Spiritual Emergency

Guidelines for Reading this Blog...

2007-03-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

Most of the blogs I've seen are the equivalent of an online journal that discuss the joys and trials of one's daily existence or interests. You should know, this blog isn't organized on that principle. This blog is primarily a means of bringing together specific articles and viewpoints that I've found helpful in understanding and moving through my own spiritual emergency. It's been structured to present entries in chronological order (as opposed to typical blog layout wherein the most recent entry is on "the top") and is currently complete. I won't be adding any more entries to the blog aside from changing out the featured quote from time to time. Depending on why you're here, it might be helpful for you -- the reader -- to follow some brief guidelines to increase your reading satisfaction.

You're aimlessly surfing for some good reading material...

Just go ahead and read the blog in typical blog fashion wherein you start at the top and work your way through to the bottom or disinterest, whichever comes first. I've looked for well-written articles and personal accounts and I've even added some pretty pictures to help hold your attention. Note that most of the articles are mere excerpts, clicking the link below the article will lead to the complete online original. I hope you'll enjoy my efforts and perhaps learn something new while you're here. Either way, thanks for stopping in.

You're looking for some specific information...

Most likely, according to one of the following topics: Spiritual Emergency; Shamanism; Mysticism; Gnosticism; Alchemy; Transformational or Personal Crisis; Schizophrenia; Psychosis; Trauma; PTSD; The Hero's Journey; Spiritual Awakening; Ego Death; The Dark Night of the Soul; Kundalini; Carl Jung; John Weir Perry; Stanislav Grof; Christina Grof; R.D. Laing; Loren Mosher; Maureen Roberts; David Lukoff; The Black Madonna; Kali; Sophia.

Below my profile on the right is a table of contents that includes all entries. Scroll through it, find the entry that interests you, and click on the link. Alternatively, use the "Search this Blog" feature at the top of the page. Happy reading, I hope you find what you were looking for, and thanks for stopping by.

You've gone through or are currently undergoing a transformative psychospiritual crisis that includes extreme states of consciousness. Alternatively, you may know someone who has been through or is going through the same and you want to better understand the process so you're more capable of providing support...

You're the individual this blog was specifically created for.

I recognize that those going through a spiritual emergency are often isolated and misunderstood. Frequently, they can't afford to enter into a therapeutic relationship or may find the one they're in is not that helpful to them. In addition, their health insurance may limit the type or quantity of care they'll be permitted to seek. They also may be incapable of working during or for many months after their spiritual emergency. As a result, they may not have any medical coverage whatsoever.

For that reason I've sought out free articles on the internet and organized them here, in one central location. Occasionally, I quote directly from a book I own if I've found it to be exceptionally insightful. In particular, I highly recommend The Stormy Search for the Self and Spiritual Emergency, both written/edited by Stanislav and Christina Grof, as well as Trials of the Visionary Mind by John Weir Perry.

Although you are welcome to read in usual blog fashion or to pick and choose your reading entries selectively, I recommend you begin with the very first entry and work your way through to the end; concepts that are presented in one entry are often fleshed-out in later entries and this method can probably best present you with the "big picture".

Bear in mind, this blog is only a starting point and is undeniably flavored by my own experience. Nonetheless, it's my hope that you'll find something here that is helpful to you -- feel free to follow up on that which you find helpful and discard that which you don't. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to come back as many times as you feel is necessary.

Please note: I am not a therapist, guru, shaman, or personal coach. I can't give you advice on medication, channel departed loved ones, predict your future, or help you write a paper for your class. I'm not here to gain your sympathy or your admiration, nor am I seeking a significant other, new friend, or book deal. I am simply an ordinary human being who is sharing a slice of a powerful personal experience and what I have found most insightful or helpful for interpreting, integrating, and moving beyond that experience.

Special thanks to Clancy Cavnar who has graciously allowed me the use of a number of her images to illustrate this blog. Please check out the full range of her stunning artwork at clancycavnar.com

Spiritual Emergency, Shamanism, Mysticism, Gnosticism, Alchemy, Crisis, Schizophrenia, Psychosis, PTSD, The Hero's Journey, Spiritual Awakening, Ego Death, The Dark Night of the Soul, Kundalini, Carl Jung, John Weir Perry, Stanislav Grof, Christina Grof, R.D. Laing, Loren Mosher, Maureen Roberts, David Lukoff, The Black Madonna, Kali, Sophia

See also, my companion blog: Spiritual Recovery

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

2006-11-12T22:17:00.000-08:00

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is pragmatically and existentially directed toward the "dead" who are still living, and not especially toward those who are clinically dead. To reveal this less obvious meaning, we need to examine more closely some of the key features of the manifest meaning, for these indicate that both the existence of gods and the existence of an after-death bardo realm are questionable. With respect to the reality of the gods and demons that are experienced in the after-death state, we have noted that the text informs the disembodied consciousness that these deities have no substantial reality of their own. Indeed, this is the central illuminating principle of the text. Two memorable excerpts are as follows:

Through the instruction of his guru he will recognize them [the visionary deities] as his own projections, the play of the mind, and he will be liberated. It is just like seeing a stuffed lion, for instance: he feels very frightened if he does not know that it is really only a stuffed lion, but if someone shows him what it is he is astonished and no longer afraid. So here too he feels terrified and bewildered when the blood-drinking deities appear with their huge bodies and thick limbs, filling the whole of space, but as soon as he is shown he recognises them as his own projections or as yidams; the luminosity that arises later, mother and son, merge together, and, like meeting a man he used to know very well, the self-liberating luminosity of his own mind spontaneously arises before him.

[W]hatever you see, however terrifying it is, recognise it as your own projection; recognise it as the luminosity, the natural radiance of your own mind.

These excerpts confirm that the gods and demons experienced in the after-death state, although they appear with a reality equal to the material objects in the world of the living, are indeed believed to be nothing more than manifestations of the dead person's own psychological states.(6) They are merely symbolic forms that express conditions of either psychological liberation or psychological bondage and suffering. This suggests that the path to enlightenment in no way depends upon favors or obstructions issued from the realm of the gods and demons that populate the after-death state; the path depends upon initially recognizing the images of the gods as manifestations of oneself in various possible and actual forms. Self-recognition alone initiates the path to more satisfactory levels of consciousness.

Source: The therapeutic psychology of 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead'

See also:
Alternative Cosmologies and Altered States

The Varieties of Primal Experience

Spiritual Emergency, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bardo States, Crisis, Schizophrenia, Psychosis, PTSD, The Hero's Journey, Spiritual Awakening, Ego Death, Kundalini, Carl Jung

Ego Death

2006-09-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

Death, ego death

Beyond this experience, all light disappears, all awareness ceases. There is no perception of anything; there is simply no experience. When the soul is completely concentrated on the absolute there is nothing to perceive, for to perceive total darkness is not to perceive. Light is the awareness that arises out of this total darkness, revealing that the absolute is prior to light, awareness, and consciousness. This experience of cessation is the experience of complete ego death, for it is going beyond the world of manifestation, beyond even awareness of the world of manifestation. There is no awareness of self or soul, for there is no awareness at all, without this being unconsciousness or sleep. When awareness looks out again, which we experience as the return of awareness, the manifest universe reappears. With the return of awareness the logos appears as the displaying of time and space, and all the phenomena of the universe. We are here the absolute, the luminous night, witnessing appearance arising within it, out of it, but we still experience ourselves as the immense stillness and stupendous silence underlying all existence and all appearance. We feel fresh and clear, as if our consciousness has dipped into the cleansing energies of the source, and returned renewed and rejuvenated. This is similar to the rejuvenation we experience after deep sleep, except we are here clear and awake, bright and lucid. (The Inner Journey Home, p 382)

~*~

These issues tend to arise naturally in life, especially during transitions and intense events, but they also are brought forth intensely due to the inner work. They arise especially as the soul learns to penetrate and transcend her ego structure. To follow our example, when the soul begins to see the limitation of structure and experiences herself as presence, the structure begins to reveal its nature as a mental construct characterized by past conditioning, ideas, memories, etc. The soul begins to experience an inner emptiness, a meaninglessness, a dread of falling apart, and terror of death and annihilation. These experiences of falling apart or being annihilated actually come to pass as the structures dissolve. The soul experiences disintegration and dissolution, disorientation, and a loss of identity; she feels lost and despondent. These existential crises are actually elements of some stages of working through ego structures that then lead to deeper realizations of true nature, moving to timelessness and formlessness. (The Inner Journey Home, p 231)

Source: Ego Death

See Also:
Forms of Spiritual Emergency
Psychosis & Ego Collapse

How To Produce An Acute Schizophrenic Break

The Process of Individuation - The Shadow

2006-07-09T00:08:00.000-07:00

Image Source

Within Jungian psychology there is a concept known as The Shadow. Most of us encounter our own shadows in the form of projection. That is to say, we disown the characteristics and behaviors we cannot stand about ourselves and project them onto others. We then insist that they carry our shadow for us and may even punish them for the things we hate about ourselves. One example of this might be a minister who openly despises gays while privately engaging in closeted homosexual activity.

Those who cannot accept their shadow will reject it in favor of embracing their Persona. The persona is the idealized image we present of who we really are. And still ... The Shadow Knows when we are lying to ourselves and those around us. The shadow contains our every fear, our every terror, it knows our every truth -- especially the ones we can't stand to face about ourselves.

Kali was in my shadow. When it became too painful to see the things I did not want to see, she gave me her eyes so I could bear to look. I like to think she still sneaks them into me when I'm not looking.

... The Black Goddess Kali, the terrible one of many names, "difficult of approach," whose stomach is a void and so can never be filled, and whose womb is giving birth forever to all things ...

-- Joseph Campbell

See also:
Kali - The Divine Mother
Shadow Projection
Jung On The Shadow
The Individuation Process: The Shadow
Encountering Darkness
Jungian Motifs in the Lord of the Rings: The Shadow
May It Be

Dancing in the Flames

August, and Everything After

2006-07-09T00:07:00.000-07:00

This was one of those songs that got stuck in my head long before August, and Everything After ever arrived...

The Rain King

When I think of heaven
Deliver me in a black-winged bird
I think of flying ...
Down in your sea of pins and feathers
And all other instruments of
Faith and Sex and God
In the Belly of a Black-Winged Bird.

Don't try to feed me
'Cause I've been here before
And I deserve a little more

I belong, in the service of the Queen
I belong, anywhere but in between
She's been crying, I've been thinking
And I am, the Rain King

And I said mama, mama, mama,
Why am I so alone?
I can't go outside, I'm scared
I might not make it home
But I'm alive, I'm alive
But I'm sinking in
If there's anyone at home at your place, darlin'
Why don't you invite me in?

Don't try to plead me
'Cause I've been there before
And I deserve a little more

I belong, in the service of the Queen
I belong, anywhere but in between
She's been lying, I've been sinking
And I am the Rain King

Hey, I only want the same as anyone
Tender sonnets waiting for the Sun
Oh, it seems Night endlessly
begins and ends
After all the Dreaming
I come
~ Home Again ~

When I think of heaven
Deliver me in a black-winged bird
I think of dying ...
Lay me down in a field of
Flame and Heather
Render up my Body, Into
~ The Burning Heart of God ~
In the Belly of a Black-Winged Bird

Don't try to bleed me
'Cause I've been here before
And I deserve a little more

I belong, in the service of the Queen
I belong, anywhere but in between
She's been dying and I've been drinking
And I Am
The Rain King

The Counting Crows

[* A rain king is a shaman.]

See also:
The Shaman Sickness
Case Example: Traditional Shamanic Initiation

Shamanism & Schizophrenia

The Wasteland

2006-07-09T00:06:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from a poem which got stuck early in this process...

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?

'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.

The Wasteland

T.S. Eliot

See also: The Gravity of Love

The Shadow Knows...

2006-07-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Image Source

Within Jungian psychology there is a concept known as The Shadow. Most of us encounter our own shadows in the form of projection. That is to say, we disown the characteristics and behaviors we cannot stand about ourselves and project them onto others. We then insist that they carry our shadow for us and may even punish them for the things we hate about ourselves. One example of this might be a minister who openly despises gays while privately engaging in closeted homosexual activity.

Those who cannot accept their shadow will reject it in favor of embracing their Persona. The persona is the idealized image we present of who we really are. And still ... The Shadow Knows when we are lying to ourselves and those around us. The shadow contains our every fear, our every terror, it knows our every truth -- especially the ones we can't stand to face about ourselves.

Kali was in my shadow. When it became too painful to see the things I did not want to see, she gave me her eyes so I could bear to look. I like to think she still sneaks them into me when I'm not looking.

... The Black Goddess Kali, the terrible one of many names, "difficult of approach," whose stomach is a void and so can never be filled, and whose womb is giving birth forever to all things ...

-- Joseph Campbell

See also:
Shadow Projection
Jung On The Shadow
The Individuation Process: The Shadow
Jungian Motifs in the Lord of the Rings: The Shadow

Dancing in the Flames

I am saddened to note that a blog I have followed closely over the past few years is closing its doors. Its founder, Eric Blumrich, saw and understood the shadow of our collective psychosis so very well and packaged that insight into a collection of flash videos with a very powerful message I have enjoyed and shared many times over in these past few years. I will miss him.

I've linked a few of my personal favorites from the bushflash.com video archives below. Please note that every single one of them is graphic and disturbing in nature. If you can't bear to look, don't ...

Grand Theft America

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Liberation

Victory

Anniversary 1

Anniversary 2

Prevailing

Let America Be...

See also: “The Jungian analysis by Paul Levy, of Bush and the culture which maintains him, reaches deep into the American psyche. It should be studied and digested by everyone. If the citizenry would recognize that Bush's egomania is acting out a national illness, we would all be saner. If the US could integrate the "shadow" which Bush projects upon "the axis of evil," perhaps we could achieve world peace and start to solve global problem. A MUST READ.”

The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis - Paul Levy

See also: Tonglen

Featured Excerpts: Kundalini Awakening

2006-05-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Anyone reading this blog will be aware that there are roughly 50 entries and each entry might have a number of links. To help highlight some of those words I'll be posting featured quotes here as the spirit moves me. The following quote comes from a link to the entry: Kundalini and the Black Queen.

Many people, and even published authors on kundalini, associate kundalini awakening with symptoms such as a mild sense of a trickle of energy up the spine. This does indicate some energetic movement, but not, in my opinion, a true kundalini awakening. Nearly ever person I know with what I call a "true awakening" has responded to phrases like "the freight train" inside or "the volcano erupting" inside. More fundamentally, in a mild energetic movement the ego stays intact (in a healthy individual) and enjoys the pleasant sensations much like any other physical sensation.

In a "true awakening" the force of kundalini eclipses the ego altogether and the individual is almost certain to feel disoriented for some time. There will almost certainly be periods of pronounced psychological discomfort and social alienation. Works from the literature of Tibetan Buddhism indicate two distinct periods of spiritual emergency. The first is at the beginning of true kundalini awakening in which one feels an acute anxiety and sense of alienation from the world. The second is after the process has considerably advanced and one feels an acute fear of one's own internal groundlessness. Even in the most difficult periods these challenging experiences are balanced by periods of deep bliss and profound awareness. Moreover, in time any negative experiences give way to deep realization.

Source: Kundalini: FAQ

See also:
How To Produce An Acute Schizophrenic Break
Forms of Spiritual Emergency

Universally Speaking

Featured Excerpts: Core Concepts in Transpersonal Psychology

2006-05-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

I have been reflecting on the concepts which have been most useful to me in understanding, defining, and communicating about transpersonal psychology. Even after a semester of studying this field, many students have difficulty grasping it. One problem is that one generally needs a basis in personal experience to relate directly to these concepts. Without personal experience, these concepts remain empty and abstract. Perhaps the field of transpersonal psychology is still coming to grips with its definition, even thirty years after its beginnings.

Here is my list of the concepts which have most helped me and my students to "get" transpersonal psychology. I hope this list will stimulate discussion. I would appreciate seeing your additions and clarifications.

1. CONTEXT, CONTENT, AND PROCESS (Vaughan, JTP)
2. SELF-TRANSCENDENCE AND DISIDENTIFICATION (Maslow, others)
3. TRANSPERSONAL ECOPSYCHOLOGY
4. VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (James)
5. FIRST-HAND AND SECOND-HAND RELIGION (James); SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION (various writers)
6. COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS AND ARCHETYPES (Jung)
7. PEAK EXPERIENCE (Maslow)
8. PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY(Huxley and others), HIERARCHY OF NEEDS (Maslow), AND DEVELOPMENTAL SPECTRUM (Wilber)
9. PRE-TRANS FALLACY (Wilber), REDUCTIONISM AND ELEVATIONISM (Walsh and Vaughan).
10. EXTRAPERSONAL AND TRANSPERSONAL (Green, JTP).
11. SPIRITUAL CRISES (Roberto Assagioli), SPIRITUAL EMERGENCY (Grof), POSITIVE DISINTEGRATION (Dembrowski), MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH PSYCHOTIC FEATURES (Lukoff et al.), NADIR EXPERIENCE (Maslow)

[...]

6. COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS AND ARCHETYPES (Jung)
It could be argued that this is the main transpersonal concept. Jung extended Freud's topographical model of consciousness (Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious) by distinguishing between a personal and a collective (or transpersonal) unconscious. All of humanity, and perhaps sentient beings beyond the human, share the collective unconscious. One of Jung's original references called it the Überpersonliche (literally, overpersonal or transpersonal) unconscious.

Archetypes are primordial patterns in, and expressions of, the collective (transpersonal) unconscious. They are tendencies to perceive the world in certain ways which are shared by all human consciousness, similar to original patterns, prototypes, or Platonic forms. Examples include the persona (the mask we present to the world), the shadow (repressed elements of the self), anima and animus (feminine and masculine archetypes), the hero, God, the Devil, earth mother, sage, fool, divine child, and many others. Archetypes manifest personally in dreams and culturally in symbols and myths, fairy tales, rites, and art. A central archetype is the self, symbolized by the mandala, which unifies opposites and reaches its full development in what Jung called "individuation." While the archetypes themselves are generally beyond consciousness, Jung also said that mystical experience is the direct experience of archetypes.

[...]

11. SPIRITUAL CRISES (Roberto Assagioli), SPIRITUAL EMERGENCY (Grof), POSITIVE DISINTEGRATION (Dembrowski), MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH PSYCHOTIC FEATURES (Lukoff et al.), NADIR EXPERIENCE (Maslow), a similar concept was introduced by Roberto Assagioli.
I have found the concept of spiritual crisis or spiritual emergency to be one of the most useful examples of a concrete contribution of transpersonal psychology, especially when introducing transpersonal psychology to people who are new to it or skeptical about it.

Sometimes, a spiritual awakening, very strong peak experience, or mystical experience can be so disturbing that one is not able to function for a time. The "spiritual emergence" becomes a "spiritual emergency" or a "positive disintegration." This experience shares many characteristics with brief psychotic reactions and other forms of psychopathology and is easily misinterpreted. Thus, it can also be called a "mystical experience with psychotic features." However, handled well, a spiritual emergency has the potential for an extremely positive resolution.

Maslow referred to a similar idea in a footnote to a discussion about peak experiences. He pointed out that sometimes an extremely negative (or "nadir") experience can have an extremely positive outcome.

Source: Core Concepts in Transpersonal Psychology

Featured Quotes: Soul in Exile...

2006-05-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

The psyche knows better than we do what it is up to in its deep turmoils. - John Weir Perry, PhD

The healing of schizophrenia as 'soul in crisis' cannot be bottled into pills, or bestowed by applying information acquired through a university medical degree. As the great physician of the soul C. G. Jung demonstrated in his own psychiatric practice, it is an art requiring empathy, patience, a shrewd yet sympathetic understanding of human nature and, above all, heart.

Add to such desirable qualities gut intuition, healthy instincts, respect for nature, an intimate, working knowledge of the dynamics, rhythms of the psyche, a sense of humour, plus a humble willingness to renounce rigid theories, preconceived ideas, control and authority and you have what I call 'soul-centred psychiatry,' in many ways the antithesis of what Medicare funds in Australia: the biologic, or drug-based psychiatry which, for most of us, is the only brand of psychiatry we have encountered, or are otherwise aware of.

Eighty-odd years ago, Jung voiced his deep concern that the powerful, often vivid, chaotic and disturbing psychology of schizophrenia, which he had so painstakingly chartered and honoured throughout the many years he treated and healed schizophrenia sufferers, had not been given the respect and serious attention it deserved. He likewise lamented the appalling lack of knowledge of the psychology of schizophrenia among those of his own profession, a situation which has changed precious little today.

Sadly, however, Jung's vast body of invaluable work has fallen for the most on hostile ground and deaf ears, ironically in psychiatric circles, largely because Jung's respect for 'the reality of the psyche' and its religious, mythic and spiritual needs, dimensions and instincts poses a threat to the materialist bias that underscores drug-based, or biologic psychiatry, but also because his personally demanding and soul-centred approach to psychiatry is radically at odds with the detached 'illusion of expertise' on which biologic psychiatry's mask of authority, presumed sanity, and stagnant wasteland of 'brain chemistry' dogma are shakily grounded.

In place of dry textbook knowledge learned by rote, Jung gives precedence to living primary experience, hence his assertion that we understand nothing psychologically unless we've experienced it. In this sense, the people who know most about schizophrenia are the sufferers themselves, followed closely by those who have 'been there' and have pulled themselves out of a psychosis and so 'know the road'. Such folk, as invaluable 'wounded healers', can therefore often guide others groping along similar roads, or pull people out of the quagmires and tricky labyrinths of psychosis.

In place of the practitioner's mask of fatherly authority, Jung puts the mutual vulnerability, openness, imaginal richness, honesty and trust of the therapeutic dialogue, in which patient and therapist confront one another on equal terms and through which both stand to learn and grow. In place of forced treatment, hasty consultations and toxic psychiatric drugs, Jung puts a trust in nature, unconscious wisdom and the healing which, residing in the 'patient patient', is catalysed and midwifed by the caring therapist. No wonder he poses a threat to those who esteem power, professional detachment, diplomas, diagnostic manuals and drug company profits over the empowerment, equality, freedom, healing and dignity of the patient.

Needless to say, there are other closely related and equally grave moral issues at stake here. For instance, imagine, if you will, that a reputable medical practitioner had come forward with evidence of a safe, natural cure for cancer, but that the medical establishment had ignored the evidence and, worse still, had kept the findings from cancer sufferers for fear of losing income and power through their monopoly over the provision of existing anti-cancer 'treatments', which do not heal. By the same token, Jung - and others who have followed in his wake - cured his schizophrenic patients with psychotherapy alone. [Read more...]

Source: Soul in Exile - Dr. Maureen Roberts, PhD

See Also:
Carl Jung - Biography
The Far Side of Madness
Mandala
Cultural Factors in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia, Culture & Subjectivity

See also, my companion blog: Spiritual Recovery

Gone Quieting

What's Wrong With You?

2006-01-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

... He leaned forward and took one of her hands in his. "I'm worried about you, madame. Please tell me what's wrong. Should I be the least bit concerned you might be suicidal?"

"Oh no," she protested. "Of course I'm not. Not at all! Why, you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to kill myself."

"Ha! Gun to my head... Get it?"

He sighed deeply. "I got it madame, it's just not really all that funny."

He tugged at her hand. "What should I do? I don't know what to do to help you. Are you depressed?"

"No," she said with a shake of her head. "I'm not. I'm not depressed. That's not it. I am dispirited. That's exactly what I am."

Defining Spiritual Emergency

2006-01-10T18:29:00.000-08:00

"Trust that which gives you meaning and accept it as your guide."

-- Carl Jung

Spiritual emergence has been defined as "the movement of an individual to a more expanded way of being that involves enhanced emotional and psychosomatic health, greater freedom of personal choices, and a sense of deeper connection with other people, nature, and the cosmos. An important part of this development is an increasing awareness of the spiritual dimension in one's life and in the universal scheme of things." When spiritual emergence is very rapid and dramatic this natural process can become a crisis, and spiritual emergence becomes spiritual emergency. This has also been called transpersonal crisis, acute psychosis with a positive outcome, positive disintegration and an extreme state.

There is no sharp division between emergence and emergency. However distinguishing criteria include:

a) an 'emergency' generally has more depth and intensity

b) an 'emergence' is more fluid and less overwhelming and traumatic

c) during an 'emergency' it is very difficult to function in everyday life

A spiritual emergency could also be defined as a critical and experientially difficult stage of a profound psychological transformation that involves one's entire being. This is a crisis point within the transformational process of spiritual emergence. It may take the form of non-ordinary states of consciousness and may involve unusual thoughts, intense emotions, visions and other sensory changes, as well as various physical manifestations. These episodes can often revolve around spiritual themes.

The term spirituality should be reserved for situations that involve personal experiences of certain dimensions of reality that give one's life, and existence in general, a numinous quality. C.G. Jung used the word numinous to describe an experience that feels sacred, holy, or out of the ordinary. The terms spiritual emergence and spiritual emergency were coined by Dr Stanislav Grof (psychiatrist) and his wife Christina Grof who have worked for many years as therapists and researchers in the field of non-ordinary awareness and personal transformation. They have written many books about spiritual emergence containing much more information.

Source: Spiritual Emergence Network

See also:
Interview: Stanislav Grof
Interview: Christina Grof
Spiritual Emergence or Spiritual Emergency?
Spiritual Emergency & The Awakening Process

Core Concepts in Transpersonal Psychology

Spiritual Emergence, Spiritual Emergency, Crisis, Transpersonal Crisis, Positive Disintegration, Schizophrenia, Psychosis, Non-ordinary States of Consciousness, PTSD, Spiritual Awakening, Ego Death, Carl Jung, Stanislav Grof, Christina Grof

Forms of Spiritual Emergency

2006-01-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

A spiritual emergency may include more than one of the following elements. My own contained components of nearly all of the following.

Ego Death / Dark Night of the Soul

Kundalini Awakening

Shamanic Crisis

Episodes of Unitive Consciousness

Crisis of Psychic Opening

Past Life Experiences

Near Death Experiences

Possession States

Psychological Renewal Through the Central Archetype

See also:

What Triggers Spiritual Emergency?

Wikipedia - Schizophrenia

Wikipedia - Psychosis

Schizophrenia - The Soul in Crisis

DSM-IV: Religious & Spiritual Problems

Spiritual Emergency, Shamanism, Crisis, Schizophrenia, Psychosis, Spiritual Awakening, Ego Death, The Dark Night of the Soul, Kundalini, Past Life Experiences, Near Death Experiences, Possession States, DSM-IV, Psychological Renewal, Carl Jung, John Weir Perry, Stanislav Grof, Christina Grof, Maureen Roberts

Spirituality & Trauma

2006-01-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

- Kahlil Gibran

Traumatic experiences force victims to face issues lying outside the boundaries of personal and collective frames of reference. As a result they are forced to confront psychological and spiritual challenges that are unfamiliar to the average person. Therapists need to recognise that organisations of self and God are often thrown into question or destroyed by experiences of trauma. The deconstructive power of trauma exposes the lack of substance and cohesiveness that comprises identity and images of God.

Initially, trauma is grounded in pain, loss, and fear. Often it leads to breakdowns. Ultimately, with proper support and guidance, it has the potential to transform individuals into compassionate and deeply spiritual beings.

Traumatic events expose victims to aspects of life that most would prefer to ignore. Trauma creates confrontations with the lack of security and certitude that underlie all human endeavours. It has the power to throw into question or obliterate any organisation of self, God, and humanity. The implications of traumatic events assault anything considered sacred or foundational. Trauma brutally demonstrates that the ego (the rational aspect of consciousness) cannot contain or make sense of certain aspects of life.

Certain experiences, such as peak, near death, and mystical experiences often project individuals into another realm of consciousness that is often referred to as transpersonal or spiritual. At these times the ego is displaced or cracked open. This enables transpersonal dimensions of consciousness to emerge. Many of these experiences, despite their beauty and sublime character, are unnerving and terrifying.

Trauma, in addition to its ability to deconstruct reality horizontally in terms of belief systems and frames of reference, also initiates a vertical deconstruction. It either displaces or obliterates the ego. Victims are thrust into the realm of the Deeper Self without warning and preparation. This brutal exposure illuminates the fact that the ego is a mosaic held together by personal narration, continual feedback from others, and internalised object relations.

Trauma, in spite of its brutality and destructiveness, has the power to open victims to issues of profound existential and spiritual significance. The displacement of the ego forces confrontations with deeper levels of self and reality. Trauma throws victims onto a path that mystics, shamans, mythic heroes, and spiritual seekers have been walking for thousands of years. The difference is that victims of trauma must work this territory or be overcome by it. Non-traumatised seekers have the luxury of getting off the path at will; for theirs is not a life or death struggle.

In receiving appropriate care, compassion, and direction, victims can overcome the destructive impact of trauma, break through restrictive approaches to life, and become more soulful and compassionate beings in the process. Traumatic injuries, when accompanied by love and understanding, do not become places of deadness, denial, and disease. Rather they become bridges of compassion that connect victims to all sentient beings. Survivors accept that they can be broken, overwhelmed, and rendered powerless. These realisations are not considered shameful (as they were at the beginning of the journey) but are now recognised as the common ground that connects victims to all forms of life. Becoming comfortable with one's inherent capacity to be rendered powerless enables survivors to encounter the brokenness and wounds of others without fear.

Source: Spirituality & Trauma: Robert Grant Ph.D.

See also:
Heeding Pain as a Call to Personal Growth - Michael Nagel
The Places That Scare You - Pema Chödrön
Turning Toward Pain - Pema Chödrön
The Spirit of Tonglen - Pema Chödrön
The Practice of Tonglen - Pema Chödrön
Spirituality & Suicide

Music: Flowers Become Screens

Spiritual Emergency, Shamanism, Mysticism, PTSD, The Hero's Journey, Spiritual Awakening, Ego Death, Ego Collapse, Ego Integrity, Ego Fragmentation, Identity Crisis,The Dark Night of the Soul, Delerium - Semantic Spaces, Tonglen, Robert Grant, Pema Chodron, Michael Nagel

Guidelines for Making it Through a Spiritual Emergency

2006-01-10T18:25:00.000-08:00

Simplify your life: Make arrangements for childcare and time off work if necessary. Stock up on some basic groceries.

Limit your use of all stimulants: caffeine, alcohol, drugs, etc. If you are on any form of prescription drugs continue taking them as prescribed or ask your doctor/caregiver about going off them for a short period of time. This is especially true if you are on any form of psychiatric medications -- severe withdrawal effects are associated with some medications and they should never be stopped cold turkey. If you regularly meditate or do yoga (especially kundalini yoga) stop doing so for at least a few days. Do not resume the practice until you feel comfortable doing so.

Create a sacred space: The idea is to create a safe container to hold the experience. The container can be a room in your home, a journal, even an imaginary place. You will likely spend the majority of your time in this space so it should offer access to basic necessities (i.e., food, a bathroom) in addition to as much privacy as you feel is required.

Find a means of expressing your experience: Talking, journaling, painting, dancing, etc. Feel free to bring other elements into your sacred space that assist in the expression of that content -- photographs, pieces of music, poetry, symbolic items, etc. Be aware, self-identification with specific symbols and archetypes can be a normal part of the process.

Internal Support: Try to find a means of bringing the expressed content into a trusted relationship. The relationship can be with a spouse, a friend, a therapist, even a group. If you have no one in your life that you can share this with, think back to a time that you did have that kind of relationship and imagine yourself sharing the content with that person. If you've never had a relationship like that, imagine yourself sharing your experience with your ideal friend/caregiver. The important thing is that you feel absolutely safe with the other, whomever that other is. This person (whether real or imaginary) can enter your sacred space with you so as to provide support through the process.

External Support: Try to ensure that at least one person in your face-to-face world is aware that you are undergoing a form of transformational process/crisis. It's not necessary that this person goes through the process/crisis with you, but they can provide assistance in the event you require outside help. You may find it helpful to have them read some basic information related to spiritual emergence/emergencies.

Flow with the process: Intense emotion is common -- love, fear, sadness, bliss, despair, etc. Extreme forms of empathy may also come into play. Physical expressions are also common so feel free to move, dance, sing, etc. as required. Anything that does come up is coming up for a reason. It's not necessary to analyze this content too closely at this time, just to allow the expression of the content. Nor is it necessary to understand the process, just to allow it to unfold -- you can analyze the entire experience in depth later. In the midst of it just let it flow. If you need to eat, eat; if you need to sleep, sleep. During the less intense stages you may find that you're quite capable of turning the experience "off", (or at least, "down"), thereby allowing yourself to attend to vital everyday functions such as preparing a meal or driving.

Know your limits: You are not under any obligation to deal with any content you don't want to deal with. If something arises that feels too painful or frightening for you to cope with, feel free to set it aside. Alternatively, work through the content with your trusted internal or external support person. Bear in mind, this is a psychological/spiritual process and the content that arises is often symbolic. The idea is to experience the entire process in your psychological depths.

When to get outside help:
- If you think you need it.
- If suicide has become an attractive option. [Read this first]
- If you want to hurt yourself.
- If you want to hurt someone else.

If you should determine that a formal therapeutic relationship will be to your benefit you may find that therapists who specialize in transpersonal or Jungian therapy can best identify with your personal experience. Ideally, any caregivers will be able to recognize the experience of spiritual emergency as one of transformation, not pathology.

See also:

Crisis and Spiritual Emergency

Tips for "Dark Night" Journeyers

Thoughts on Spiritual Emergency

How to Treat Difficult Psychedelic Experiences

Getting Through Psychosis

Active Imagination

Death & Rebirth in Psychospiritual Transformation

Holotropic States of Consciousness

Spiritual Emergency, Suicide, Altered States of Consciousness, Psychotic Episodes, Psychospiritual Transformation, Crisis, Acute Schizophrenic Break, Holotropic States of Consciousness

Psychosis & Ego Collapse

2006-01-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

Q: Can you tell me what a psychotic break is? I can't seem to find any information about it.

A: There are, at least to my way of thinking, several states of mind... "normal", meaning consistent over time and situations; "disorganized", meaning a little scattered, unfocused, fragmented; "disturbed", meaning a state of mind leading to behavior that is socially unacceptable and potentially harmful to self and others; "disordered", meaning a display of clinically definable and diagnosable symptoms that are clustered under one primary heading (Depression, Borderline, Kleptomania, etc.); and "dissociated", meaning a collapse of the "ego integrity", a state of mind where the person is unsure of who they are, where they are, what they are doing and how they should be behaving - a pervasive and overall loss of "identity" and "sense-of-self".

The last, "dissociation" is generally considered a "psychotic break". In other words, a person is so overwhelmed by either internal or external turmoil that what we generally think of [as] their "ego" just plain collapses.

Source: Ask the Therapist

See also: Forsaken by God: The Collapse of Spiritual Ego

Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Ego Death, Ego Collapse, Ego Integrity, Ego Fragmentation, Identity Crisis, Dissociation

A Spirituality that Transforms

2006-01-10T18:23:00.000-08:00

In a series of books (e.g., A Sociable God, Up from Eden, and The Eye of Spirit), I have tried to show that religion itself has always performed two very important, but very different, functions.

One, it acts as a way of creating meaning for the separate self: it offers myths and stories and tales and narratives and rituals and revivals that, taken together, help the separate self make sense of, and endure, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. This function of religion does not usually or necessarily change the level of consciousness in a person; it does not deliver radical transformation. Nor does it deliver a shattering liberation from the separate self altogether. Rather, it consoles the self, fortifies the self, defends the self, promotes the self.

But two, religion has also served — in a usually very, very small minority — the function of radical transformation and liberation. This function of religion does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it — not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution — in short, not a conventional bolstering of consciousness but a radical transmutation and transformation at the deepest seat of consciousness itself.

There are several different ways that we can state these two important functions of religion. The first function — that of creating meaning for the self — is a type of horizontal movement; the second function — that of transcending the self — is a type of vertical movement (higher or deeper, depending on your metaphor). The first I have named "translation," the second, "transformation."

With translation, the self is simply given a new way to think or feel about reality. The self is given a new belief — perhaps holistic instead of atomistic, perhaps forgiveness instead of blame, perhaps relational instead of analytic. The self then learns to translate its world and its being in the terms of this new belief or new language or new paradigm, and this new and enchanting translation acts, at least temporarily, to alleviate or diminish the terror inherent in the heart of the separate self.

But with transformation, the very process of translation itself is challenged, witnessed, undermined and eventually dismantled. With typical translation, the self (or subject) is given a new way to think about the world (or objects); but with radical transformation, the self itself is inquired into, looked into, grabbed by its throat and literally throttled to death.

... authentic transformation is not a matter of belief but of the death of the believer; not a matter of translating the world but of transforming the world; not a matter of finding solace but of finding infinity on the other side of death. The self is not made content; the self is made toast.

... transformative religion offers authenticity. For those few individuals who are ready — that is, sick with the suffering of the separate self, and no longer able to embrace the legitimate worldview — a transformative opening to true authenticity, true enlightenment, true liberation, calls more and more insistently. And, depending upon your capacity for suffering, you will sooner or later answer the call of authenticity, of transformation, of liberation on the lost horizon of infinity.

Transformative spirituality, authentic spirituality, is therefore revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.

Source: Enlightenment Magazine

See also: Markers on the Path to Personal Authenticity

Spiritual Crisis, Spiritual Awakening, Ego Death, Ego Collapse, Ego Integrity, Ego Fragmentation, Identity Crisis, Personal Authenticity, Personal Transformation, Ken Wilber, Michael Nagel

Treatment or Therapy?

2006-01-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser gauds belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into...

To Juan at the Winter Solstice - Robert Graves

The medical model of handling the acute "psychotic" episode comes under the classification of what is known as "treatment," which implies doing something to the patients to relieve them of their symptoms, even to cure them. The alternative paradigm I am proposing is based on the concept of a "therapy" that gives respectful heed to the psychic process underlying the symptoms.

The original meaning of the Greek word therapeia was a "waiting upon" or a "service done" to the gods, with implications of tending, nurturing, caring and being an attendant; in time the word was applied to medical care. The original connotation is pertinent to the handling of acute "psychotic" episodes, since the persons going through them are in a state of being overwhelmed by images of gods and other mythic elements. Hence a therapist does well to "be an attendant" (therapeutes) upon these mythic images so as to foster their work. "Treatment" strives to stop what is happening, while "therapy" attempts to move with the underlying process and help achieve the creative aim implicit in it.

Visionary experiences of various kinds, including acute episodes, have a tendency to take six weeks to accomplish their inner aims. It is intriguing to reflect on the connotations of this, for this number is recognizable as forty days, with all this time’s connotations. Pacing is an important phenomenon that invites our scrutiny. Our experience indicates that in the acute episode the more floridly disturbed the persons are, the more rapidly they move through it. Intensity seems to correlate directly with favorable outcome. The persons who are frightened, overwhelmed with imagery, and engrossed in their preoccupations are the ones most likely to have a favorable inner experience, from which they emerge with significant change.

When we admit individuals who are at the very onset of their episode and again, at the height of their disordered state, they may be fragmented, often mute, with scattered bits of ideation passing across the mental stage. At this phase of the process the mental content is a hodgepodge and the ego has quit the field, lost in the deep interiors of the psyche. Listening to an individual at this time gives kaleidoscopic glimpses of mythic themes that often leave the listener bewildered. Yet if we sit quietly and attentively with a person in this state for only two or three times, we may find the fragments coalescing into a story that gradually begins to move forward...

Source: Trials of the Visionary Mind - John Weir Perry

See also:
The Far Side of Madness

Mental Breakdown as Healing

Psychosis, Psychotic Episodes, Madness, Ego Death, Ego Fragmentation, Visionary Experience, Breakdown as Healing, Breakdown as Breakthrough, Mythology, John Weir Perry

Personal Account: Spiritual Emergency

2006-01-10T18:21:00.000-08:00

Contrary to popular misunderstanding the term "schizophrenia" does not refer to multiple personality syndrome. The Greek etymology of the word actually means "broken soul" or "broken heart".

-- Michael O'Callaghan

Psychosis, PTSD and Story as a Vehicle of Healing

My descent into "madness" began when my mother died. Within days of her death I would experience the first eruption of what I now call unconscious content, manifest as intense, unexplainable fear. I didn’t know what to do with that kind of fear. It felt foreign and overwhelming to me so I pushed it away and pretended it wasn’t there.

Over the course of the next several months I would go on to lose my two closest and dearest friends, my community, my sense of purpose, and my most persistent form of self-identity. I would give myself to a cause that couldn’t be won and bear witness to a catastrophic tragedy that involved the deaths of others – people I felt a distorted sense of responsibility for, along with an accompanying sense of distorted guilt for the circumstances of their tragic and premature deaths.

I would become estranged from my husband, children, friends and extended family. I would be unable to follow-up on the career path I had confidently charted for myself only a few months previously. I would rarely sleep through the night. I would be plagued by nightmares and visions of destruction. My sense of trust would be utterly destroyed. I would lose all faith in the goodness of people, the balance of justice, or the possibility of divine order. Expectations that were too high, too many losses, too much fear, too fast, with no time between to assimilate each. I became stuck – frozen in a state of grief, fear, loss and failure - unable even to cry over those events. In the shadowed recesses of my mind I secretly believed that I too was dead, just like those others.

What makes the story of my psychotic experience unique from many others (although probably not unusual in the larger scheme) is that I underwent that experience outside of the psychiatric community. I was not hospitalized. I did not seek treatment, therapy, or medication – during or since. I live in an isolated area of the world; psychiatrists and their ilk are a rarity. Our small hospital does have a psychiatrist on staff, accessible through the emergency room that’s also used as a walk-in clinic for all manner of injuries and illness. A wait of several hours before a doctor is seen is not unusual and locals know they’re usually better off to stay home and wait for symptoms to abate on their own, unless they’re bleeding profusely.

I wasn’t bleeding.

I wasn’t, in fact, doing much of anything. My days and nights were spent relentlessly smoking as I surfed the net, looking for answers I couldn’t find, frequently with a drink nearby to apply liberally to the wound I could not voice. I withdrew more and more from the world around me. Lurking beneath my disheveled and shabby pajama’d exterior was an unspeakable sense of dread and terror.

At some point, during my aimless hours on the computer I began to write. Initially, I thought I was just writing a collection of anecdotes related to my childhood, but very quickly an assertive new voice emerged. Because my only purpose seemed to be self-amusement and distraction, I let that voice have its say. That was exactly what I needed to do, for that was the voice that had been silenced.

Two streams of thought had emerged: one lead to my past, the other was creating an entire imaginary setting upon the page – an altered state of consciousness. Without being aware that I was doing so I was creating a place of psychological safety for myself. Within that altered space, characters came into play: gods, devils, a kindly and compassionate mentor, a fierce warrior goddess – the real life people I had lost, been with, or been up against, transformed into larger-than-life characters by Story.

Frequently, a third thread would erupt to dangle a clue and beckon me to follow. More often than not that clue came in the form of music, poetry, or a written passage of work that had resonated within me for months without my knowing why. Soon, I wasn’t writing The Story at all. The Story was writing me...

Source: Psychosis, PTSD and Story as a Vehicle of Healing

See also:
Broken Heart & Transcendence

Music: Awakening by the Gate of Sorrow

Broken Heart, Broken Soul, Psychosis, Acute Schizophrenic Break, Psychotic Episode, PTSD, Visionary Experience, Breakdown as Healing, Breakdown as Breakthrough, Transcendence,John Weir Perry, The Gate of Sorrow, Creed - Human Clay

Visionary Experience in Myth & Ritual

2006-01-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

... we are beginning to realize that we cannot fix on the outside what is broken deep within the human heart and psyche.

- John O'Dea

John Weir Perry
The initial disordered state that I am describing contains two distinct elements. The first is an experience of dying or of having already died, which symbolizes a dissolution of the accustomed self. The second element, closely related to the first, is a vision of the death of the world. In an acute psychosis individuals undergo a profound reorganization of the self, effected by a thoroughgoing reintegration through utter disintegration. Life cannot be repaired, it can only be re-created by returning to the sources. And the 'source of sources' is the prodigious outpouring of energy, life and the fecundity that occured at the Creation of the World.

Since the acute episode of visionary turmoil can have, along with its tormenting aspect, some ecstatic features, I will enlarge on the basic Dionysian principle that the exuberance of vital aliveness is born out of the realm of death. This is the miraculous revelation at the heart of the famous Dionysian rites, the Eleusinian mysteries.

Now this disturbing information is, in our culture, very unwelcome news. Here ecstasy is desirable as long as it is easy to attain. Yet, in truth, to have access to this state the price of admission is to take full account of the role of death. This is a difficult point, for we seem to find ourselves firmly biased against suffering and death as the ultimate enemy, dark and sinister, to whom we give no quarter and show no tolerance. You might say suffering and death are on an equal footing with madness in this respect.

We have seen that the growth process of the psyche, on the other hand, sees all this quite differently. According to the psyche's purposes, in order to break out of the security of solid consensus and convention, one must encounter the experience of the death process in psychic depth, and also at the same time the dissolution of the familiar, accustomed worldview. Though all this demand might seem at first glance overly drastic, it consists actually of the death of the familiar self-image and the destruction of the world image to make room for the self regeneration of each. These two images move together in the process, each an aspect of the other, and both assume the form of the mandala images.

Source: Trials of the Visionary Mind - John Weir Perry

See also:
The Relevance of Visionary Experience to Culture
Strange Days ~ Beautiful Midnight
The Dark Night and Consciousness

The Gift of the Fellow Traveler

Psychosis, Psychotic Episode, Madness, Ego Death, Visionary Experience, Culture, Breakdown as Healing, Breakdown as Breakthrough, Mandala, John Weir Perry

Skeleton Woman [The Life/Death/Life Nature]

2006-01-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

clancycavnar.com

- A Tale of the Inuit -

She had done something of which her father disapproved, although no one any longer remembered what it was. But her father had dragged her to the cliffs and thrown her over and into the sea. There, the fish ate her flesh away and plucked out her eyes. As she lay under the sea, her skeleton turned over and over in the currents.

One day a fisherman came fishing, well, in truth many came to this bay once. But this fisherman had drifted far from his home place and did not know that the local fisherman stayed away, saying this inlet was haunted.

The fisherman's hook drifted down through the water, and caught of all places, in the bones of Skeleton Woman's rib cage. The fisherman thought, "Oh, now I've really got a big one! Now I really have one!" In his mind he was thinking of how many people this great fish would feed, how long it would last, how long he might be free from the chore of hunting. And as he struggled with this great weight on the end of the hook, the sea was stirred to a thrashing froth, and his kayak bucked and shook, for she who was beneath struggled to disentangle herself. And the more she struggled, the more she tangled in the line. No matter what she did, she was inexorably dragged upward, tugged up by the bones of her own ribs.

The hunter had turned to scoop up his net, so he did not see her bald head rise above the waves, he did not see the little coral creatures glinting in the orbs of her skull, he did not see the crustaceans on her old ivory teeth. When he turned back with his net, her entire body, such as it was, had come to the surface and was hanging from the tip of his kayak by her long front teeth.

"Agh!" cried the man, and his heart fell into his knees, his eyes hid in terror on the back of his head, and his ears blazed bright red. "Agh!" he screamed, and knocked her off the prow with his oar and began paddling like a demon toward shoreline. And not realizing she was tangled in his line, he was frightened all the more for she appeared to stand upon her toes while chasing him all the way to shore. No matter which way he zigged his kayak, she stayed right behind, and her breath rolled over the water in clouds of steam, and her arms flailed out as though to snatch him down into the depths.

"Agh!" he wailed as he ran aground. In one leap he was out of his kayak, clutching his fishing stick and running, and the coral white corpse of skeleton woman, still snagged in the fishing line, bumpety-bumped behind right after him. Over the rocks he ran, and she followed. Over the frozen tundra he ran, and she kept right up. Over the meat laid out to dry he ran, cracking it to pieces as his mukluks bore down.

Throughout it all she kept right up, in fact, she grabbed some of the frozen fish as she was dragged behind. This she began to eat, for she had not gorged in a long, long time. Finally, the man reached his snowhouse and dove right into the tunnel and on hands and knees scrabbled his way into the interior. Panting and sobbing he lay there in the dark, his heart a drum, a mighty drum. Safe at last, oh so safe, yes, safe thank the Gods, Raven, yes, thank Raven, yes, and all bountiful Sedna, safe... at...last.

Imagine when he lit his whale oil lamp, there she - it - lay in a tumble upon his snow floor, one heel over her shoulder, one knee inside her rib cage, one foot over her elbow. He could not say later what it was, perhaps the firelight softened her features, or the fact that he was a lonely man... but a feeling of some kindness came into his breathing, and slowly he reached out his grimy hands and using words softly like a mother to child, began to untangle her from the fishing line.

"Oh, na, na, na." First he untangled the toes, then the ankles. "Oh, na, na, na." On and on he worked into the night, until dressing her in furs to keep her warm, Skeleton Woman's bones were all in the order a human's should be.

He felt into his leather cuffs for his flint and used some of his hair to light a little more fire. He gazed at her from time to time as he oiled the precious wood of his fishing stick and rewound the gut line. And she in the furs uttered not a word - she did not dare - lest this hunter take her out and throw her down to the rocks and break her bones to pieces utterly.

The man became drowsy, slid under his sleeping skins, and soon was dreaming. And sometimes as humans sleep, you know, a tear escapes from the dreamer's eye; we never know what sort of dream causes this, but we know it is either a dream of sadness or longing. And this is what happened to the man.

Skeleton Woman saw the tear glisten in the firelight and she became suddenly soooo thirsty. She tinkled and clanked and crawled over to the sleeping man and put her mouth to his tear. The single tear was like a river and she drank and drank and drank until her many-years-long thirst was slaked.

While lying beside him, she reached inside the sleeping man and took out his heart, the mighty drum. She sat up and banged on both sides of it: Bom Bomm!.....Bom Bomm!

As she drummed, she began to sing out "Flesh, flesh, flesh! Flesh, Flesh, Flesh!" And the more she sang, the more her body filled out with flesh. She sang for hair and good eyes and nice fat hands. She sang the divide between her legs, and breasts long enough to wrap for warmth, and all the things a woman needs.

And when she was all done, she also sang the sleeping man's clothes off and crept into his bed with him, skin against skin. She returned the great drum, his heart, to his body, and that is how they awakened, wrapped one around the other, tangled from their night, in another way now, a good and lasting way.

The people who cannot remember how she came to her first ill fortune say she and the fisherman went away and were consistently well fed by the creatures she had known in her life under water. The people say that it is true and that is all they know.

In reading through the following excerpt from the chapter on Skeleton Woman and the Life/Death/Life cycle, it's important to not romanticize the relationship between Skeleton Woman and the fisherman. We each have a masculine and a feminine nature; the man in this story could just as easily be a woman. It is the task of Skeleton Woman to initiate each of us into the deeper mysteries of relationship with the largesse of life but she can only come into the temple of spirit by our explicit invitation...

Giving the Tear

As the fisherman sleeps, a tear is released from the corner of his eye. Skeleton Woman spies it, is filled with thirst, and awkwardly crawls to him to drink from the cup of his eye. What, we ask, could he be dreaming that would cause such a tear to come forth?

When one has ventured this far into relationship with the Life/Death/Life nature, the tear that is cried is the tear of passion and compassion mixed together, for oneself, and for the other. It is the hardest tear to cry and especially for men and certain kinds of "street-tough" women.

This tear of passion and compassion is most often wept after the accidental finding of treasure, after the fearful chase, after the untangling - for it is the combination of these that causes the exhaustion, the disassembling of defenses, the facing of oneself, the stripping down to the bones, the desire for both knowledge and relief. These cause a soul to peer into what the soul truly wants and to weep for loss and love of both.

As surely as Skeleton Woman was brought to the surface, now this tear, this feeling in the man, is also brought to the surface. It is an instruction in loving both self and another. Stripped now of all the bristles and hooks and shivs of the daytime world, the man draws Skeleton Woman to lie beside him, to drink and be nourished by his deepest feeling. In his new form he is able to feed the thirsty other.

This is the man healing, the man growing in understanding. He takes on his own medicine-making, he takes on the task of feeding the "deleted other." Through his tears, he begins to create.

To love another is not enough, to be "not an impediment" in the life of the other is not enough. It is not enough to be "supportive" and "there for them" and all the rest. The goal is to be knowledgeable about the ways of life and death, in one's own life and in panorama. And the only way to be a knowing man is to go to school in the bones of Skeleton Woman. She is waiting for the signal of deep feeling, the one tear that says, "I admit the wound."

Source: Women Who Run With The Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

See also:
Music: Lay Me Down

Shadow Work

Shamanism, The Unconscious, The Shadow, Skeleton Woman, The Dark Night of the Soul, Kundalini, Carl Jung, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Inuit Myths, The Frames - For the Birds

In the Beginning...

2006-01-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

"In the beginning all was the void and all was black. God saw this and said 'Let there be Light'. And there was."

— The Book of Genesis

clancycavnar.com

Metaphor

In order to understand the Black Madonna it is necessary to think in metaphor. The people of the past thought this way. Long before 'materialist science' arrived on the scene people did not dissect everything, they did not try to break everything up into tiny fragments. When they examined something, when they attempted to understand the world around them they did so through the act of metaphorical thinking. They would approach a subject by finding its simile or attempt to understand it through the act of understanding things that were similar to it. This way of thinking runs contrary to the way that we think today. It also reveals a past that we may not be able to comprehend in a fashion that makes sense to us. When one realizes the power of this way of thinking it sheds an entirely new light on the people of old times. It makes one realize that their legends, stories and myths may be something much different than we have been led to believe. Maybe western mythologists have not been completely correct in their perceptions of what these ancient people were telling us. Maybe they think they understand what the myths and stories were saying but possibly they are wrong. Maybe something else is being said. Maybe something we can't yet understand is being conveyed to us. It is only through this re-understanding that we can begin to comprehend what it is that we are being told.

II. Black

With this new understanding of metaphor let us begin to recomprehend new concepts in light of this awareness.

We will begin with the color black. Black is the color that contains all colors. If you took all of the colors of the rainbow and combined them your resulting mix would be black in color. Metaphorically speaking then - it is possible for black to represent all things in their beginning stage. Black is the color, or the substance, from which all things manifest. Out of the black depths of space - stars, suns and planets form. The universe was once, according to scientists, a place that was dark and void of light. There was a black dust that hung like a mist throughout the universe. Slowly this dust coagulated into larger pieces. Soon the pieces begin to collect and grow, compression and gravity were the result. Over time enough of this material eventually formed into a dense sphere. This sphere began to compress and pressure within its core beginning to manifest. Soon the core began to collapse in on itself. Eventually this collapsing state began a nuclear reaction. This nuclear reaction spread throughout the mass of this compressed sphere and ignited it, turning it into the first star, the first sun. Out of this dark, dense and black material - light was formed.

In alchemy the matter that was there before all other matter is called the 'prima materia'. This was the original substance from which all alchemical transmutation manifested. The prima materia is the cause of all effects that occur after it is formed. It is the base matter. From the prima materia comes the first substances and from these substances comes the first minerals. The alchemist's task is to somehow separate the different aspects of the prima materia into its own material spectrum of substance.

This process is similar to the creation of diamonds. Black coal is the prima materia for the construction of diamonds. Over thousands of years through the alchemy of time, pressure and gravity; the black coal, the prima materia becomes the diamond. Through the prism of this construct the white light of the sun shines through. This light is broken up into the spectrum of colors that make up our world. So, through the process of the alchemy of our planet, the black coal is compressed into the multifaceted crystal that shines the colors of black through its prism. But now these colors are not coagulated and mixed into the color black - they have been separated now and shine with their own radiance. This is a great example of metaphor and how it relates separate items within the same universality.

It can be said that the process of time and compression brought forth the diamond. The alchemical earth created this substance from the basest of matter. Within the confines of this matter was the diamond. It was always there - it just needed time and gravity to transmute.

Another metaphor to be understood is that of the lotus. In order for the lotus to grow strong and to produce a beautiful flower it is necessary that its roots ground themselves in manure. The darker the excrement - the better the lotus will grow, the more astonishing will be its flower. This is why the lotus is considered the most sacred of plants in the east. It is only through the action of the emergence of the flower from the black shit can the importance of this metaphor be understood.

The New Age seeks to denigrate the dark. They speak of only the light. But they misunderstand the true significance of the dark and of the black. They fail to realize that there can be no light without dark. They fail to see that the light can only be perceived through the background of darkness.

Within black is all things. All things manifest from the black.

Source: The Black Madonna

See also:
Islam & The Divine Feminine
Binah & The Shekinah
The Tao

Metaphors of Transformation

The Inner Apocalypse

2006-01-10T18:16:00.000-08:00

The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893 © 1999 The Munch Museum

When the Dream Becomes Real...

One morning as you look out the window, the city seems more ragged than usual. A nearby building appears to be on fire. There's a sulphurous stench in the air. Broken glass and rubble litter the streets. People lie on the pavement and in doorways, seemingly dead. Your terror turns to panic when you notice a rat gnawing on a corpse. Screaming, you rush to the bathroom to throw up. From your skeletal reflection in the mirror, you realise you too have died: empty eye sockets stare back at you from a hollow skull.

The end of the world? Not exactly. Hallucination? Yes. The vision of death described above is typical of the onset of the psychological condition known as the Acute Schizophrenic Break Syndrome.

According to official statistics of the World Health Organisation, between one and two percent of the population is thus affected (i.e. 66 to 130 million people in 1994), depending on the method of clinical definition. Broadly speaking, this represents from one to two percent of the general population – one in five hospital beds – who have been brought to a mental hospital, diagnosed, and chronically medicated. Most will forfeit their job, their friends and their family. Many lose their home. They constitute thirty-three percent of the homeless in America today.

Whether in the hospital, at home, or discharged onto the street, these are ordinary people whose normal lives were suddenly interrupted by the unexpected, spontaneous, and powerful onset of a dramatic non-ordinary state of consciousness.

The vision typically begins with Apocalyptic scenes of death and world destruction.

Let's go back to that scene for a moment. As you are hysterically rushed through the traffic, away from family and friends in a screaming ambulance, how could you possibly know that it is not yourself who has come to an end, only your precious personality that has died? When you arrive at the hospital, the admitting psychiatrist informs you that you've had a Nervous Breakdown, and that you are in urgent need of immediate medication. From the dead look in his eyes, you get the feeling you may be here forever. While you gulp the goblet of Lethe he proffers, you wonder whether you will ever return to the land of the living. Soon, the Lithium or Thorazine takes over like a dose of deadly nightshade. Then you collapse into a dreamless sleep. When you wake up much later on, the vision is gone. But there is a great emptiness, a hollow feeling, as if the lights went out. For years afterwards, perhaps till the end of your days, your life is reduced to a kind of limbo in which you eke out a meaningless existence, popping pills to keep the vision from coming back to haunt you, a pathetic shadow of your former self.

There is, however, more to this than meets the outer eye. Over half a century ago in Küsnacht, Switzerland, the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung came to feel that psychological health is a dynamic, on-going process of personal development into greater maturity and spiritual awareness. This process – which he called individuation – is, he said, nourished by a continuous flow of symbolic insights transmitted from the unconscious Self to the conscious Ego, in a variety of ways including dreams, insight, and flashes of intuition. Should this inner communication flow get blocked for any reason, one may find oneself increasingly frustrated, for the simple reason that one has lost touch with the built-in guiding system of one's deeper Self.

In Jung's view, if such a blockage persists in time, one becomes alienated – in the sense that one may no longer be able to use the considerable resources of one's innate common sense to adapt effectively to one's social environment. Alienation, of course, also happens on a collective level within the family, society, and civilisation, in which case the context one may have trouble adapting to includes not only the social, but the ecological environment as well. Whether individual or collective, a chronic blockage of the psyche's inner communications process may lead beyond a mere sense of ennui, and eventually jeopardise the ability to be responsible for one's health and survival.

What really took Jung's colleagues by surprise, however, was his declaration that the so-called acute schizophrenic break phenomenon is actually no disease, but rather a natural (and temporary!) healing process – which automatically activates itself in response to the underlying blockage which I have just described. Jung maintained that the spontaneous onset of the visionary state of consciousness is nature's self-organising way for the alienated psyche to become whole again. In his view, when the Ego has become cut off from the rest of the psyche to a point of real distress, the Self "comes to the rescue" through a temporary, but complete overpowering of the conscious personality by means of a vivid upwelling of hallucinatory voices and visions from the deeper levels of the unconscious. The conscious Ego, that is, falls apart and comes back together again, renewed. If one understands the essentially life-affirming nature of the visions which occurs during this metamorphosis, appreciates their symbolic relevance to the problems at hand, and integrates their deeper meaning, the result is a healing of the alienated condition which prevailed before the onset of the so-called illness itself – and a rebirth of the personality as a more integrated, invigorated whole...

Source: When the Dream Becomes Real

See also:
Mental Breakdown as Healing
The Relevance of Visionary Experience to Culture

Transcendental Experience in Religion & Madness

Mental Breakdown as Healing

2006-01-10T18:15:00.000-08:00

"...85% of our clients (all diagnosed as severely schizophrenic) at the Diabasis center not only improved, with no medications, but most went on growing after leaving us."

- John Weir Perry

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, 1931

An Interview With Dr. John Weir Perry - Michael O'Callaghan

MICHAEL O'CALLAGHAN: How does one define so-called schizophrenia?

JOHN WEIR PERRY: Jung defined it most succinctly. He said...

"Schizophrenia is a condition in which the dream takes the place of reality." This means that the unconscious overwhelms the ego-consciousness, overwhelms the field of awareness with contents from the deepest unconscious, which take mythic, symbolic form. And the emotions, unless they're hidden, are quite mythic too. To a careful observer, they're quite appropriate to the situation at hand.

The way "schizophrenia" unfolds is that, in a situation of personal crisis, all the psyche's energy is sucked back out of the personal, conscious area, into what we call the archetypal area. Mythic contents thus emerge from the deepest level of the psyche, in order to re-organise the Self. In so doing, the person feels himself withdrawing from the ordinary surroundings, and becomes quite isolated in this dream state.

O'C: Did Jung really see this as a healing process?

PERRY: He did indeed! He believed that "schizophrenia" is a self-healing process - one in which, specifically, the pathological complexes dissolve themselves. The whole schizophrenic turmoil is really a self-organising, healing experience. It's like a molten state. Everything seems to be made of free energy, an inner free play of imagery through which the alienated psyche spontaneously re-organises itself - in such a way that the conscious ego is brought back into communication with the unconscious again.

O'C: How long does the experience normally last?

PERRY: The acute hallucinatory phase, during which these contents go through the re-ordering process, usually lasts about six weeks. This, by the way, corresponds to the classical description of visionary experiences in various religious texts, such as the proverbial "forty days in the wilderness" often referred to in the Bible. Anyway, six weeks is roughly it.

O'C: So are you saying that the reason we have so-called "chronic schizophrenia" in our society, - where a person is medicated, distressed or hospitalised for decades - is really cultural? A society which refuses to understand the healing nature of the phenomenon?

PERRY: Yes, it seems so. Of course, there are some unusual cases where the individual simply can't handle the impact of all this unconscious content, or doesn't know what to do with it, and freaks out. But from my experience at Diabasis, I've seen so many people go the other way that I really do feel "chronic schizophrenia" is created by society's negative response to what is actually a perfectly natural and healthy process. I hate to think of what happens to people who go into the mental hospital...

O'C: Who experiences a "schizophrenic break"?

PERRY: Well, there's a lot of controversy about this! There is a constitutional element, which is often interpreted as a "genotype of pathology", but this depends on how you see it. I see it as a genotype of sensitivity! Among adolescent siblings in a family, for example, its usually the most sensitive one who's going to catch it.

O'C: How many people are "schizophrenic?"

PERRY: Approximately two percent - that's over one hundred and sixteen million people! It's about one in five of all the hospital beds [in the developed countries - ed.].

O'C: What does it feel like to go through a "schizophrenic break"?

PERRY: The overall experience is described as falling into a kind of abyss of isolation. This comes about because there is such a discrepancy between the subjective inner world that one has been swept into, and the mundane everyday world outside. There seems to be a total gulf between these two. Of course, this is exactly what happens in our society: the individuals around such a person are bewildered and frightened. They have absolutely no trust in what is going on! So everything is set up negatively, and this gives rise to fear - on both sides.

O'C: So it starts with a feeling of isolation...

PERRY: Yes. Now the symbolic expression of this is falling into a death - not only a death state, but also a death space - the "afterlife," the "realm of the ancestors," the "land of the dead," the "spirit world." The common experience here is for the person to look about and think that half the people around him are dead too. While in this condition, it's very hard for one to tell if one is really alive or not.

Right away at the beginning, the death experience is accompanied by the feeling that you've gone back to the beginning of time. This involves a regression, a return to the state of infancy in one's personal life history. But hand in hand with this is the feeling of slipping back into the world of the primordial parents, into a Garden of Eden. For example, it's a very common experience to feel one is the child of Adam and Eve, say, at the beginning of time. This is very symbolic, obviously. It's pretty much a representation of the psyche at the start of one's individual career after birth.

So these are the outstanding features. All kinds of imagery comes tumbling across the field of awareness. It's like the mythological image in a perfect stained-glass window being smashed, and all the bits and pieces being scattered. The effect is very colourful, but it's very hard to discern how the pieces belong to each other. Any attempt to make sense of it is an exercise in abstraction from the actual experience. The important thing is to find the process running through it all...

Source: Mental Breakdown as Healing

See also:
The Far Side of Madness
Psychosis and REM States of Consciousness
Still Crazy After All These Years
R.D. Laing & Kingsley Hall
Loren Mosher & Soteria House
DSM-IV: Religious & Spiritual Problems
The Relevance of Visionary Experience to Culture

Caterpillar to Butterfly

Spiritual Emergence or Psychiatric Disorder?

2006-01-10T18:14:00.000-08:00

The following is excerpted from "The Stormy Search for the Self" by Stanislav and Christina Grof. Please note, characteristics that are suggestive of a psychiatric disorder are shown in regular font type, characteristics that are suggestive of spiritual emergence/emergency are shown in a burgundy font.

Criteria of a Medical Nature

Clinical examination and laboratory tests detect a physical disease that causes psychological changes.

Negative results of clinical examination and laboratory tests for a physical disease.

Clinical examination and laboratory tests detect a disease process of the brain that causes psychological changes (neurological reflexes, cerebrospinal fluid, X ray, etc.).

Negative results of clinical examinations and laboratory tests for pathological process afflicting the brain.

Specific psychological tests indicate organic impairment of the brain.

Negative results of psychological tests for organic impairment.

Impairment of intellect and memory, clouded consciousness, problems with basic orientation (name, time, place), poor coordination.

Intellect and memory qualitatively challenged but intact, consciousness usually clear, good basic orientation, coordination not seriously impaired.

Confusion, disorganization, and defective intellectual functioning interfere with communication and cooperation.

Ability to communicate and cooperate (occasional deep involvement in the inner process might be a problem).

Criteria of a Psychological Nature

Personal history shows serious difficulties in interpersonal relationships since childhood, inability to make friends and have intimate sexual relationships, poor social adjustment, usually long history of psychiatric problems.

Adequate pre-episode functioning as evidenced by interpersonal skills, some success in school and vocation, network of friends, and ability to have sexual relationships; no serious psychiatric history.

Poorly organized and defined content of the process, unqualified changes of emotions and behavior, unspecific organization of psychological functions, lack of meaning of any kind, no indication of direction development, loosening of associations, incoherence.

Sequences of biographical memories, themes of birth and death, transpersonal experiences, possible insight that the process is healing or spiritual in nature, change and development of themes, often definable progression, incidence of true synchronicities (evident to others).

Autistic withdrawal, aggressivity, or controlling and manipulative behavior interferes with a good working relationship and makes cooperation impossible.

Ability to relate and cooperate, often even during episodes of dramatic experiences that occur spontaneously or in the course of psychotherapeutic work.

Inability to see the process as an intrapsychic affair, confusion between the inner experiences and the outer world, excessive use of projection and blaming, "acting out".

Awareness of the intrapsychic nature of the process, satisfactory ability to distinguish between the inner and the outer, "owning" the process, ability to keep it internalized.

Basic mistrust, perception of the world and all people as hostile, delusions of persecution, accoustic hallucinations of enemies ("voices") with a very unpleasant content.

Sufficient trust to accept help and co-operate; persecutory delusions and "voices" absent.

Violations of basic rules of therapy ("not to hurt oneself or anyone else, not to destroy property"), destructive and self-destructive (suicidal or self-mutilating) impulses and a tendency to act on them without warning.

Ability to honor basic rules of therapy, absence of destructive or self-destructive ideas and tendencies, or ability to talk about them and to accept precautionary measures.

Behavior endangering health and causing serious concerns (refusal to eat or drink for prolonged periods of time, neglect of basic hygenic rules).

Good cooperation in things related to physical health, basic maintenance, and hygenic rules.

Source: The Stormy Search for the Self

See also:

Wikipedia: Stanislav Grof

Holotropic Breathwork