When the Impossible Happens (49 page)

In this paradigm, the universe and nature had no guiding intelligence and underlying master blueprint. All the incredible complexity of forms revealed by various scientific disciplines, from astronomy, quantum-relativistic physics, and chemistry to biology and psychology, was seen as resulting from essentially meaningless play of material particles. The universe was a gigantic and fully deterministic mechanical system that was governed by the principle of cause and effect.

In this view, the universe essentially created itself. Particles of inorganic matter just happened to assemble into organic compounds, and these just happened to organize themselves into cells. The entire Darwinian evolution from unicellular organisms to humans was seen as having been guided by accidental genetic mutations and natural selection. According to this worldview, the principal mechanism of evolution in nature was survival of the fittest and the militant strategy of the selfish gene. This seemed to explain and justify what appeared to be characteristic features of human behavior—pursuit of selfish interest in competition with and at the expense of others as it manifests in personal life, as well as on the collective economic, political, and military scene.

This gloomy image of human nature was further reinforced by the findings of depth psychology, pioneered by Sigmund Freud and his followers, which purported that all our behavior is in the last analysis driven by base animal instincts. From this perspective, feelings of love were nothing but a reaction to our innate hostility or desexualized interest in our parents. Ethical behavior was based on fear of punishment, aesthetic interest was psychological defense against powerful anal impulses, and so on. Without societal restrictions, penal institutions, and superegos created by parental prohibitions and injunctions, we would indulge in indiscriminate promiscuous sexual acting out, killing, and stealing, as Freud so eloquently described in his
Civilization and Its Discontents
(Freud 1971a).

Freud and his followers saw religious beliefs and spiritual interests of any kind as reflecting superstition, gullibility, primitive magical thinking, primary process, and obsessive-compulsive behavior resulting from suppression of anal impulses and an unresolved Oedipal or Electra complex. It was again Sigmund Freud who spearheaded this perspective in his writings, such as
The Future of an Illusion
and
Totem and Taboo
(Freud 1971b and 1971c). This sweeping dismissal of legitimacy of anything spiritual did not discriminate between primitive folk beliefs and sophisticated systems based on centuries of profound exploration of the psyche and consciousness, such as various schools of yoga, Buddhism, or Sufism. And direct experiences of spiritual dimensions of reality were seen as manifestations of serious mental disease.

Over the last five decades, my professional observations and personal experiences—along the lines of the ones described in this book—have seriously undermined the above worldview and made me question its basic metaphysical assumptions. Battling considerable intellectual resistance, I have gradually developed an entirely different understanding of the universe, of the psyche, and of human nature. This worldview resembles the systems of thought that Aldous Huxley called perennial philosophy, particularly those of the great Eastern spiritual philosophies. In my current view of reality, consciousness represents a fundamental aspect of existence, equal or possibly supraordinated to matter, rather than its accidental product.

I now believe that the universe was created and is permeated by cosmic consciousness and superior creative intelligence
(anima mundi)
on all its levels and in all its dimensions. The image of the cosmos as a giant supermachine with Newtonian characteristics, consisting of separate building blocks (elementary particles and objects), gave way to a vision of a unified field, an organic whole in which everything is meaningfully interconnected. I now see each individual human psyche as an integral part of the overall field of cosmic consciousness and essentially commensurate with it.

More specifically, to understand the observations and experiences in holotropic states, I had to vastly expand the model currently used by traditional academic psychiatry and psychology. Thinking in terms of biology, physiology, postnatal biography, and the Freudian individual unconscious proved painfully inadequate for that purpose. The new map had to include, besides the postnatal biographical level, two additional domains: the
perinatal
(related to the trauma of birth) and the
transpersonal
(comprising ancestral, racial, collective, and phylogenetic memories, karmic experiences, and archetypal dynamics).

Radical changes occurred also in my thinking in regard to what traditional psychiatrtists call psychopathology. I now see clearly that emotional and psychosomatic disorders that do not have an organic basis (psychogenic psychopathology) cannot be adequately explained from postnatal biographical traumas in infancy, childhood, and later life. The roots of these disorders reach much deeper to include significant contributions from the perinatal level and from the transpersonal domains. While the recognition of the depth of emotional and psychosomatic problems might at first seem very discouraging, it is more than balanced by the discovery of powerful new therapeutic mechanisms operating in the deep unconscious (associated with the reliving of birth, with past-life experiences, experiences of cosmic unity, and many others).

An equally exciting aspect of the new understanding of the human psyche is the discovery of its inner healing intelligence. The goal in traditional psychotherapies is to reach an intellectual understanding as to how the psyche functions, why symptoms develop, and what they mean. This understanding then becomes the basis for developing various techniques that therapists can use to treat their patients. A serious problem with this strategy is the striking lack of agreement among psychologists and psychiatrists concerning the most fundamental theoretical issues and the resulting astonishing number of competing schools of psychotherapy. The work with holotropic states shows us a surprising radical alternative—mobilization of deep inner intelligence of the clients that guides the process of healing and transformation.

The most surprising and exciting feature of the new worldview is that—in contrast with academic science—it recognizes the ontological reality of the ordinarily hidden spiritual dimensions of existence and does not put psychopathological labels on those who experience them. Consequently, it sees serious spiritual quest as a very significant and fully legitimate activity. However, it is important to emphasize that this statement applies to genuine spirituality based on personal experience and not to dogmatic ideologies of organized religions.

The new worldview that I have briefly outlined above is not an arbitrary construct or result of speculation. It is a philosophical perspective that emerges spontaneously in individuals who have been able to free themselves from the imprints imposed on them by the trauma of their birth and their early life and who have had profound transpersonal experiences. Deep experiential work of this kind has profound implications for the way we conduct our lives. It is not difficult to understand that an important prerequisite for successful existence is general intelligence—the ability to learn and re-call, think and reason, and adequately respond to our material environment. More recent research emphasized the importance of “emotional intelligence,” the capacity to adequately respond to our human environment and skillfully handle our interpersonal relationships (Goleman 1996). Observations from the study of holotropic states confirm the basic tenet of perennial philosophy that the quality of our life ultimately depends on what can be called “spiritual intelligence.”

Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to conduct our life in such a way that it reflects deep philosophical and metaphysical understanding of reality and of ourselves discovered through personal experiences during systematic spiritual pursuit. Buddhist scriptures refer to this kind of spiritual wisdom as
prajña paramita
(transcendental wisdom). Unlike the dogmas of organized church, spiritual intelligence acquired in the process of experiential self-exploration has the power to override the scientistic worldview of materialistic science. At the same time, it is equally effective as a remedy against the fundamentalist misunderstanding and distortion of the spiritual message. The concept of “intelligent design” represents an addition to what science has discovered about the evolution of the cosmos and life, not a primitive and simple-minded alternative to it.

Systematic and responsible self-exploration using holotropic states is conducive to emotional and psychosomatic healing and positive personality transformation. Over the years, I have had the privilege to observe this process in many people who were involved in serious spiritual pursuit of this kind. Some of them were meditators and had regular spiritual practice, others had supervised psychedelic sessions or participated in various forms of experiential psychotherapy; a few had chosen the shamanic path. I have also witnessed profound positive changes in many people who received adequate support during their spontaneous episodes of psychospiritual crises (spiritual emergencies).

Episodes of psychospiritual death and rebirth and experiential connection with positive postnatal or prenatal memories tend to reduce irrational drives and ambitions. They lead to significant decrease of aggression, to inner peace, self-acceptance, and tolerance of others. This is typically associated with a shift of focus from the past and future to the present moment and with increased zest for life—the ability to enjoy and draw satisfaction from simple aspects of life, such as everyday activities, food, lovemaking, nature, and music. Another important result of this process is emergence of spirituality of a universal and mystical nature that is nondenominational and all-encompassing.

The process of spiritual opening and transformation typically deepens further as a result of transpersonal experiences, such as identification with other people, entire human groups, animals, and plants. Additional transpersonal experiences provide conscious access to events occurring in other countries, cultures, and historical periods and even to the mythological realms and archetypal beings of the collective unconscious. Experiences of cosmic unity and one’s own divinity result in increasing identification with all of creation and bring the sense of wonder, love, compassion, and inner peace. What begins as psychological probing of the unconscious psyche conducted for therapeutic purposes automatically becomes a philosophical quest for the meaning of life and a journey of spiritual discovery.

One of the most striking consequences of various forms of transpersonal experiences is spontaneous emergence and development of deep humanitarian and ecological concerns and the need to get involved in service for some common purpose. This is based on an almost cellular awareness that the boundaries in the universe are arbitrary and that each of us is identical with the entire web of existence. It becomes clear that we cannot do anything to nature without simultaneously doing it to ourselves. Differences among people appear to be interesting and enriching rather than threatening, whether they are related to sex, race, color, language, political conviction, or religious belief.

Individuals who have undergone this transformation develop a deep sense of being planetary citizens rather than citizens of a particular country or members of a particular racial, social, ideological, political, or religious group. It is obvious that a transformation of this kind would increase our chances for survival if it could occur on a sufficiently large scale. We seem to be involved in a dramatic race for time that has no precedent in the entire history of humanity. What is at stake is nothing less than the future of life on this planet. If we continue the old strategies, which in their consequences are extremely self-destructive, it is unlikely that humankind will survive. However, if a sufficient number of people undergo the process of deep inner transformation outlined above, it would enhance our chances to meet the formidable challenges we are facing and use the enormous creative potential inherent in our species to create a better future.

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