Appropriate books and stories, especially personal interaction with people who have integrated spiritual experiences, are very reassuring to anyone in spiritual emergency. Bodywork, including psychophysical exercises like Yoga, T'ai Chi, and Chi Kung, help prepare the bodymind to adjust to the expanded energy levels which come with spiritual emergence. Psychotherapy and/or service work are useful guides for an individual to make the emotional steps needed to stabilize the ego so the "I" can accommodate the expanded energy levels.
If we consider that it is the work of this lifetime to expand spiritually, then there is a natural impulse in all of us to reach for the most expanded levels of consciousness. The conflict which arises when the moral code or conventional thinking of our family and friends does not accept this impulse for growth can inhibit spiritual emergence. If the growth wants to happen and is denied, the scene is set for a crisis to occur. A. Mindell (1988) suggests that it is our wrestling with convention which is responsible for spiritual emergency; J. W. Perry (1986) concurs:
(spirit) ...is constantly striving for release from its entrapment in routine or conventional mental structures ...if this work of releasing spirit becomes imperative but is not undertaken voluntarily with knowledge of the goal and with considerable effort, then the psyche is apt to take over and overwhelm the conscious personality with its own powerful processes.
(J. Perry, 1986)
When individuals have access to appropriate support for spiritual emergency, the intensely disturbing aspects of the crisis may be minimized. When individuals do not have appropriate support, the disturbing aspects may well become magnified. A lifetime punctuated by isolation, emotional turmoil and psychosomatic illness is not an unusual outcome for those who have not had the benefit of appropriate support during spiritual emergency.
The capacity to integrate spiritual experiences into one's self-concept and functioning in the world is the key determinant in the outcome of intense spiritual experiences. A natural spiritual emergence process is more likely to turn into a spiritual emergency when:
1.Someone has no conceptual framework to support the experience, or to understand and accept the phenomenon with equanimity.
2.Someone has neither the physical nor emotional flexibility to integrate the experiences into life.
3.The family, friends, and/or helping professionals of a person having the experience see the phenomenon in terms of psychopathological symptoms which have no possibility of being positive.
The pressure placed on persons to perceive themselves as crazy in the midst of an intense spiritual experience is often one of the most influential elements turning an emergence process into an emergency. Conversely, the willingness of a helper to accept the phenomena of spiritual experience and to have faith in a positive outcome is one of the most powerful elements in changing a spiritual emergency to a process of spiritual growth.
Examples of Spiritual Emergency
A good example of spiritual emergency is the case of Everest (Lukoff & Everest, 1985). When he was a young man in his early twenties, Everest brought himself into a transcendent state of consciousness through study and concentration. Because his psychological development was too immature to manage his state, he had to act out many of the themes of his inner process at inappropriate times, much to the bewilderment of his family and friends. He told them, in the midst of his intense experience:
"I have been through the bowels of Hell, climbed up and out, and wandered full circles in the wilderness.I have ascended through the Portals of Heaven where I established my rebirth in the earth itself, and now have taken my rightful place in the Kingdom of Heaven .... 1 hoped my friends would make a similar connection and enter into an odyssey themselves. I urged them to create their own mythic vehicles and use them as guides into an odyssey as I had done."
(Everest and Lukoff, 1985)
His father, a general practitioner, committed Everest to a psychiatric ward soon after Everest entered his altered state of consciousness and began to talk and behave differently. This state continued for two months in the hospital, during which time he had very little interaction with the staff. He was given Thorazine, an antipsychotic medication, to inhibit the psychotic-type symptoms. Even without personal support from the hospital staff, family or friends, Everest never questioned the positive value of the experience he was having. Everest was also able to cultivate his transpersonal experiences through his study of symbols and rituals.
At the end of two months, when Everest left the hospital, he was totally exhausted physically, emotionally, and mentally; however, he was capable of maintaining a part-time job that afforded him time to rest. Part of his exhaustion may have been a side effect of taking thorazine in the hospital. He discontinued all medication on his release.
In 1985, Everest wrote about his early experience:
"I have gained much from this experience. I am sorry for the worry and hurt that it may have caused my family and friends. These wounds have been slow to heal. I am deeply grateful for the great victory of my odyssey. With the dawning of a new vision of life has come a new sense of purpose. From a state of existential nausea, my soul now knows itself as part of the cosmos. Each year brings an ever increasing sense of contentment. "
(ibid.)
He has never been rehospitalized, has led a stable work life, and has joined a church group. He is involved with community work and maintains close relationships with his family and friends. His integration of his experience is still deepening.
Everest's story illustrates a spiritual emergency in which psychological immaturity did not allow full integration of the spiritual experience at the time it was happening. His family, friends, and doctors considered Everest's experience as mental pathology, and did not support his entering it more deeply. His own understanding of his "odyssey," however enabled him to enter it fully and reap its transformational benefits.
Another example of spiritual emergency is taken from Chamberlin (1986) who worked with a group of 15-yearold boys in a psychiatric ward at the Menninger Foundation.
(He) taught (them) a variety of ways of altering their consciousness as a way of exposing them to alternatives to drug use. One of these methods involved biofeedback training with the eventual focus being on theta-wave training. During the time that the focus was on the thetawave training and immediately following it, some of the teenagers developed some out-ofthe-ordinary abilities. One of them began to have precognitive experiences that he perceived as strong intuitions and he needed to discuss these, particularly to validate them. Another person's reaction was more disruptive as he began to develop healing abilities. He was initially frightened by this ability. Later, he also began to notice that his electronic equipment was malfunctioning and that people in areas in which he would go would also report malfunctioning of electronic equipment. He was given some helpful suggestions about focusing his energy, at which point the electrical disruptions stopped. It appeared that this person was developing some shamanistic abilities, which in other cultures would have been given a lot of support. He was given articles to read about shamanism, and this reading resulted in a conceptual framework that was a great deal of comfort to him. However, he felt these abilities were something he did not have the time to work with and so he moved away from them. By not using them they appeared to stop.
(Chamberlin, 1986)
Conceptual Frameworks and Supportive Contexts
The reactions of Chamberlin's adolescents illustrates the importance of an appropriate conceptual framework and supportive social context for persons in spiritual emergence.
Persons in spiritual emergency are deeply influenced by their community of friends, family and health care workers. The mini-culture in Chamberlin's ward supported spiritual emergence in contrast to Everest's social community. Unlike most Western cultures, some cultures, like that in Tibet, hold a view of the world that allows spiritual experience to be integrated into normal life.
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