Aubrecht Stanislav Quotes

As long as I had easy access to psychedelics at the government-sponsored research project, most of my energy went into psychedelic sessions. ~ Stanislav Grof

Coming to terms with the fear of death is conducive to healing, positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution. ~ Stanislav Grof

Freud said that we are born as a tabula rasa. This is a model that simply is too superficial and inadequate. ~ Stanislav Grof

I read Freud's Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis in basically one sitting. I decided to enroll in medical school. It was almost like a conversion experience. ~ Stanislav Grof

Patients reported that their psychedelic sessions were an invaluable experiential training for dying. ~ Stanislav Grof

Research challenges the materialistic understanding of death, according to which biological death represents the final end of existence and of all conscious activity. ~ Stanislav Grof

Ritual use of psychedelic plants and substances has been a particularly effective technology for inducing holotropic states of consciousness. ~ Stanislav Grof

I have to say I regretted giving up animated movies. ~ Stanislav Grof

He didn't like causing her discomfort. "How are your hands?" He held his out, palm up.

Rounding the bed slowly, she placed hers in them.

Stanislav sat up straighter and examined them closely, then swore. Raw, open blisters marred the skin at the crooks of her thumbs and the base of every finger. She had gripped that shovel for so long that the blisters had all popped and the flap of loose skin on each had torn away. It looked painful. And she had said nothing, not even complaining when she had held one hand over the steaming pot of pasta while stirring it, something that must have made her hand hurt even more.

"Stop beating yourself up about it," she ordered softly.

He raised his head, on a level with hers though he sat and she stood.

"I wasn't intentionally listening to your thoughts," she told him. "You were sort of broadcasting them. And it wasn't your fault."

"I beg to differ. Had I not compelled you to dig me up - "

"You would probably be dead right now," she finished for him. Withdrawing one hand, she drew it over his hair. "It was worth it."

His pulse raced at her touch. His gaze dropped to her lips. He heard her heartbeat pick up. ~ Dianne Duvall

Western science is approaching a paradigm shift of unprecedented proportions, one that will change our concepts of reality and of human nature, bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science, and reconcile the differences between Eastern spirituality and Western pragmatism. ~ Stanislav Grof

The psyche of the individual is commensurate with the totality of creative energy. This requires a most radical revision of Western psychology. ~ Stanislav Grof

It is possible to transcend the usual limitations of the body, ego, space, and linear time. ~ Stanislav Grof

[B]y banning psychedelic research we have not only given up the study of an interesting drug or group of substances, but also abandoned one of the most promising approaches to the understanding of the human mind and consciousness. ~ Stanislav Grof

It is essential that we raise the image of sex, which is currently seen as a purely biological affair and often portrayed in its worst manifestations, to that of a spiritually based activity. ~ Stanislav Grof

There are people who can start having very powerful experiences without taking psychedelics. It can happen against their will. This is a universal phenomenon. ~ Stanislav Grof

The problems that stand in the way are not of economical or technological nature. The deepest sources of the global crisis lie inside the human personality and reflect the level of consciousness evolution of our species. ~ Stanislav Grof

Dying before dying has two important consequences: It liberates the individual from the fear of death and influences the actual experience of dying at the time of biological demise. ~ Stanislav Grof

The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped. ~ Stanislav Grof

Philemon explained how Jung treated thoughts as though they were generated by himself, while for Philemon thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air. Jung concluded that Philemon taught him psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche. This helped Jung to understand that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend. ~ Stanislav Grof

The enemy is typically depicted as a dangerous octopus, a vicious dragon, a multiheaded hydra, a giant venomous tarantula, or an engulfing Leviathan. Other frequently used symbols include vicious predatory felines or birds, monstrous sharks, and ominous snakes, particularly vipers and boa constrictors. Scenes depicting strangulation or crushing, ominous whirlpools, and treacherous quicksands also abound in pictures from the time of wars, revolutions, and political crises. The juxtaposition of paintings from non-ordinary states of consciousness that depict perinatal experiences with the historical pictorial documentation collected by Lloyd de Mause and Sam Keen offer strong evidence for the perinatal roots of human violence. ~ Stanislav Grof

Consciousness does not just passively reflect the objective material world; it plays an active role in creating reality
itself. ~ Stanislav Grof

I believe it is essential for our planetary future to develop tools that can change the consciousness which has created the crisis that we are in. ~ Stanislav Grof

He suddenly understood the message of so many spiritual teachers that the only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being. ~ Stanislav Grof

The transpersonal experiences revealing the Earth as an intelligent, conscious entity are corroborated by scientific evidence. Gregory Bateson, who created a brilliant synthesis of cybernetics, information and systems theory, the theory of evolution, anthropology, and psychology came to the conclusion that it was logically inevitable to assume that mental processes occurred at all levels in any system or natural phenomenon of sufficient complexity. He believed that mental processes are present in cells, organs, tissues, organisms, animal and human groups, eco-systems, and even the earth and universe as a whole. ~ Stanislav Grof

There is an urgent need for a radical revision of our current concepts of the nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter and the brain. ~ Stanislav Grof

Each of us can manifest the properties of a field of consciousness that transcends space, time, and linear causality. ~ Stanislav Grof

According to materialistic science, any memory requires a material substrate, such as the neuronal network in the brain or the DNA molecules of the genes. ~ Stanislav Grof

LSD is a unique and powerful tool for the exploration of the human mind and human nature. Psychedelic experiences mediate access to deep realms of the psyche that have not yet been discovered and acknowledged by mainstream psychology and psychiatry. They also reveal new possibilities and mechanisms of therapeutic change and personality transformation. ~ Stanislav Grof

Many cultures have independently developed a belief system in reincarnation that includes return of the unit of consciousness to another physical lifetime on Earth. ~ Stanislav Grof

It became much more complicated politically to work with psychedelics because of the unsupervised experimentation with psychedelics, particularly among young people. ~ Stanislav Grof

A number of cases have been reported in which a dying individual has a vision of a person about whose death he or she did not know. ~ Stanislav Grof

A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm. ~ Stanislav Grof

Consciousness after death demonstrates the possibility of consciousness operating independently of the body. ~ Stanislav Grof

Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness. ~ Stanislav Grof

The renaissance of interest in Eastern spiritual philosophies, various mystical traditions, meditation, ancient and aboriginal wisdom, as well as the widespread psychedelic experimentation during the stormy 1960s, made it absolutely clear that a comprehensive and cross-culturally valid psychology had to include observations from such areas as mystical states; cosmic consciousness; psychedelic experiences; trance phenomena; creativity; and religious, artistic, and scientific inspiration. ~ Stanislav Grof

The key experiential approach I now use to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness and gain access to the unconscious and superconscious psyche is Holotropic Breathwork, which I have developed jointly with Christina over the last fifteen years. This seemingly simple process, combining breathing, evocative music and other forms of sound, body work, and artistic expression, has an extraordinary potential for opening the way for exploring the entire spectrum of the inner world. ~ Stanislav Grof

Experiences of BPM II are best characterized by the triad: fear of death, fear of never coming back, and fear of going crazy. ~ Stanislav Grof

Ancient eschatological texts are actually maps of the inner territories of the psyche that seem to transcend race and culture and originate in the collective unconscious. ~ Stanislav Grof

I bear the Russian man no ill. A Stanislav has as much right to walk God's earth as does a Stanley. ~ Kevin Ansbro

The beliefs concerning reincarnation have great ethical impact on human life and our relationship to the world. ~ Stanislav Grof

When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced. ~ Stanislav Grof

This is an extraordinary book of unique psychological power. It reveals not only scholarship and sophistication of the author, but deep and intimate knowledge of the recesses of the human psyche. By masterful juxtaposition of evocative images, poetry, and selected quotes from scholars, Flesh and Blood seems to engage both the right and left hemispheres in an unprecedented dialogue. The result is a multi-dimensional, almost holographic picture of the primordial foundations of the human mind. ~ Stanislav Grof

Perinatal phenomena occur in four distinct experiential patterns, which I call the Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPMs). Each of the four matrices is closely related to one of the four consecutive periods of biological delivery. At each of these stages, the baby undergoes experiences that are characterized by specific emotions and physical feelings; each of these stages also seems to be associated with specific symbolic images. These come to represent highly individualized pyschospiritual blueprints that guide the way we experience our lives. They may be reflected in individual and social psychopathology or in religion, art, philosophy, politics, and other areas of life. And, or course, we can gain access to these psychospiritual blueprints through non-ordinary states of consciousness, which allow us to see the guiding forces of our lives much more clearly. ~ Stanislav Grof

The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death. ~ Stanislav Grof