Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis (New Consciousness Reader) [Paperback]

This book is about the crisis and personal chaos that can result from personal transformation or spiritual emergence. In the east this is called kundalini, in the west it's usually called ascension or transformation and is frequently associated with transpersonal experiences and what we perceive as strange physical, emotional, mental and psychic symptoms. For anyone who has been through, is going through, or is trying to support someone else while this process is taking place this book is like a gift from heaven, a light shining on a dark path.

There are contributions from many eminent people with expertise in associated fields. Ranging from: psychologists; Assagioli and Laing to the great spiritual teacher Ram Dass. There are sections covering kundalini, psychic opening, UFO encounters and much, much more. There are no wasted words either, no padding, it gets straight down to the nitty-gritty.

There is a section on help for people in spiritual emergency and while this is mainly aimed at the professional therapist it makes useful reading. The type of help that might be needed in such an emergency is as vast as the variety of experience because much depends on cultural background, religious or spiritual affiliations, ones personal path of approach and what triggered it in the place; for most people there is a trigger. These can range from meditational and religious practices to emotional trauma and near death experiences and because of this, this book should be on the "required reading" list of all health care professionals and spiritual counsellors of all denominations.

As a psychiatrist of some 20 years i think the spiritual emergencies described in this book are quite rare. And when they happen the people involved usually have enough sense not to go to a psychiatrist. Grof is quite right that the average psychiatrist doesn't understand these conditions and would tend to pathologise and prescribe. The important point is that if supported these experiences can lead to growth and transformation. The support is most likely to come from other people who have had similar experiences, usually as part of their own spiritual journey.

Its a slim book, less than 250 pages and nearly 20 years old. I would have liked to have read more about the effects of holotropic breathwork, the work of Roger Woolger and robert Monroe to name a few - but this book is the authoritative text. The authors are the world experts in their field. Each chapter is different, rich in information and perspective, well argued and lucid. The book is a gem. Buy it.

I remember running a tantra workshop in the Colorado mountains in the early 1990's. I was sat near the first aid tent resting when someone came by who was having a "bad trip" on acid. I was sitting cross legged in the lotus position and looking very relaxed and peaceful. They asked for my help and I brought them back to earth and relaxed them with "anapansati - the most grounding of mindfulness breathing techniques I knew at the time. It worked! I ended up spending the whole day helping many others come off their bad trips, hallucinations and panic attacks. Later when I was as student of the renowned and somewhat unconventional ( I call her approach original and creative)meditation teacher, Ruth Dennison who is based in the Joshua Tree Desert, California, - she told me of how meditation states can sometimes induce psychotic states, indeed, she had experienced this herself as retold in her recent published biography. I had never heard of these "spiritual emergency states" before but it did ring some bells with me. Five years earlier, I too had experienced some very uncomfortable and hallucinatory effects through very concentrated, long and intense meditation sessions where I was pushing myself too far to get results more quickly. I wished I had had Stan Grofs book at the time. I wouldn't have had to go through a painful process of thinking I was going mad and being riddled with anxiety attacks. After unsuccessfully seeking help from meditation teachers, therapists and anyone that might be able to help, I worked out my own way through it, very much in the way Grof and the experts he interviewed have done. 15 years on I remain a very healthy, calm, and relaxed person, and whereby meditation has become a way of life to me.
This book is fascinating reading because so many books on meditation highlight the good parts but rarely mention any possible negative effects. There are some very interesting facts and statistic in the book. For example, Jack Kornfield, a very experienced meditation teacher mentions that, of the over 20,000 students they have taught meditation to, only two had psychotic episodes - both of which were overdoing things. Ram Dass also cited very few students who have "flipped", again because of overdosing on intense mediation practise or taking psychedelic drugs when combined with such activities. From my own experiences plus reading of other s in Stan Grofs book , it is a pity that there appears to have not been that much further work since this book was compiled over 20 years ago. The book will be of great use to those who teach meditation and other spiritual practises who have students that are going through a "spiritual crisis". It will also be invaluable to those enlightened psychiatrists and psychotherapists who have patients who are experiencing "spiritual difficulties" that they may want to label as schizophrenics, alcoholics, phobics and neurotics but in reality just need some spiritual counselling to ground them. Finally, it will help patients and "spiritual seekers "themselves, who are looking for help with difficulties that they maybe experiencing right now, in the past or possibly in the future. I fully recovered from my experience all those years ago, but Grofs book can help when you have no one else to turn to or can't find anyone to help.

Thanks Stan for having the insight to compile a book like this - it was and still is a book so far ahead of its time
John
Tantra teacher
Alto Sax Retreat Centre, Essex, UK