation of Frightening Near-Death Experiences.A Dialogue with Kenneth Ring by Christopher M. Bache, Ph.D).
Grof.S. The Cosmic Game: Exploration of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness, SUNY Press, Albany (New York), 1998).
Grof, S. 1988. The Adventure of Self-Discovery. Albany, N.Y.: State University New York Press).
Grof S. & Grof C., The Stormy Search for The Self, New York Perigee Books, ISBN, 0-87477-649-X, 1931
Grof S., Realms of Human Unconscious, New York Viking, 1976
Grof S. & Grof C., Beyond Death, Thames and Hudson, London, 1980
Grof S., The Adventure of Self Discovery, State University of New York Press, Albany NY, 1987
Grof S. & Grof C., Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation becomes a Crisis (New Consciousness Reader), Los Angeles, J.P. Tarcher, 1989
Grof, S. 1975. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press.
Grof, S. 1980. LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, CA: Hunter House.
Grof, S. 1985. Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. Albany, N.Y: State University New York Press.
Grof, S. 1988. The Adventure of Self-Discovery. Albany, N.Y.: State University New York Press
Grof S., Zina Bennett H., Holotropic mind, Harper Collins MAPS, San Francisco, 1992
Grof S., The Cosmic Game: Exploration of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness, SUNY Press, Albany (New York), 1998
Grof S., Psychology of the Future. Lesson from Modern Consciousness Research, by Stanislav Grof, SUNY Press, Albany (New York), 2000
Grof.S.,The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death by Stanislav Grof, M.D.
Grof S. & Grof C., The Stormy Search for the Self, New York Perigee/Tarcher Los Angeles, Ca Putnam Publications 2000

Awakening of Intelligence

"The Awakening of Intelligence” aims to put meaning back into the symbol which seems lost in this society. It is complex but rich in arguments, concepts and images which reflect not only the wide spectrum of transpersonal psychology but also threads interwoven with symbols.

States which C. G. Jung called “psychoid experiences” also perceive these symbols from a consciousness which looks at the divine to the synthesis of a mystic union. It is exactly this “coniunctio” which is the principle message behind this book. The struggle between good and evil, between children of the night and children of the day is the emblem of the cosmogonic archetype which struggles in the shadows of consciousness. Finally, it opens up to the primordial and multi-dimensional splendour of the collective unconscious.

Its invisible realms are archetypes, stones, jewels, diamonds of a “numinous” treasure rejected a priori by humanity which does not want to give this, the gold of revelation, the shaman of the prophets in front of the city of the gods, any symbolic significance.

The cosmogonic dimension – rediscovery – is rejected by man who, admitting that reality is dead, has relegated the gods to their paradise, where they as C. G. Jung says, are pathologies that torment consciousness like children of the Night with a fluid and rebellious archetype which escapes man’s and destiny’s control.

Symbolically enriched with different tones,images and metaphors, this book aims to appeal to the Invisible, to Intelligence as well to the Myth and the discoveries of Stanislav Grof, Ken Wilber, Joseph Campbell, David Bohm, Stanley Krippner ,Stuart Sovatsky and other theorists of transpersonal adventure.

The sacredness of being seems like “an alchemy of symbols, the game of two lovers who betray each other and then regain unity once more in a mystic wedding celebration” and finally it opens up a bridge between man in his escape from the gods and his rediscovery of a hidden meaning: the interface between us and the invisible. This interface acts as a parallel reality, vision and prophecy,archetypes and myth,science-fiction and holographic-vortex,psychedelics and sacred journeys.

It is from this “Cosmic Game” revealed in a symbolic alchemy, that the book leads to an extraordinary Reawakening of Shiva from the Invisible which shapes our perceptions into a phenomenal seat of illusion. This is because the gods have turned pale and because they have hidden their symbols far away from human mediocrity, far away from a world which has already chosen how things should be by following the path of lying. “The Awakening of Intelligence” breaks this lie on contact with spiritual realities and their laws, which do not belong to this order of existence but whose existence underlies like the American physicist David Bohm’s implicate order. From the order laws appear to be invisible, a three dimensional tapestry, a hologram, in which the symbol reflects its projection.

Hidden worlds interact in the fabric of life and our perceptions. It is Shiva’s reality, it is his dance which beats in the metaphysical universe in which Hindus projected their visions.

Now we are far away from those realities but transpersonal studies reflect those visions propelling them again into a new revolutionary pattern which is overtaking the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm in a new vision of the Cosmos.

Parallel studies like those of Stanislav Grof, Richard Tarnas, Capra, Fred Alan Wolf, Jorge Ferrer and Ken Wilber have advanced extremely modern theories which, having thrown academic science (still based on the classic Newtonian-Cartesian model) into discussion are revaluating and re-shaping other theories accessible to both the scientist and the mystic. From here, from the great effort to reconcile science with religion and reconvert the pragmatism of western to the sacred mysticism of the east, attempts have been made, but they have never opened up to extraordinary and non-ordinary external reality.

Transpersonal psychology is an advocate of this reality, opening up the way to the mystic and scientist just as to an artist with such privileges.

Access to what is sacred and invisible is an accessible and at the same time inaccessible reality. We need to distinguish this numinous quality described by C. G. Jung and see it as a whole in the cosmic tapestry of consciousness, in this cosmic hologram which is close to the vision of our predecessors, prophets and mystics of all the ages.


Diego Pignatelli

Diego Pignatelli's metaphor of the holodeck very intriguing as a way to envision the kinds of altered-state material that arises during holotropic breathwork. it seems like a good, contemporary explanation for what were previously called the "imaginal worlds" of altered states, since many seem to have similar imagery and "rules of operation." I think Pignatelli's construct is an intriguing metaphor that opens up new avenues of explanation and exploration for nonordinary phenomena.

Jenny Wade Ph D.




Stan Grof: Journey into the Holodeck of the Unconscious:

by: Diego Pignatelli - email: diego pignatelli


When Anthony Sutich and Abraham Maslow began Transpersonal Psychology it was already becoming clear that in the future, the potential for it would be unlocked. The pioneering discoveries of Stanislav Grof would cause a revolutionary change in the field of consciousness by moving towards a new holographic future even with the discoveries of LSD, optional aids for experimental trips into transpersonal dimensions. This future would be a decisive turning point for the holographic witness, the explorer and the traveller of the unexplored territories of the psyche. Freud provided the first definition of metapsychology in 1896. This psychology had to go behind the conscious sphere by dealing with states of consciousness. Since then, other connotations of metapsychology have been added but looking at history from Freud to Jung we can see that Stanislav Grof preserves this technique; he is one of the latest pioneers along the path of this discipline. The journey towards the unconscious.Grof's back door (as defined by Ken Wilber) is a door that opens onto the phyletic corridor of human hope. The collective unconscious is the archetypal substratum that Jung theorised as a door hidden behind the inexpressible, from which, beneath the layers of human experience, pulsates this mysterious, magical and in Jung's words "numinous" quality.Stanislav Grof, like his predecessors and Jung, heads for this archetypal corridor whose various rooms, to use an image from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, are holo-decks or three-dimensional holographic fields. They are parallel realities of holograms in the psychic corridor which are evoked as holographic simulations of the exact desired reality. Holo-decks are probabilities of the many doors in the corridor; they are no more than "holographic simulations." Grof's BPM perinatal matrices, like holo-decks, are very similar because coming from the great cosmic womb of undifferentiated, amniotic, foetal experience, the various matrices become claustrophobic places where the foetus is overlain BPM II and BPM III ( Basic Perinatal Matrices II and III.) This experience is an infernal dead end matrix. The matrices as theorised by Stan Grof culminate in transcendence or damnation. In BPM IV, the final matrix, the afflicted foetus ends where death is reborn and turns from the hellish experience of a manic, borderline neurotic state into spiritual ecstasies where the life-death interface unhooks itself from its infernal BPM state and moves to the three-dimensional holo-deck. By unhooking oneself, through rebirth and reliving, a patient regresses into anxious one-way states ranging from catastrophic visions and scatological hells with no escape to hells from which he/she can return. This journey through the back door of the unconscious is a regression into the conscious sphere. It's a back door to consciousness.Stanislav Grof called this process Holotropic: a movement towards a whole. The existential field of one is the universal sphere of Everything. By losing the sense of self, man regresses into cosmic states of being and identifies himself with all things vegetable, mineral and biological. Heavenly paradises and angelic visions are accessible in these dimensions as well as universal archetypes such as the great goddess mother Kali, the sustainer of life who is also an arachnid monster with numerous limbs. Where consciousness meets holo-deck, doors to parallel universes (Star Gates) open. For this to happen, consciousness has to project itself onto a super-hologram and identify with the internal field of experience. Holotropic experience is a journey beyond the usual confines, beyond the limits of the mind. Stan Grof is the precursor of a pioneering adventure of transpersonal explorations of human's unconscious from the cosmic holo-deck (probability, location) to the whole cosmic experience. Grof has inherited this sum of archetypes which come back as ghosts in the matrix from the collective unconscious of Jung. Or, like liberating, model a priori visions of consciousness he has taken the boundaries of the unconscious threshold into the non ordinary psycho-active. The door between heaven and hell acts as an interface to the matrices and its keystone is what Grof describes as "non ordinary states of consciousness" (NOSC.) By using quick breathing, holotropic practices and evocative music one breaks away from ordinary experience and travels in a transpersonal experience where waiting for the death-rebirth event is a holistic cosmos; a whole field of all events. The journey towards the unconscious is a conscious morphogenetic map of infinite holographic probabilities. If objective reality is nothing more than a small holographic plate, a fragment of reality, the remains of the hologram will be latent and hidden. That is why it is necessary to bring back the experiences which are concealed behind the objective universe of Everything. This is where they lie dormant and we need to bring them back to the whole. Only through immersion in the state of consciousness can we explore this whole in its parts and as a result find the whole plate in a holographic process.The NOSC, journeys into non ordinary states of consciousness, are prerequisites for a dimension which spans the Alpha and Omega of human experience. Stanislav Grof has reached the transpersonal threshold imagining it as a bridge to the unconscious (as anticipated by Jung,) leading to a journey into a cave of monsters and demonic presences and finally coming out into the corridor of regressive, transpersonal experience - regressive being part of what is transpersonal. The condensed COEX experiences (archetypal constellations) and the BPM matrixes are indispensable stages for the great return and for transpersonal individuation. These enable us to access the Sacred and a journey into the holo-deck, a new unconscious.

Diego Pignatelli.(5068 characters/85 lines)

Bohm D., The holographic paradigm, Shambhala Publ., Colorado.Bohm D., Unfolding meaning, Ark, London, 1987.
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Grof, S. 1975. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press.
Grof, S. 1980. LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, CA: Hunter House.
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Grof, S. 1988. The Adventure of Self-Discovery. Albany, N.Y.: State University New York Press
Grof S., Zina Bennett H., Holotropic mind, Harper Collins MAPS, San Francisco, 1992
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Grof S., Psychology of the Future. Lesson from Modern Consciousness Research, by Stanislav Grof, SUNY Press, Albany (New York), 2000
Grof S. & Grof C., The Stormy Search for the Self, New York Perigee/Tarcher Los Angeles, Ca Putnam Publications 2000
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Jung, C. G. 1959. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works, vol. 9,1. Bollingen Series XX, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. 1960. A Review of the Complex Theory. Collected Works, vol. 8, Bollingen Series XX. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Talbot M. The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot 1991.
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Tarnas R., Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, by Richard Tarnas, 2006G.
Tucci, Induismo, "Hinduism" ISMEO Roma.
Wilber K., The Spectrum of Consciousness, Quest Wheaton, 1977
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The Awakening of Intelligence explores images of the unconscious realms of mind as if was a Science-Fiction landscape or Shiva's heaven or Sufi's mundus imaginalis weaving a symbolic tapestry better known as the Dance of Shiva.The archaic and primordial Source recognized by mystics and visionaries of all the ages.
With the powerful use of metaphor, Diego Pignatelli brings the reader into each of these realms along with C G Jung as well as Talbot, Maslow,Wilber, Ksemaraja, Bohm and Grof, while also offering new insights relating to the connection of mandalas/yantras with star-gates (parallel realities in mysticism and wormholes in physics)and holograms as mandala 3D.
Holographic tunnels appear like trans-temporal, non-ordinary channels where mystics and seers encountered gods, Devas and other mythological divinities.
The Awakening of Intelligence is a book enriched via tones and images, parabolas and mythological fairy tales that introduce us to transpersonal psychology and its spiritual dimensions.The doorway final scope of this endeavour is to bring together ancient religious systems, eastern traditions, in connection with the newest symbols and science of transpersonal psychology-a bridge with the Sacred as in the famous keyword Tat Tvam Asi: You are It. The Awakening of Intelligence restores the knowledge of the ultimate spiritual dimensions to humanity.


Diego Pignatelli is a gifted visionary and writer with encyclopedic understanding of spiritual psychologies whose book uplifts the reader toward the very mystical states that all the great saints have described.
--Stuart Sovatsky,PhD, Author, Words From the Soul, and Your Perfect Lips

"The Awakening of Intelligence" is a remarkable book.
Diego Pignatelli has presented an original and provocative perspective on this topic, a perspective that is crucially needed in a world that has been ripped apart by ignorance, fanaticism, and the lack of intelligence.
--Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.Professor of Psychology, Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

"The Awakening of Intelligence" is a wonderful compendium of contemporary transpersonal thought. Pignatelli has produced a very necessary synthesis of the most important trends in transpersonal scholarship and spiritual studies.

--Jorge N Ferrer,
Author of "Revisioning Transpersonal Theory:A Partecipatory Vision of Human Spirituality"

Diego Pignatelli's metaphor of the holodeck very intriguing as a way to envision the kinds of altered-state material that arises during holotropic breathwork. It seems like a good, contemporary explanation for what were previously called the "imaginal worlds" of altered states, since many seem to have similar imagery and "rules of operation." I think Pignatelli's construct is an intriguing metaphor that opens up new avenues of explanation and exploration for nonordinary phenomena.
--Jenny Wade Ph D.

Diego Pignatelli's "The Awakening of Intelligence" is an extraordinary book, adding new insights and understanding to the growing field of Consciousness studies and transpersonal psychology. Diego's synthesis of the ideas of Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, David Bohm, Stan Grof, Carl Jung,Ken Wilber and others helps us integrate as well as appreciate the complexity, richness and gems of wisdom these awakened minds offer humanity. Diego urges humanity to move from the duality, conflict and the illusion of our present world into the clarity, compassion and wisdom of enlightened intelligence. We are the Ones who will choose the world yet to be; The scope of this book is to journey into wholeness, to become One from the many, and to rediscover the cosmic dimensions of sacred truth and reality. Diego Pignatelli is our passionate guide.
--Joyce A. Kovelman, Ph.D., Ph.D.
Author: "Once Upon ASOUL: The Story Continues.... Science, Psychology and The Realms of Spirit,"
"Namaste': Initiation and Transformation," and 5 workbook series: "I AM WOMAN on a Journey called Life."

Stan Grof and Ken Wilber’s spectrum model of psychology: A Transpersonal Synthesis

For Maslow and Stanislav Grof, who were the precursors of new theories which integrated old models, the pioneering directives of William James and C. G. Jung opened new avenues in transpersonal and archetypal explorations. They also threw emerging new paradigms into the spotlight.

Transpersonal Theory is the daughter of a declaration of independence which has regained its status quo in front of an empirical science that is deeply rooted in reductionism. Now that the Cartesian vision is obsolete, transpersonal science integrates evolutionary and involutionary theories which find their meta-theoretical scaffolding in Ken Wilber’s model of systems. Many transpersonal theorists back away from Wilber’s integral post metaphysic theories stating clearly why they disagree. Stanislav Grof often compared himself to Wilber’s model and often used it to complement theoretical work related to his experiential system. Although it is a valid model, it can appear to have some basic structural incoherencies.

Stanislav Grof found Wilber’s integral spectrum model of psychopathology to be flawed and where the approach was experiential, he noted a certain deficit regarding the whole transpersonal issue. In other words, Wilber’s model presents to the evolved/involved argument an involution from pre-ego and ego to centaur. He also presents an evolution, from the centaur phase to the trans-ego and transpersonal phase.

As it is very detailed, Wilber’s model is considered by the majority of the community of theorists and transpersonal community. As Wilber’s theory is integral, he has remained at some distance from his colleagues. In Wilber’s system, which is based essentially on Aurobindo’s global spectrum model, there are a series of stages which move towards an evolving spiritual path and a series of eziologies best defined as transpersonal pathologies. In theory, beyond the pre-personal and personal level studied by traditional and dynamic psychology, there is a third level which joins a fourth one and this is the transpersonal dimension. Ken Wilber imagines them as transpersonal fulcrum meaning they go beyond those of the development of the Self, and they are used to reach the Transpersonal Self. They are used spiritually to define experiences which cannot be described rationally.

Transpersonal includes these three fulcrums: from psychic and subtle to causal (fig. 11) with the following pathologies: Yogis – Saints – Sages. The point at which orthodox psychology stops dealing with the realms of the ego, which culminate in the centaur phase (integration of the self, separation and individuation), is the point where the work of transpersonal psychology begins. There is not much of a gap between the ego dimension and the transpersonal dimension and everything moves towards the centaur or a self which is ready to integrate the resulting transpersonal stages.

So far so good because transpersonal psychology has shown that it deals with non inclusive stages, i.e. it is excluded a priori from orthodox psychology and from corresponding therapeutic interventions. This third transpersonal level, which also has three other fulcrum ranging from VII to IX, is an area excluded from orthodox psychology which uses post-biographical models according to the principals represented in the psychology of the self (see Mahler, Kohut and Kernberg.) Wilber is an authority on the incoherence of these models, excluding a priori a series of factors and circumstances of the transpersonal dimension. Having taken the new transpersonal level into the limelight and into knowledge with the inherent pathologies of Yogis – Saints – Sages, Wilber also superficially put a spotlight on the transpersonal model with the stages and fulcrum of transition. According to Grof however, Ken Wilber’s model, which is inherent in Transpersonal Psychopathology, is flawed when he rejects the perinatal matrix as part of the whole spectrum of pathology. These matrix are part of the whole transpersonal dimension.

In these dimensions, the matrix are important experiential cornerstones of the transpersonal model. The biggest criticism of Grof to Wilber’s work is that he placed his trust in post-natal theories and in the classic psychology of the self and he excludes a series of factors and circumstances which form part of the transpersonal dimension and its experiential field; this is something that Wilber seems to have not considered.

The classic methodology of conventional psychology, which is not familiar with Grof’s work, defines matrix. The advent of these matrix is important in the transpersonal phase because it indicates intra-uterine dynamics which go back to the antecedent and post-birth stage. These are experiential dynamics which go back to a perinatal biography (and to a process of biological birth which is found in karmic experiences through meeting previous lives) and this happens again in the experience of non ordinary states of consciousness. Here, at a regressive level, one emerges in a deep state, at a karmic level, to explore the matrix and their experiential dynamics (CoEx = condensed experiences.)

Wilber seems to have excluded these dynamics which are very important turning points in the transpersonal stage of the experience of death and rebirth. These dynamics appear as integrated parts of the transpersonal dimension. According to Grof, this is where Wilber’s model is inconsistent: he lacks the basic presuppositions needed to articulate the whole transpersonal question. Wilber deals with evolution, to be precise a curved evolved/involved Cosmogenesis and a global or “integral” spectrum, based on theoretical presuppositions. Yet he lacks basic presuppositions on an experiential level. Not being an explorer in the field as Grof is, Wilber constructed his system on presuppositions that had already been validated and tested by psychology, which deals with the stages of development of the self i.e. post-biographical experience.

Grof believes that for a more comprehensive spectrum model, we need to consider the BPM matrix (basic perinatal matrix) and their dynamics. Wilber rejects the sequential hypothesis of the matrix and concentrates instead on the uroboric, pre-ego, ego and centaur phases, affirming that a real transpersonal experience occurs at the mature levels of the ego: from the mature ego to the centaur, from the centaur and subtle, causal realms to Atman.

Grof distances himself from Ken Wilber’s theories in favour of experiences which he calls NOSC (non ordinary states of consciousness.) This experiential practice acts as an interface to these BPM matrix and acts as their corresponding experiential field. While the matrices are theoretical models, NOSC are their experiential counterpart. Still, within Wilber’s model, the centaur opens up to the whole transpersonal experiential field, which is an abandonment of the mature ego. However, according to Wilber, it is normal for the transpersonal stages to be excluded in the pre-ego experience. Wilber believes that transpersonal experiences invade the evolved phases of the ego and do not involve experiences which can be found on a pre-ego childlike level.

Wilber sees this supposition of the steadfast ego in the centaur phase as a genuine transpersonal phase. For Wilber, the individual regresses into pre- ego phases and is flooded by trans-ego phases, because of the would-be filter and the dysfunction of the egoic syntax. All of this leaves the individual exposed to a “magical and mythical referential thought” just when egoic syntax starts to fail and while one’s consciousness is flooded with trans-ego material. This leaves the individual unprotected and at risk of psychic inflation.

According to Grof, transpersonal domains also occur in Wilber’s so-called pre-immature phase and it is also possible to have transpersonal encounters in the intra-uterine phase. This is the subtle difference between pre- and trans. This experience can be relived though NOSC. In short, Wilber’s uroboric pre-phase state is very different to Grof’s basic matrix. Wilber’s concept is more the transcendence of a mature ego than a regression into transpersonal realms and a karmic experience of death and rebirth. Transpersonal Psychology presents Grof’s and Wilber’s diverse systems which manage to complement each other. Wilber’s theoretical field opens onto Grof’s experiential field and vice versa. They are the yin and yang of the same structure, the same dynamic field which includes other basic theoretical, experiential, morphogenetic, archetypal, mythological, philosophical, anthropological and inter-agent structures. They are all equally in tune with each other in the large experiential, meta-theoretical field of transpersonal studies.

Diego Pignatelli
Grof S. & Grof C., The Stormy Search for The Self, New York Perigee Books, ISBN, 0-87477-649-X, 1931
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Grof S. & Grof C., The Stormy Search for the Self, New York Perigee/Tarcher Los Angeles, Ca Putnam Publications 2000


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Stan Grof: Journey into the Holodeck of the Unconscious.


By Diego Pignatelli diego_pignatelli@libero.it


When Anthony Sutich and Abraham Maslow initated the field of Transpersonal Psychology, it was the intention to create a space in which the great, unknown or dimly glimpsed potential inherent to human beings would be given a space to unfold. The pioneering discoveries of Stanislav Grof would cause a revolutionary change in the field of consciousness studies, by moving towards a holographic paradigm of mind. This was initiatally catylised by LSD. The emergence of psychedelics was a a decisive turning point for the understanding of holographic consciousness, the witness, the explorer and the traveller of the unexplored territories of the psyche. Freud provided the first definition of metapsychology in 1896. This psychology had to go beyond the frontal, "conscious" sphere by dealing with the unconsciousness. Jung extended this work through an appreciation of the profound and collective depths of the unconscious, as a repository of transpersonal archetypes. Stanislav Grof included and transcended the technique of psychotherapy: he is the natural pioneers along the path of this discipline, extending Freud and Jungs work. The journey towards the unconscious. Grofs "back door" to spirit (as defined by Ken Wilber) is a door that opens onto the phyletic corridor of human hope. The collective unconscious is the archetypal substratum that Jung theorised about... beneath the layers of human day-to-day experience, resonating with a mysterious, magical, and in Jungs words "numinous" quality. Stanislav Grof, like his predecessors and Jung, heads for this archetypal corridor, whose various rooms, to use an image from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, are holo-decks or three-dimensional holographic fields. They are parallel realities of holograms in the psychic corridors of the collective consciousess. Grofs BPM or "birth perinatal matrices" describe the the great cosmic womb of undifferentiated, amniotic, foetal experience, the various matrices of claustrophobic places that imprint upon the emotional conditions of later life... where the foetus undergoes the crushing and claustrophobic rigors of birth. In BPM IV, the final matrix, the birth canal leading to actual birth, the foetus suffering ends in a transition from crushing suffocation to liberation in the light. The hellish experience of a manic, borderline neurotic state swiftly expands into spiritual ecstasy where the life-death interface unhooks itself from its infernal BPM state and moves to the three-dimensional holo-deck. By unhooking oneself, through rebirth and reliving these early birth traumas, a person can move from being under the unconscious influence of catastrophic visions and scatological hells with no seeming escape, to expanded states of freedom and liberation. Stanislav Grof called this process Holotropic: a movement towards a whole. The existential field of one is the universal sphere of Everything. By losing the sense of self, man regresses into cosmic states of being and identifies himself with all things vegetable, mineral and biological. Heavenly paradises and angelic visions are accessible in these dimensions as well as universal archetypes such as the great goddess mother Kali. Holotropic experience is a journey beyond the usual confines, beyond the limits of the mind. Stan Grof is the precursor of a pioneering adventure of transpersonal explorations of mans unconscious, and from within unconsciousness, to the whole cosmic experience. Grof has understood birth as the door between personal and transpersonal, heaven and hell, with rebirthing acting as an interface to the matrices.By using rapid breathing, holotropic practices and evocative music one breaks away from ordinary experience and travels in a transpersonal experience where beyond for the death-rebirth event is a holistic cosmos; a whole field of all events. The journey towards the unconscious is a conscious morphogenetic map of infinite holographic probabilities. If objective reality is nothing more than a hologram, a fragment of reality, the remains of the hologram will be latent and hidden. That is why it is necessary to bring back the experiences which are concealed behind the objective universe. This is where they lie dormant and we need to bring them back to the whole. Only through immersion in the state of consciousness can we explore this whole in its parts and as a result find the whole pattern in a holographic process. Non ordinary states of consciousness are prerequisites for investigation of the transpersonal dimension which spans the Alpha and Omega of human experience. Stanislav Grof visualises birth as the transpersonal threshold, as a bridge to the unconscious... leading to a journey into a cave of monsters and demonic presences and finally coming out into the realm of transpersonal experience. The condensed COEX experiences (constellations of experience) and the Birth perinatal matrixes are indispensable stages for the great return and for transpersonal individuation. These enable us to access the Sacred and a journey into the holoraphic mind, the transpersonal unconscious, which has all possibility to become the transpersonal conscious.


Diego Pignatelli.

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