The dominant religions of our culture--if they do believe in an afterlife--only accept the concept that after one dies, he or she goes either to heaven or to hell--and that there are no do-overs.
Of course, the majority of people in the world believe in reincarnation in some form or another. But as the average ethnocentric Westerner might say, "What do they know? They're just primitive, unsophisticated people."
Disregarding the ignorance of that kind of opinion, it really is hard for us to think in terms of reincarnation and karma, even though these ideas seem vastly more just than our either-or concept of eternal rest...or unrest.
I've touched on these ideas before, most recently in this chapter. Descriptions of past life memories seem so far out of the realm of ideas that I've come to accept that, like alien abductions and crop circles, they don't seem to be worthy of my attention.
But then someone comes along and introduces these more outlandish ideas within the framework of another concept that I have come to accept as true and beneficial.
For me, this man is Dr. Stanislav Grof, whose ideas and remarkable 5-decade long background in the field of psychology--specifically Transpersonal Psychology--don't induce in me the tingle of cynicism I'm used to--even while reading his exposition of ideas like synchronicity, past-life memories and even astrology.
While I've listened to Dr. Grof in a number of interviews, it is only since reading his book, When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-ordinary Reality (2006) that I seem to have "transcended" my normal sense of disbelief.
Now some might say that I'm sacrificing my objectivity on the altar of New-Agism. While this could, of course, be a true assessment, I've often described my natural cynicism in regards to many of these matters. Yet, when I discover someone who can point to real world results, I can begin to accept the premise of his or her ideas. In Grof's case, his Holotropic Breathwork technique and his psychedelic therapy practice before these substances were outlawed have brought numerous people to a psychological and spiritual wholeness and healthiness that cannot be disregarded.
In order to accept this, I have to come to accept the idea that the state of consciousness that results from LSD or Ayahuasca or Psilocybin or Meditation or Shamanism or Near-Death Experiences can provide the person experiencing the state with a great deal of personal wisdom and self-understanding and also create the psychological framework leading to other sources of knowledge and information.
I've come to accept this idea not from my own experiences, but from the idea that this idea has been too well-documented throughout the ages to discount them. The Perennial Philosophy written about by Aldous Huxley makes this case far more eloquently than I ever could.
So while the scientific rationalist could argue with me by saying that nothing within the perennial philosophy can't be explained by neuroscientists, there is a profound qualitative aspect of the experience that can't be ignored or disregarded lightly.
And it is within the unexplainable qualia that surround these experiences that I find the necessary intellectual opening in which--like Alice down the rabbit hole--I could squeeze through.
That said, I find Grof's stories of synchronicity and prenatal and perinatal memories in "When the Impossible Happens" utterly fascinating. But when he gets into the section about past life memories, I find myself both wide-eyed and astonished.
In fact, for me these stories provide perhaps the most compelling answers I've allowed myself to accept to the questions that sent me on this journey nearly two years ago.
What gives me the intellectual confidence to make this statement?
First I have to look at the man himself. Dr. Grof has spent the majority of his life exploring these states of consciousness; both personally and professionally. The effectiveness of his methods have been published for decades as part of his scientific research. The enthusiasm this energetic 77-year old still has for his ability to bring people toward wholeness (the definition of the word Holotropic) when he could have retired to a comfortable life virtually anywhere gives credence to the man's honor and dedication to his profession--and to humanity itself.
Not intent on just helping the limited number of people he could personally counsel, he created the Holotropic Breathwork technique and has spent decades training other people to use the technique so that they in turn could help as many people to heal as possible.
In October, 2007, Vaclav Havel, writer, dramatist and former President of Czechoslovakia, awarded the Vision 97 Award (presented by the Foundation of Dagmar and Vaclav Havel) to Dr. Grof. In describing the significance of this award, President Havel said this:
"It is given to thinkers, whose scientific work returns science into the framework of general culture, transcends the dominant concepts of knowledge and being, reveals unknown, surprising, or overlooked connections, and touches in a new way the mysteries of the universe and of life. It is thus an Award, by which we would like to bring the attention of the public to spiritual achievements, which in the best sense of the word do not meet the criteria of the established ways of exploring of reality."Dr. Grof has never set himself up as a guru or a holy man. He doesn't ask people to accept any kind of belief. He simply uses his knowledge of his Holotropic Breathwork technique along with his skills in psychotherapy to allow the traumas that have built up since birth, at the time of birth, before birth and even before this current life to allow the individual's own healing power to heal itself.
When I was studying shamanism and specifically Michael Harner's Western shamanism, I read a couple of books by Sandra Ingerman, whose stories about her shamanic practice of soul retrieval were fascinating. I was intrigued to learn of the shamanic belief that all the painful emotional and physical events of our lives can cause pieces of our soul to leave and descend to the shamanic lower world. As a shamanic practitioner, Sandra's job is to find those lost pieces of soul and convince them to return to the person so that the person can become spiritually whole once again.
It was impossible while reading her book not to go over my own life and think of the big and little hurts I've had since I was a child. I wonder about the attitudes and ways of acting I developed early that make no sense to me. I think, why was I this way or why wasn't I that way? How did this action from my parents affect me, or how did that response from these other people affect the person I've become?
To help answer these questions, I considered seeing a shamanic practitioner like Sandra Ingerman. But while I was fascinated by her stories, I didn't think I could suspend my disbelief long enough to make the experience a good one; especially after my own attempt at shamanic journeying was less than successful.
A half year later, however, and I'm ready to experience a non-psychedelic enhanced state of consciousness. I've already decided that when I try LSD or Ayahuasca in the future, it will be in a "set and setting" that will be conducive to a positive and rewarding experience. In the meantime, what I've read about the results of Holotropic Breathwork makes me feel confident that many of the questions I outlined above could be explored and resolved using that technique. My hope is that I can attend one of Dr. Grof's workshops and truly experience non-ordinary states of reality under the auspices of the man himself.
In the following YouTube videos from the 2008 World Psychedelic Forum, Dr. Grof gives a brief overview of Transpersonal Psychology, of which he is one of the founders, as well as Holotropic Breathwork.
Stanislav Grof at the World Psychedelic Forum (Part 1)
Stanislav Grof at the World Psychedelic Forum (Part 2)