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Stanislav "Stan" Grof is a Czech-born psychiatrist who has been living in the United States since the 1960s. Grof is one of the principal developers of transpersonal psychology and research into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of exploring, healing, and obtaining growth and insights into the human psyche.
Grof's Terms
Notes
https://stangrof.com/images/joomgallery/ArticlesPDF/Global_Crisis_Future_of_Humanity.pdf
On Spirituality
"To prevent confusion and misunderstanding that in the past have plagued similar discussions, it is critical to make a clear distinction between spirituality and religion. Spirituality is based on direct experiences of other realities. It does not necessarily require a special place, or a special person mediating contact with the divine, although mystics can certainly benefit from spiritual guidance and a community of fellow seekers. Spirituality involves a special relationship between the individual and the cosmos and is in its essence a personal and private affair. At the cradle of all great religions were visionary (perinatal and/or transpersonal) experiences of their founders, prophets, saints, and even ordinary followers. All major spiritual scriptures -- the Vedas, the Buddhist Pali Canon, the Bible. the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and many others are based on revelations in holotropic states."[1]
On the Boundary Problem
Traditional psychology and psychiatry are dominated by materialistic philosophy and have no recognition for spirituality of any form. From the point of view of Western science, the mate- rial world represents the only reality and any form of spiritual belief is seen as reflecting lack of education, primitive superstition, magical thinking, or regression to infantile patterns of functioning. Direct experiences of spiritual realities are then relegated to the world of gross psychopathology, serious mental disorders. Western psychiatry makes no distinction between a mystical experience and a psychotic experience and sees both as manifestations of mental disease. In its rejection of religion, it does not differentiate primitive folk beliefs or fundamentalists’ literal interpretations of scriptures from sophisticated mystical traditions and Eastern spiritual philosophies based on centuries of systematic introspective exploration of the psyche. It pathologizes spirituality of any kind and together with it the entire spiritual history of humanity.[2]
On religion
By comparison, the basis a organized religion is institutionalized group activity that takes place in a designated location (temple, church), and involves a system of appointed mediators. Ideally, religions should provide fur its members access to and support for direct spiritual experiences. However, it often happens that a religion 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, and other possessions. Under these circumstances, religious hierarchy tends to actively discourage and suppress direct spiritual experiences of its members, because they foster independence and cannot be effectively controlled.[3]
On the source of religion (echoes William James and others).
At the cradle of all great religions were visionary (perinatal and/or transpersonal) experiences of their founders, prophets, saints, and even ordinary followers. All major spiritual scriptures – the Vedas, the Buddhist Pali Canon, the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and many others are based on revelations in holotropic states of consciousness.[4]
Oh the elite nature of religion
However, it often happens that an organized religion sooner or later 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, and other possessions. Under these circumstances, 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.[5]
On the nature of reality and the ontological status of self
Argues that evidence from Transpersonal Psychology requires a fundamental revision of our views of the nature of consciousness and reality. [6] Anything less than a complete overhaul of dominant materialist paradigms is, according to Grof, biased, closed-minded pseudoscience.
Footnotes
- ↑ Grof, S. (1999). Technologies of the Sacred—Part Two. The International Journal of Humanities and Peace, 15(1), 93–96. p. 94. https://www.lightningpath.org/readings/Technologies_of_the_sacred_II.pdf
- ↑ Grof, Stanislav. “Psychology For the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research.” Spirituality Studies 2, no. 1 (2016): 33–34. https://www.spirituality-studies.org/dp-volume2-issue1-spring2016/#2.
- ↑ Grof, S. (1999). Technologies of the Sacred—Part Two. The International Journal of Humanities and Peace, 15(1), 93–96. p.93. https://www.lightningpath.org/readings/Technologies_of_the_sacred_II.pdf
- ↑ Grof, Stanislav. “Psychology For the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research.” Spirituality Studies 2, no. 1 (2016): 33. https://www.spirituality-studies.org/dp-volume2-issue1-spring2016/#2.
- ↑ Grof, Stanislav. “Psychology For the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research.” Spirituality Studies 2, no. 1 (2016): 33. https://www.spirituality-studies.org/dp-volume2-issue1-spring2016/#2.
- ↑ Grof, Stanislav. “Psychology For the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research.” Spirituality Studies 2, no. 1 (2016): 34. https://www.spirituality-studies.org/dp-volume2-issue1-spring2016/#2.
