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Spiritual Emergence Catalyzed By Culture Clashes
Introduction
“It’s a new day, . . . . It’s a new day, and I’m feelin’ . . . . . . !!!”
So went the lyrics from the band, Traffic, at the Woodstock Festival, during the summer of ’68. Those were high times, but also there were low ones. For me, as well as for many others, these were times of big changes in our world views.
It was my seventh year of college. I was pursing a PhD in microbiology, following the dream I had since high school. Then I experienced Woodstock, radical politics, communes, alternative schools and inner travels. I was experimenting with psychedelics, which superseded my laboratory experiments with bacteria.
Forty years later I sit on a lovely mountainside in central Mexico, listening to the sounds of nature during sunset. First, I hear a multitude of birds. As they become quiet, crickets and frogs take over. Dusk approaches with the barking of a fox. In the background is the steady sound of water flowing gently in the ancient canal beside my cabaña.
This is my story of spiritual emergence*. It’s a journey from my development of a love for nature as a youth, forming questions out of curiosity from observations, and then growing into adulthood acquiring the tools of science to find answers to them. And finally maturing: looking within, as a mystic, to discover a new landscape of reality. During this initial “emergence”, the ten years subsequent to Woodstock, I was engaged in a fierce battle with my demons and was labeled a “paranoid schizophrenic”, a handle acquired during multiple mental hospitalizations.
In this book, I tell of how, against the odds of recidivism, I was able to free myself, and transform those demons, integrating my “spiritual emergence” towards a new life. Some of these demons still remain with me. My current growth, and dealing with my old shadows, form the remainder of my story.
So the theme is “spiritual emergence catalyzed by culture clash. First, my experience of the ‘60’s vs that prior to it. Then, moving to Mexico in 2003, and experiencing a fuller life with less materialism along with other cultural differences.
________________________________________________
*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.
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." --Grof & Grof, 1990
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.
“It’s a new day, . . . . It’s a new day, and I’m feelin’ . . . . . . !!!”
So went the lyrics from the band, Traffic, at the Woodstock Festival, during the summer of ’68. Those were high times, but also there were low ones. For me, as well as for many others, these were times of big changes in our world views.
It was my seventh year of college. I was pursing a PhD in microbiology, following the dream I had since high school. Then I experienced Woodstock, radical politics, communes, alternative schools and inner travels. I was experimenting with psychedelics, which superseded my laboratory experiments with bacteria.
Forty years later I sit on a lovely mountainside in central Mexico, listening to the sounds of nature during sunset. First, I hear a multitude of birds. As they become quiet, crickets and frogs take over. Dusk approaches with the barking of a fox. In the background is the steady sound of water flowing gently in the ancient canal beside my cabaña.
This is my story of spiritual emergence*. It’s a journey from my development of a love for nature as a youth, forming questions out of curiosity from observations, and then growing into adulthood acquiring the tools of science to find answers to them. And finally maturing: looking within, as a mystic, to discover a new landscape of reality. During this initial “emergence”, the ten years subsequent to Woodstock, I was engaged in a fierce battle with my demons and was labeled a “paranoid schizophrenic”, a handle acquired during multiple mental hospitalizations.
In this book, I tell of how, against the odds of recidivism, I was able to free myself, and transform those demons, integrating my “spiritual emergence” towards a new life. Some of these demons still remain with me. My current growth, and dealing with my old shadows, form the remainder of my story.
So the theme is “spiritual emergence catalyzed by culture clash. First, my experience of the ‘60’s vs that prior to it. Then, moving to Mexico in 2003, and experiencing a fuller life with less materialism along with other cultural differences.
________________________________________________
*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.
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." --Grof & Grof, 1990
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.
Monday, November 2, 2009
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