Tibetan culture is built on the knowing that) ... all dharmas are dreamlike, all phenomena are dreamlike. It's seen from the very beginning from that perspective ...Since it's seen from that point of view, when the world actually begins to fall apart in one's experience, it doesn't become that much of a clash, of a contradiction ...1 think what has been happening in the West is the concretization of the world as really something solid, a permanent thing. This has been something that has been built on since the development of sciences and Cartesianism, so that the (dream-like quality of existence) has been "kind of kept under control so to speak." Sometimes people have these kind of (spiritual emergencies) because the real nature of existence has been so repressed, and then suddenly these energies themselves spontaneously become a little bit overwhelming.
(Sogyal, 1985)
There is no comparable perspective in Europe or North America that supports spiritual awakening as part of natural human development. Thus, most of us Westerners are afraid of spiritual phenomena. They are strange to us. We need some conceptual context to help us make sense of these phenomena so that we can be more at peace with our own and more supportive of others' spiritual awakening.
Patterns of Spiritual Experiencing
All spiritual experiences, as mentioned previously, are indicators of the spiritual emergence process. Sometimes an episode of various intense spiritual experiences will happen in a meaningful pattern. If one intense spiritual experience is a shocking opening for an individual, a pattern of several intense spiritual experiences are even more apt to catalyze a spiritual emergency.
For the sake of creating some order we can take the liberty on paper to differentiate eight different patterns of spiritual emergency. It is important to bear in mind, however, that these patterns in actuality usually overlap and often occur simultaneously. Imagine trying to understand human physiology at birth from the perspective of just understanding the changes in the digestive system. You have to take into consideration all the various systems in the body - breathing, perceiving, absorbing, circulating, and eliminating - in order to understand the full impact of change occurring in the newborn. Likewise, if you try to understand the evolutionary crisis of spiritual emergency from the point of view of only one pattern of spiritual emergency, you will miss the full dimensions of the transformation in progress. Thus, although the patterns of spiritual experiencing do not function like interdependent systems (as in the body), they are usually profoundly interwoven.
Christina Grof and her husband, Dr. Stanislav Grof, have made many contributions to creating a transcultural conceptual framework for understanding the patterns of spiritual emergence. They draw from the work of many spiritual teachers, shamans, anthropologists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Each pattern has certain characteristic features, or elements. A familiarity with these elements is essential for anyone working with people with spiritual problems.
The following eight patterns were first named by the Grofs (1985). The definitions I use supplement the definitions referred to by the Grofs.
1. Awakening of the Serpent Power (Kundalini)
A radical transformation in the individual's relationship to his or her bio-energy and openness to transpersonal levels of experience. This awakening is usually accompanied by powerful sensations of heat and energy streaming up the spine, tremors, violent shaking, unusual auditory sounds, and the impulse to perform complex movements similar to yogic postures. These phenomena are associated with a letting go of chronic muscular tensions connected to past trauma and/or patterns of holding the body associated with particular beliefs, i.e., a person afraid of the world will hold his body in one way, a bully will hold his body in another, etc. Physical indicators may run the spectrum from debilitating illness to extraordinary perceptions of light that bring on ecstatic feelings of bliss. Although the opening of the energetic system occurs in all spiritual emergence, not all people experience intense episodes of muscular spasm or unusual sounds and the impulse to move in strange ways.
2. Shamanic Journey - In this pattern the individual is often focused on elements of nature like animal guides, earth spirits, plant spirits, energies of the directions of north, south, east, west. On an inner level the individual is dealing with physical suffering and a personal encounter with death followed by rebirth. Descent to the underworld or ascent to the upperworlds are familiar aspects of the shamanic journey. Visions and premonitions of the future are often perceived in the intensity of this pattern. In shamanic cultures, these visions are seen as evidence of an individual's being a person able to heal others through access to extraordinary dimensions. In ancient cultures Shamanic Journey was often created through fasting and isolation in the wilderness because it was clearly a powerful opening to the inner resources of wisdom and compassion.
3. Psychological Renewal through Activation of the Central Archetype - This pattern is marked by an inner experience of perceiving oneself as being in the center of all things and dealing directly with the dramatic universal experiences of life like the tension between good and evil, male and female, dark and light, life and death. Ordinary happenings take on mythic symbolic proportion. There is an emphasis on themes of death, afterlife and the return to the beginnings of creation. If this period of absorption in symbols and archetypal themes is validated as positive and respectable, the outcome can be a profound psychological renewal. If this episode is perceived as pathological and the individual is medicated, phenomena of spiritual emergence are pushed into the subconscious and become unavailable as powerful catalysts for psychological renewal.
The next three patterns demand a thorough evaluation of reincarnation and the law of karma. Karma, a concept from Far Eastern religious philosophies, refers to the law of cause and effect in personal life, e.g., if one is a victimizer at one time, one draws to oneself the effect of being victimized at another time. In the West we have an axiom which parallels the law of karma: "one reaps what one sows." The law of karma goes further by suggesting that when we have learned the lessons offered in duality we are no longer completely dominated by this duality. Eastern spiritual practices are devoted to mastering this transcendent stage of consciousness to benefit all of life.
4. Psychic Opening - This pattern is marked by a striking accumulation of instances of extrasensory perception - clairvoyance, clairsentience and clairaudience -or psychokinesis. It may include out of body experiences (OOBE). It may be stimulated by stress, spiritual focusing exercises, a powerful dream, an interaction with an extraterrestrial or a non-physical entity.
5. Emergence of a Karmic Pattern - If the psychic opening happens with a sense of sudden vivid recollection of a life or lifetimes before this life, it triggers a focus on karmic patterns. Frequently these openings deliver profound insight on current interpersonal problems. Perceiving karmic patterns gives an individual the opportunity to resolve dynamic inner conflicts and essentiallife lessons (Weiss, B. ,1988 & 1992).
6. Possession States - This pattern involves a person recognizing that either a disembodied soul that used to inhabit a body or a diabolical entity is having a manipulative or parasitic relationship with his or her vital energy and free will. This possessing entity may be a fragment of the self, a part of the shadow that has been rejected, a negative habit that has been passed down through the lineage of the family, or a victimizing outside force. Whether it is indigenous or foreign to the person, possession states make a demand that an individual review his or her ideas regarding the identity of the soul, free will, the power of the shadow and what happens to the soul after death. Some literature (Crabtree, 1985) suggests that Multiple Personality Disorder and addictive behavior (Lucas, 1993; Weiss, 1988) may be the result of possessing entities. Resolving issues of possession require someone skilled in exorcising these unusual phenomena. In addition to various paraprofessionals and shamans skilled in depossession there are some clinical psychologists who practice "spirit releasement" in the context of ongoing therapy. Apparently they can differentiate personal shadow material from entity possession and the exorcisms they initiate have been highly effective in stopping unwanted behavior, obsessions and fears. See References in Appendix D.
7. Encounters with Extra-terrestrials (ET' s) - After conducting a thorough screening of hundreds who claim to have had