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Introduction:
In this paper I will examine the ideas of Stanislav Grof and Ken Wilber.
Both these thinkers deals with human consciousness and human development, but as we shall see in this paper, they deal with this area from two very different point of views.
I will begin this investigation by describing Stanislav Grof’s system and the context in which he builds his system. After that I will deal with the system of Ken Wilber and in what context he builds up his system. The two first chapters that deals with each their system is quite long. The reason for this is that they are both large and comprehensive systems, and to get a good overview on both of them one has to describe some essential key terms. And even though the two first chapters take up a lot of space, they still leave out quite a bit of each system, but to show the differences between these two systems I have focused on the parts of each system that shows clear differences between the systems.
In the last chapter I will discuss some of the fundamental differences they both have and view what they use as a base for their arguments. In the discussion I also focus on the differences between the two systems. Both Stanislav Grof and Ken Wilber points out that they have agreements that reaches far. But these agreements are not taken into conciderations here.
As we will see, the main difference they have and where they can not agree evolves around the question; “what are the possibilities for an individual to enter transpersonal realms?”. And this is where I have focused my attention.
The paper will only be focused on Stanislav Grof’s and Ken Wilber’s systems and these two’s controversy, and is based only on the writings of Stanislav Grof and Ken Wilber.
I will not take into concideration some basic philosophical issues that could have been under focus. I will not take into concideration the deeper ontological discussion on whether transpersonal levels exist or not. The subject matter deals with human development and human potential of attaining transpersonal realms, as these two authors calls it, and it is dealing with the differences between the two authors and their systems.







Stanislav Grof:

· Background on Stanislav Grof and His Work.
Stanislav Grof is a Czech born psychiatrist. His work over the past 35 years has dealt with Nonordinary States of Consciousness (NOSC). He has put up a thorough system to explain these NOSC. This system contains two levels: the level of the sensory barrier and the individual unconscious, and the transpersonl level. The experiential phenomenas of the transpersonal level consists of two important categories, the reliving of the birth-process and the breaking free of the boundaries of all notion and limits of one’s self. For the experiences of the birth-related material the BPM model (Basal Perinatal Matrices, which consists of 4 stages) serves as an explanatory model, and we will later see why these types of experiences fall under the transpersonal level. As said, Grof has been working with NOSC for over 35 years. This study in these types of experiences started with his introduction to the psychoactive substance LSD-25 . This substance showed to have remarkable effects on the human psyche, and it was later, according to Grof, shown that these effects and the experiential range of this substance had great therapeutic potential and highly challenged the mechanistic worldview, and the orthodox psychotherapeutic techniques built on the mechanistic worldview .
LSD changed Grof’s life. Grof started out as a therapist in the freudian tradition, and his techniques were therefore dictated by that mainframe. But it soon became clear to Grof that freudian interpretation models and techniques were very vague, and actually showed little or no understanding of a vast variety of the human psyche and a vast variety of experiences. As a consequence of this, Grof had to look elsewhere for more valid answers, and this started his new psychiatric and psychological growth. Grof, together with his wife, later developed a technique that can open up to the same experiential range without using psychoactive substances, this technique is known as Holotropic Breathwork.
It is important to note that the main goal for Grof in the book Beyond the Brain, is to show the inefficiancy of the mechanistic worldview to explain anything more than just some material based laws, and that the whole medicinal industry which is a consequense of this worldview is highly incapable of any real diagnosis and cure of a ‘disease’. What Grof wants to do in this book is to show the incapability of this mechanistic worldview, and its incapabilities of explaining anything true about the human psyche and the vast varieties of experiences an individual can experience.
Grof speaks from a psychiatrist’s point of view, which is the reason for his focusing on the psychiatric and medical industry.
This point of view also has the consequense that what is being put forth is a carthography of the mind based on clinical research, and he therefore offers only an explanation model for a vast variety of experiences and gives techniques and guidance to use different philosophical systems as a contemporary explanatory model of a transpersonal experience. This of course reflects a world view, which as importantly pointed out before, challenges the mechanistic worldview, and gives room for experiences such as ego-death, birht-rebirth, and symbiotic experiences along with a wide range of other experiential phenomenas. All these experiences can not be explained in a newtonian-cartesian dualistic frame.



· The Traditions Grof Is Inspired By:
In chapter three of Beyond the Brain, Grof gives a brief account of what systems he usually use for interpretation models.
The main systems Grof uses is the classical psychoanalyses of Sigmund Freud and the conceptual systems of Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Reich, Otto Rank , and Carl Gustav Jung.
Grof points out that each of these systems can be used to a limited extent in different stages of the levels of experiences he works with.
Usually when a subject has moved from the biographical area and moves further into death-rebirth, or the reexperiencing of the birth process the freudian terminology becomes obsolete and other explanatory models become necessary.
For example; jungian psychology has been aware of the importance of death-rebirth and reliving of the birthprocess and has studied this carefully.
There are many examples of which model can be used for what types of experiences, but that field is too big to go into now. This is just to give a picture of where Grof gets some of his inspiration from.
All this becomes more complex, he says, when one takes into concideration the psychological systems of huge spiritual traditons such as various forms of yoga, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, alchemy, or Kabbalah etc.
He says to this that “There is an abysmal gap between most western schools of psychotherapy and these refined and sophisticated theories of the mind based on centuries of deep study of consciousness.”
To explain all the systems Stanislav Grof uses for possible explanatory models in different sessions is an impossible task here. But what is important to notice is that his system ‘digs back’ and does what Wilber would say, find spirituality ‘through the back door’. In the sense that his system is going through the subconscious levels and through that accesses the transpersonal realms. This method is what is usually referred to as Depth Psychology.

Let us now look at the model Grof puts forward to explain the vast variety and spectrum of experiences several individuals have experienced during his time as a psychotherapist using techniques which can bring experiences of NOSC.

· Grof’s system:

For a more in depth explanation of Grof’s system, it shall be made clear that he distincts four levels, or realms of experiences of the human psyche (these four fall under two main categories, as we shall see): 1) the sensory barrier, 2) the individual unconscious, 3) the level of birth and death, and 4) the transpersonal domain.
The first two fall under one category. This category deals with the biographical material, the individual’s psyche that is. The latter two both deal with experiences that goes beyond the individual.


1. The individual level:
According to Grof, experiences into deep self exploration often starts with aesthetically interesting experiences that consist of images and visuals of rich geometrical patterns and have colorfull qualities. These experiences does not really give way for any deeper understanding of the individual’s psyche, they do not offer any real significance to the process of self-exploration and self-understanding. These types of experiences seem to be more of a sensory barrier an individual have to pass through to get on to the next level, which is the individual unconscious level.
Grof points out that the individual unconscious level has a large variety of texts and analyses concerning it. This is because of the fact that most traditional psychotherapeutical schools are limited to that level only.
It is on this level that everything from the individual’s life that is an unresolved conflict, a repressed traumatic memory, or an incomplete psychological gestalt, can emerge and dominate the experience. Grof points out that only one criteria is needed for such an unconscious phenomena to occur; that is, it needs to be of sufficient emotional relevance.
What Grof has found out about the individual unconscious and the memories of emotional and physical experiences, is that they are stored as complex constellations, not as bits and pieces. He has termed this COEX system, for condensed experiences.
What signifies a COEX system, is that the emotionally charged experiences from different parts of a person’s life has a common denominator that brings the experiences together in the same emotional quality, or physical sensation.
As Grof says;
“Each COEX has a theme that characterizes it. For example, a single COEX constellation can contain all major memories of events that were humiliating, degrading, or shameful. The common denominator of another COEX might be terror of experiences that involved claustrophobia, suffocation, and feelings associated with oppressing and confining circumstances.”
According to this system we can see that there is a dynamic pattern in the traumas of an individual’s life.
Grof states that COEX is not only relevant on the biographical level, as he thought in the beginning of his work in NOSC. Further research has shown that these dynamic patterns seems to represent general principles that works on all levels of the human psyche, and that often a person has to undergo some ‘digging’ in his own individual unconscious to be able to enter realms of Birth-Death and Transpersonal realms of existence.
As the self-exploration deepens, these levels become attainable to experience. As Grof states: most COEX’s are dynamically connected to ‘specific facets of the birth process’.
And this leads us to the next level of Grof’s system: the transpersonal level.

2. The Transpersonal level:
Here lies the most original model of Grof’s system, the BPM model. This model contains four stages that all have experiential phenomena that can be linked to certain stages of the birth process.
The reason BPM is classified as a transpersonal domain of experiences, is because of the fact that people, when they reach this level of the unconscious, feel that they have broken the limits of their own self, and can feel pain, joys, or suffering of the world at large and the experiences can even seem to extend to cosmic levels.
BPM’s four stages can be distinguished as such.
1. BPM 1.
This level consist experiential data that can be symbolically connected to the first level of birth where the fetus/child is lying in the womb. There is a feeling of cosmic unity, everything is taken care of. There is often a feeling of what Grof calls ‘oceanic’ unity and timelessnes.
2. BPM 2.
This level of experiences can be linked to the starting of the delivering of the child. Experiences linked to this level is of a horrific nature, in where the safe reality one was in while lying in the womb, now falls apart, and there is a feeling of “no way out”, one is trapped in a cosmic meaningless gulf.
3. BPM 3.
This level’s experiential phenomanons is linked to the experience of being in the birth canal. But here there is not the same feeling of a trapped “no way out”-situation. Here one can see an end to the struggle, a way out.
4. BPM 4.
This level is related to the third stage of the clinical birth, the actual delivery of the child. The struggle through the birth canal is over and the child is released, and can start its new life as an individual.
The symbolic counterpart of this experience, is the experience of dying and being born again. If allowed to happen, the struggle related to BPM 2 or 3 can lead to an experience of annihilation of one’s self on all possible levels. This experience is called ‘ego-death’ and often leads to the transpersonal realms.
The symbolic significance of loosing every philosophical identification with one’s self can be drawned from a huge variety of the recorded collective unconscious, since a majority of cultures have dealt with these types of experiences and have constructed mythological forms appropriate to describe an ‘ego-death’ experience.
An experience like this can be experienced in connection with destructive deities such as Moloch, Shiva, Kali a.s.o. or in full identification with Christ, Adonis, Dionysus a.s.o.

These transpersonal experiences have a multifaceted symbolism to it, but the common denominator is that the individual experiencing it, feels that his or her consciousness has expanded beyond the usual limits of the self.
The vast variety of transpersonal experiences is too huge to deal with here.

The important thing to notice in this investigation of Grof’s system, is that his system explains the possibility of going into transpersonal realms of existence by going through the unconscious.
Grof’s system is basically a system where human development and growth does not necessarily follow a given logic , but there is a tendency for individuals to dig back through the individual’s unconscious and through that entering transpersonal realms.





Ken Wilber:

· Background on Ken Wilber and His Work:
Ken Wilber is more of a philosopher than Grof. What Wilber tries to give in the two books I focus my attention on here, is an explanatory model of the evolution of human consciousness. He does this based on the individual human (The Atman Project – A Ttranspersonal View of Human Development), and also tries to give the same model of evolution in human consciousness for the entire human race as it has evolved throughout history (Up From Eden – A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution).
To give a brief account of Ken Wilber’s intellectual development, and circumstances that have fostered his ideas, it shall be said that he dropped out of graduate school at age 24, and had started an intense practise of Zen Buddhism.
His first books, as he puts under his fase 1, defends the Romantic notion of finding spirit and transpersonality through nature. This he later finds to be a wrong view of the nature of reality, and his break with this view comes in his two most important works, The Atman Project and Up From Eden.
These two books have been described as milestones in the research of human consciousness. And noone, according to many thinkers in this field, have ever done this much to unite the tradition of West with the tradition of the East. The idea he defends in these two books is that human development consists of layers that an individual has to go through, starting with an unconscious unity (prepersonal), going to a conscious feeling of separation (personal) and ultimately ending with a superconscious awareness of the true Unity (transpersonal). Wilber tries to combine many traditions from the East and the West together in one coherent framework. When it comes to defining his standpoint more precisely Wilber puts himself in the tradition of perennial philosophy. Wilber uses the definition of God as found in the perennial philosophy, which is important to notice since Wilber’s system is based on humans striving for Unity with God:
“It is true that there is some sort of Infinite, some type of Absolute Godhead, but it cannot properly be conceived as a colossal Being, a great Daddy, or a big Creator set apart from its creations, from things and events and human beings themselves. Rather, it is best conceived (metaphorically) as the ground or suchness or condition of all things and events.”
Wilber’s system argues this underlying Unity, and that human beings evolution and development is always a strive for Unity.

· The Traditions Wilber Is Inspired By:
We see in The Atman Project, that he, as Grof, is inspired by a lot of western psychology schools. He often refers to Freud, Boisen, Jung a.s.o.. But by referring to Jung, he does not put himself in the Jungian tradition of finding transpersonal realms through the unconscious, but merely uses Jung when referring to certain archetypal levels. One major difference we can see in the tradition is that Ken Wilber does not include Otto Rank.
In finding transpersonal realms, he puts himself in the tradition of Robert Assagioli method, which is often referred to as a height psychological method. The critique given of depth psychology from this standpoint, is that depth psychology is fundamentally romantic and regressive, since it tries to find transpersonal realms in the unconscious, which is closely related to nature. In Wilber’s words it means that instead of finding transpersonal realms through the ‘front door’ they try to find it through the ‘back door’.
As Grof, Wilber also critisizes the western psychological tradition of being inefficient in saying anything real about the transpersonal realms. He criticizes the western psychological tradition for being reductionist in their way, and states that they try to intrepret transcendence into transpersonal realms as regression into prepersonal realms.
For describing anything ‘real’ about the transpersonal realms, one has to go to the mystic traditions of East and West.
Wilber and Grof both have a critique of traditional western psychology, and both agree upon having to go to the mystic traditions for explanatory models of the transpersonal realms.

We will here take a look at Ken Wilber’s system and after that clarify some of the differences between the two systems.



· Ken Wilber’s system:
As seen before Wilber’s system consist of three levels; 1) the prepersonal, 2) the personal, and 3) the transpersonal.
Wilber also explains two movements, the outward arc and the inward arc. The outward arc signifies the movement that happens on the prepersonal levels up till the self-conscious, or the personal levels. The inward arc signifies the transcending of the self consciousness and the movement to the higher subtle, or transpersonal, realms. Those arcs are the movement between the two extremes of human consciousness development, the alpha and omega.

· The Levels:
1. The prepersonal.
According to Wilber the prepersonal level of existence is the level where an individual has not yet become conscious of its own self. It has here a feeling of unity, one does not distinct self from other. This feeling of unity reminds of the freudian ‘oceanic’ sense of unity. One has no concept of time. This level is bound to the surroundings and the body.
2. The personal.
The personal level is the level where a self is created. It is the level where one looses the unity with one’s surroundings, since one learns that there is an outside world, and an inside world. This is the level where the person develops language, syntax, and concepts, all means and tools to transcend into the next level. Here one starts to distinguish one’s self and mind with the body and its surroundings.

3. The transpersonal.
This is the level where true unity steps in. It is not to be confused with the level of the prepersonal level. Because the unity of the prepersonal level is distinct from this level, by the fact that the individual on the prepersonal level is simply just ignorant, or not aware of time, self, and other. The individual on the prepersonal level simply does not make distinctions between self and other because of a lack of awarenes.
On the transpersonal level, the individual has grown an awareness of self and other, an awareness of time, and an awareness of the individual’s unavoidable death.
So by going from the lower to the higher realms, one gains more awareness and insight, and become more consious of its own excistence.
So here one transcends the boundaries of the feeling of self and other, not in the prepersonal way of becoming unconscious of them, but in a way that raises one above the physical distinctions and boundaries.

· Form of Development:
The content of Wilber’s system is in this context not as important to investigate as is the form of development. The content of every stage or level is very different, but the form of the development remains the same. We see in Wilber’s system a foreward going development which does not forget or neglect the lower levels in favour of the higher levels, but grows to incorporate each level, so that each level goes from being a whole, to becoming part of a higher system. Like a ladder where every step is dependent on the previous. So an individual goes ‘upward’ from the low/unconscious level through the conscious level till the higher subtle realms and ultimately leads to Unity.
This development is explained by an occurrence of a differentiation of the lower order structure by a higher order structure, which in its essence is more complex and therefore more unified. The higher order structure that emerges is assisted by a symbolic structure which means that “at each stage of ascent an appropriate symbolic form – itself emerging at that stage – transforms each particular mode of consciousness into its higher-order consciousness.”
As this higher-order structure emerges, the self identifies with this new order and becomes bound to the new structure, until the next one emerges. The self is no longer bound by the lower structure, and does not see that lower structure as the whole, but rather, as Wilber explains, incorporates the lower-order structure into the new higher-order structure as part of that new whole. Wilber points out that the self does not throw away the lower-order structure. The new ‘tools’ of the higher-order is used to incorporate the lower-order structure into the new higher-order structure.
As he explains:
“As the ego-mind was then differentiated from the body it could operate on the body and the world with its tools (concepts, syntax, etc.)”
Wilber puts up seven main points that is characteristic for each level of development.
“1) a higher-order structure emerges in consciousness (with help of symbolic forms); 2) the self identifies its being with that higher structure; 3) the next higher-order structure eventually emerges; 4) the self dis-identifies with the lower structure and shifts it essential identity to the higher structure; 5) consciousness thereby transcends the lower structure; 6) and becomes capable of operating on that lower structure from the higher-order level; 7) such that all preceding levels can then be integrated in consciousness, and ultimately as Consciousness.”

This sums up Ken Wilber’s system very precisely. As said before, his system is basically, and simply put, a development, or transcendence , from lower to higher levels until there is Unity.
This development through each level is not easy Wilber points out. He explains each development as a form of death of the lower-order structure, and since people are afraid of dying, because they are afraid of loosing themselves totally (As we have seen is impossible according to Wilber, since ones self incorporates every level into the bigger whole, and that this self ultimately will be incorporated into true Unity.), and this fear is what drives people to find substitutional unities through e.g. sex, money, food, religious symbols etc. And this is what he calls Atman project. What is important to notice in this, is that he sees no difference between the death of each level and the biological death of a human being. This is a mere shift and rise in the spectrums of consciousness. The consequense of this system is that one has to go through all levels of consciousness before one can attain true Unity.
We see that there is not the same digging back as in Grof’s system, as Wilber says himself:
“We grow, we don’t dig back”

Ken Wilber’s system is basically a system where human consciousness development is a process through stages starting from level 1 going to level 3. In that order.

The next chapter will deal with the main differences between Stanislav Grof’s and Ken Wilber’s systems.

The Controversy:
We can see in the two previous chapters that Stanislav Grof and Ken Wilber are both using a wide variety of the western psychological tradition to intrepret certain levels of their own systems. They both find the western psychological tradition to be sufficient for the biographical individual level, or the Prepersonal to the Personal level. They both agree upon the inefficiency of the western psychological traditions to explain anything in the transpersonal levels and find inspiration from more esoteric/mystic traditions for explaining the transpersonal levels. (Though, Stanislav Grof uses, limitly he points out, C.G. Jung for explaining cosmic archetypes occuring in the reexperience of the birth process.).
We see that there are some very basic differences, one of them is the very sense of how to enter transpersonal realms. For Wilber it is an absurdity to enter the transpersonal realms through going into the unconscious levels, this is to him regressive and is confusing prepersonal with transpersonal.
Grof’s research has shown that very often a person does go back through the unconscious, and even goes as far back as reliving the birth-process. Ken Wilber does not find it relevant to take the birth-process into concideration.
According to Stanislav Grof this is a major flaw and renders Ken Wilber’s system highly unsatisfying. According to Grof the fetus’s embryonic existence and the hours spent in the ‘life-threatening’ experience during the birth-process is just as important to take into concideration as the immediate existence after birth, which is where Wilber starts his sytem, if one wants to give a serious and comprehensive explanation of human consciousness.
The basic difference between these two is evolving around the importance of the embryonic and the birth-process.
This difference is based on a fundamental controversy on how human consciousness works. When one reads Ken Wilber’s works it is easy to see that he follows a very chronological order, as pointed out above. Stanislav Grof on the other hand sees human consciousness as working on a holographic level, and states that a client during a session in NOSC does not follow a ‘linear trajectory’. As Grof says in an article where he raises the differences between himself and Ken Wilber:
“Under these circumstances, the therapeutic process does not follow a linear trajectory. If it is not restricted by the strait-jacket of the therapist's professional convictions, it will freely move between the biographical, perinatal, and transpersonal levels, often even within the same session.”
The problem when it comes to Wilber, according to Grof, is that Wilber builds up his system based only on his own studies and spiritual practice and follows his own inner logical cohesion. When one puts up a system, logic is certainly a good thing to have, but to neglect such a huge variety of important clinical data that, to Grof, shows evidence of the importance of the perinatal period in sessions dealing with NOSC renders Wilber’s system incomplete.
The argument Ken Wilber can give against this view on the importance of birth and the embryonic existence before birth is that before being born the individual has no consciousness, so it is not necessary to take into concideration when one discusses the evolution of human consciousness. The important period starts immediately after birth when a baby has been separated from the mother and can now start creating an own personal self.
Grof points out again and again that for many persons that works with NOSC daily the embryonic and perinatal realm seems very important to take into concideration when trying to explain anything comprehensive about the nature of human consciousness.

The difference between these two systems, as I see it, lies in the context of the life and works of the two authors. They are diametrical opposites in the sense that Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist that deals practically with patients. As a consequense of his professional practice he has put up a system that can be used as a model to explain where the client under the influence of LSD or under the practice of holotropic breathworking can enter.
Ken Wilber on the other hand deals with this subject philosophically from texts he has read and from his own personal experiences. He has no clinical practice and tries not to give an explanatory model for patients or clients but rather a theory of how human consciousness evolves in general.
The problem with Wilber’s approach is that he tries to make his own inner logic go for the entirety of humanity, without taking into concideration the experiential data observed and experienced by many individuals.
It might not seem logical for many people, and especially not Ken Wilber, that one can find spirituality through ‘the back door’, or said otherwise, by going through the unconscious levels.
The whole discussion whether to find spirituality through the ‘front’ or ‘back door’ can be asked by the question ‘Can children have transpersonal experiences?’. Of course such a thing would be absurd according to Ken Wilber’s logic. But nevertheless a lot of experiential data shows that children in fact are capable of entering transpersonal realms.
As Grof writes:
“Actual observations have shown that transpersonal experiences, both spontaneous and evoked, are fairly common in children. Ian Stevenson's meticulous study of spontaneous past-life experiences in children involving more than three thousand cases is just the most salient example (Stevenson 1966, 1984, 1987). I have myself observed several clearly transpersonal experiences, including sequences of psychospiritual death and rebirth, in ten and twelve year olds who have participated in sessions of holotropic breath-work”
It becomes clear from reading Ken Wilber’s The Atman Project that an individual has to go through the levels put up by himself in order for the transpersonal realms to be accessed. This logic makes it impossible for children, who according to him have not entered the mature ego-state, to enter the transpersonal realms.
This is not to say that Ken Wilber’s system is all wrong, it might be the case in many circumstances that the model he puts up in The Atman Project might fit for certain individuals. But in the case of what the possibilities of an individual to enter transpersonal realms are his system seem to be too generalising to go for a vast amount of individuals who have experienced entering transpersonal realms by not having to go through each spectrum that Ken Wilber puts forth.



Conclusion:
I have now investigated the systems of Stanislav Grof and Ken Wilber.
We have seen that they each have different goals in their books and come from a different approach to the same area. They both deal with human consciousness and developmental issues in an individual’s life (Grof) and in humanity as a whole (Wilber) and it has been interesting to see what basic difference there are between them in the context of how to enter transpersonal realms.
In Grof’s system, that deals mostly with patients, we see that there is a focus on the birth-process and in the ‘digging back’ of an individual’s consciousness till the reliving of the birth-process and we see how a person through reliving a birth-process is able to enter the transpersonal realms.
In Wilber’s system, that deals with a theory based on his own experiences, we see how a person creates and generates a self-consciousness that stands as the basis for going further ‘up’ into the transpersonal realms, and ultimately this leads to Unity.
We see how these two systems differ in that Grof’s system is a holographic view on how consciousness and the human mind works. This conclusion is derived from a huge amount of clinical data and personal practise of over 35 years. On the other hand as a conclusion of his studies and own self development through practising Zen Buddhism, Wilber’s system stresses a very logical structure that goes from point Alpha to point Omega.
I have put forth these systems up against each other focusing on the differences between them and ended up supporting Grof’s system in favour of Wilber’s system. I have found that Wilber’s system is unable to argue its cause since what he wants in his system, is to explain human consciousness development and a human potential to enter transpersonal realms according to his system of human consciousness development, and it seems that he neglects too much clinical data that shows his system to be unconvincing when it comes to what the human potential of entering transpersonal realms are.
And this finishes this investigation of the Grof/Wilber controversy.


Notes:

LSD-25 was first synthezised in 1938 by Albert Hofmann, and tested on himself in 1943. To read more about this discovery, read LSD – My Problem Child by Albert Hofmann.
By this is included the entire range of medical model which, according to Grof, is built on the mechanistic worldview. See chapter 5 in Beyond the Brain by Stanislav Grof.
For a more in depth explanation of all this, one can read the book series which in danish is called Den indre rejse 1-3.
Otto Rank studied the phenomena of birth-trauma intensely. Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 171.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 140.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 139.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 139.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 93.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 95.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 96.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 96.
Stanislav Grof and Hal Zina Bennet; The Holotropic Mind, pp. 24.
Stanislav Grof; Beyond the Brain, pp. 97.
Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain, pp. 102 – 131. Here he explains the BPM model in depth.
I have in due to lack of space put up Grof’s system chronologically, but he often stresses that an individual not necessarily follows the system chronologically.
Ken Wilber, Introduction to Volume One of The Collected Works of Ken Wilber. Pp. 10.
Ken Wilber: Up From Eden, pp. 4.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, pp. 5.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, described in chapters 2-9.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, pp. 93.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, pp. 93.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, pp. 94.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, pp. 94.
By the word transcending Ken Wilber means developing.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, pp. 110.
Stanislav Grof, Ken Wilber's Spectrum Psychology, URL: http://primal-page.com/grofken.htm 13. december 2004.
Stanislav Grof, Ken Wilber's Spectrum Psychology, URL: http://primal-page.com/grofken.htm 13. december 2004.
Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, pp. 53.





Bibliography:

· Primary Litterature:

Grof, Stanislav: Beyond the Brain – Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. USA, State University of New York Press, 1985.

Wilber, Ken: The Atman Project – A Transpersonal View of Human Development. USA, The Theosophical Publishing House (Quest Books), Second Edition, 1996.

· Secondary Litterature:

Grof, Stanislav with Bennet, Hal Zina: The Holotropic Mind – The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. USA, HarperCollins Books, 1993.

Wilber, Ken: Up From Eden – A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution. USA, Shambala Publication, Inc., 1983.

· Article:
Grof, Stanislav: Ken Wilber's Spectrum Psychology. URL: http://primal-page.com/grofken.htm 30/12-2004.

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Mvh
Odden.

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Hey Odde, det er en ganske udmærket opgave du har begået her. Jeg kan dog ikke forstå at du skriver at de perinatale matricer hører under det transpersonlige område. Grof beskriver i sine bøger det perinatale område som en selvstændig kategori, som man oftest må gennemarbejde for at få "hul igennem" til det transpersonlige.

Derudover må jeg betegne det som en gang flueknepperi hvis Grof og Wilber mener at være uenige. Hvis jeg har forstået det rigtigt, kan man godt se det som Grof kalder at grave i sin underbevidsthed som værende en serie oplevelser som man skal igennem for at integrere sig selv i den nye og større helhed som Wilber taler om. Hvis d'herrer Grof og Wilber ikke selv kan se det, vil jeg sige at de er lidt for opslugte af detaljerne i deres egne systemer til at kunne se ud over egne næsetipper.

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Der er ingen planet B.

Ja, det er nok mere et spørgsmål om semantik, for han skriver på side 98 i Beyond the Brain - Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy:



Dette beskriver han under afsnittet om perinatale oplevelser i forlængelse af COEX systemets beskrivelse, og det kan i min forståelse godt tolkes som transpersonligt.



Forskellen ligger i to ret forskellige udviklingssyn. For Wilber er det en umulighed at indtræde transpersonlige oplevelser gennem det ubevidste, for ham findes det kun progressivt. Og for Grof viser det sig ofte med patienter at det er gennem det ubevidste at der ofte skal graves tilbage for at indtræde transpersonlige områder.
Men nu skal du også huske at jeg her fokuserer på en forskel som så bliver tydeliggjort indenfor et enkelt område i deres tankesystemer, og at begge tænkere faktisk er meget enige på en lang række punkter, men dog har de forskelle i deres systemer. Og det er jo fair nok.
Det var interessant at undersøge disse systemer

Mvh
Odden

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Ja, det er klart der er nogle overlapninger, men grundlæggende beskriver han fødselsmatricerne i en kategori for sig selv.



Det jeg mener med flueknepperiet er at man jo i Wilber's system sikkert vil få en masse nye oplevelser når man udvikler sig. Ligeledes får man ved ifølge Grof's system en masse oplevelser i løbet af sin udviklingsproces. Hvis nu man tænker på dette med et åbent sind, kan man nemt forestille sig at processen er den samme, men ordene der bruges til at beskrive den er forskellige. Jeg ser med andre ord ikke nogen virkelig konflikt mellem de 2. Dette siger jeg dog udelukkende på baggrund af det du har skrevet om Wilber, eftersom jeg kun har læst værker af Grof, men stadig har Wilber til gode.

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Der er ingen planet B.

Vel, hvis du læser på Wilber's system vil du se at konsekvensen af hans system bliver at barnet ikke har nogen som helst bevidsthed i den embryoniske fase. Hvilket gør at der ikke vil være noget at gå tilbage at gennemleve.
Wilber laver til sidst i sin bog, hvor han følger den tibetanske dødebog tæt, en beskrivelse af hvad der sker når man dør og vandrer fra forskellige bardo-tilstande, hvor, hvis man ikke er klar til at give slip, ryger hele vejen ned gennem lagene indtil man igen er ubevidst i en krop, som så er et foster. Og efter det negligerer han så hele den embryoniske fase og starter sin teori fra lige efter barnet er født.
Grof's kliniske praksis har vist at der kan opstå traumer under den embryoniske fase, som må betyde at der må være en bevidsthed der kan påvirkes.

Så i forlængelse af min opgave er det hoved-dilemmaet. Som i grunden ikke er en lille detalje, men et ret stort spørgsmål det drejer sig om.
Er man til en hvis grad bevidst i den embryoniske fase? Wilber siger nej, Grof siger ja. Sådan kort sagt altså .
Der var nogen der foreslog mig at læse Arthur Janov, som et eller andet sted hen vist kunne ses som en mellem mand og nok måske lappe et par huller i hans teorier. Så det vil jeg gøre en gang når jeg får tid.

Angående det med BPM og transpersonlige så tilføjer jeg i en rettet udgave en fodnote omkring det.

Mvh
Odden

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Ok, nu kom der også lidt mere kød på... Det burde du da have skrevet ind i opgaven, hvis der havde været plads(du var begrænset til et vist antal sider, right?).

Jeg vil godt tilslutte mig dem der anbefaler at læse Janov. Jeg læste hans bog "Primalskriget", og den gjorde et stærkt indtryk på mig. Janov er dog begrænset af at han ikke anerkender den transpersonlige del af psyken, hvilket er problematisk i forhold til hans terapeutiske teknikker, efter som de er ganske kraftige og derfor i stand til at åbne for netop den type oplevelser.

Men jeg må se at få kigget på noget Wilber...

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Der er ingen planet B.

Tilgiv, at jeg blander mig, selvom jeg kun har læst Grof (til gengæld er Wilber nu kommet på min 'what-to-do-list'), og bær venligst over med, at dele af nedenstående er af lommefilosofisk karakter.
Jeg også vil lige bemærke, at jeg også synes det er en rigtig god opgave du har begået Oddie

Men så til sagen:
Med hensyn til om Grof og Wilber i virkeligheden siger det samme, eller om de er diamentrale modsætninger i deres udviklingssyn, vil jeg nu spørge om det ikke kan være både og? (som Yeti også antyder, når han siger, at Grof og Wilber nok slet ikke er så forskellige endda).

I og for sig er de naturligvis diamentrale i og med, at de to udviklingsretninger - den regressive og den progressive - er modsatrettede. Men samtidig er målet for dem begge det samme; nemlig at opnå den transpersonlige bevidsthedstilstand.
Spørgsmålet er, om den ene retnings mulighed udelukker den andens?
Mit spørgsmål er, om ikke det kan tænkes muligt, at man kan nå samme sted hen, ad to forskellige veje, endda selvom de som udgangspunkt peger i hver sin retning!?

Denne tankegang forekommer bl.a. i Europæisk naturmystik hos Jacob Böhme, og siden hos Koesegarten og en række flere. Det er den såkaldte hermetiske filosofi, fordi dens kosmologi netop 'lukker' sig om sig selv i en cirkel - eller måske snarere kugle. Tanken er, at alt - selv modsætninger - udspringer af samme enhed (guddommelighed) og derfor ultimativt er udtryk for samme (Paradokser findes derfor også kun i menneskets bevidsthed). Derfor er det også muligt, ifølge den hermetiske filosofi, at opnå erkendelse af det guddommelige, såvel via en intuitiv-ubevidst bevidsthedstilstand, som via en rationel-formålsrettet bevidsthed. Vejene er diamentrale, men målet er det samme.

Jeg synes at dette harmonerer udemærket med den cirkulære tænkning, der kendetegner de østlige traditioner, som både Grof og Wilber henter inspiration hos (er der ikke bl.a. lidt yin-yang over det med at modsætninger er forenet i samme enhed!? Og nu hvor vi er ved cirkelformen, så mødes man jo på midten, hvis to går hver sin retning ad en cirkels bue -- ja, ja, jeg ved godt, at nu bliver jeg for alvor lomme-agtig).

Personligt har jeg flere gange under indflydelse af psykedeliske stoffer oplevet noget, som jeg tolker som transpersonlige bevidsthedstilstande (opløsning af selvet/jeget; følelse af kosmisk enhed). Men jeg har aldrig (i hvert fald med min bevidsthed) regredieret for at nå dertil - så vidt jeg kan tolke alting, heller ikke på nogen symbolsk måde: Hvad jeg mener hermed, er, at de ting jeg oplever, kan jeg jeg hverken konkret, kropsligt, erindringsmæssigt eller symbolsk forbinde til fødselsoplevelsen.
Min pointe er, at jeg for mit eget vedkommende opnår transcendens ad progressiv vej. Derfor tænker jeg - for mit vedkommende - ikke så meget på oplevelsen som en rejse indad (Den indre rejse), men snarere som en rejse udad mod verdensaltet; kosmos; enheden; altheden/intetheden. Men det betyder ikke, at jeg udelukker rejsen indad, som en mulig retning at gå, for at opnå den samme bevidsthedstilstand. Det skulle Grofs rigeligt store empiriske materiale jo kunne bevidne at det også er. Måske er det jeg gør i virkeligheden en vekselvirkning mellem at gå 'de to retninger'!?!
(I øvrigt må jeg tilføje, er jeg langt fra personligt afklaret med, hvordan jeg forstår og fortolker den psykedeliske oplevelse, for ikke at tale om min spirituelle tilstand og vækst )

Tilbage til modsætningen mellem Grof og Wilber: Som du selv er inde på Oddie, så må man nok delvist søge forklaringen herpå i den kontekst gennem hvilken de søger den transpersonlige bevidsthedstilstand, altså i det formål og motiv, som de hver især har med opnåelse af denne: For Grof er det et spørgsmål om helning og helbredelse, for Wilber er det et spørgsmål om vækst. Helning og helbredelse angår fortiden - vækst angår fremtiden. I det lys må man jo konstatere, at man må regrediere og gå indad, for at nå frem til det erindrede, mens man må foretage en progressiv bevægelse, for at opnå vækst (men måske ikke nødvendigvis udadvendt - det ved jeg ikke).
Men man må her spørge, ligesom Yeti gør, når han skriver:



Er de to tilgange måske kun på overfladen er diamentrale? Hænger de ikke mere sammen end man umiddelbart skulle tro? For gennem væksten kan også helning opstå, og gennem helning kan vækst opstå.
Dette harmonere i nogen grad med naturens mekanismer (og her ville Böhme og Koesegarten klappe i deres pølsegrabber): For hvis vi anskuer et sår, viser det sig, at helningen faktisk foregår ved samme principper som vækst.

Ja, ja... jeg håber det fremstår nogenlunde klart, hvor det er jeg gerne vil hen. Ren tænkning og meget lidt erfaring er det under alle omstændigheder. Hvad siger i?

I har begge to ret i, at hvis man kigger på selve udviklingen så kan man godt sige at de ikke er så forskellige. Grof har oftest med patienter at gøre der har knudepunkter i deres underbevidsthed som gør at der skal graves tilbage for at få nogle fastere fundamenter at arbejde sig ind i de transpersonlige oplevelser at gøre. Og Wilber kan så ses om en der snakker til sunde og raske mennesker der er på en vej til "oplysning" (eller whatever man nu kalder det) og forudsætter at det foregår ret gnidningsfrit.
Dog, når det kommer til potentialet, så er de grundlæggende set uenige i deres syn. For Grof er det nødvendigt med den såkaldte dybdepsykologiske teknik, hvori man i teorien kan indtræde transpersonlige områder gennem det ubevidste. For Wilber, der følger det der er blevet kaldt højdepsykologien, er den dybdepsykologiske metode en regressiv metode, da det underbevidste i denne traditions øjne er noget der ligger diametralt modsat det overbevidste område.
Så kort sagt er forskellen her et spørgsmål omkring den menneskelige bevidsthed som virkende som en ren og skær lineart entitet (Wilber), eller om menneskets bevidsthed virker holografisk (Grof).

Så på det punkt ser jeg umiddelbart ikke noget løsningsmoment.

Men ellers er begge tænkere enige om en lang række punkter. Wilbers forklaring på personlighedsudviklingen og derefter opløsningen af det til en højere enhed og de instanser der spiller ind der meget gode, og Grof er nok i den sammenhæng enig, og det ser ud til han også vil mene, som i begge er inde på, at de underbevidste knuder der forhåbentlig er mere eller mindre løst under en session, skal integreres i ens liv for derved at have bedre basis for at indtræde transpersonlige områder. Hvilket vil gøre dem begge, rent udviklingsmæssigt set, lineære. Men det er mig der snakker her, uden at være ekspert på området, så det er løse spekulationer.

Ifht til din nævnelse af Jacob Böhme, er det interessant du nævner denne naturtænker, da visse naturtænkere ofte i deres tankesystemer kan gøre op med forførende begreber såsom "højdepsykologi" og "dybdepsykologi".
Det er jo meget nemt at se de begreber og så blive forført af den terminologi og derved se det som fuldstændig forskellige retninger, selvom de begge arbejder indenfor transpersonlig psykologi.
Her tænker jeg selv på Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), som i sagens natur går fra en dybdepsykologisk teknik, til en mere højdepsykologisk i sine værker.(og pas her på med ikke at putte disse begreber for meget på Brunos tænkning, for de fandtes ikke på den tid, og der er helt andre forudsætninger til, men som menneskelig udvikling og potentiale er det et interessant perspektiv at tegne)
Da han i sine værker starter med mnemotekniske praksisser, der er en teknik der søger indad i hukommelserne, og derefter i senere værker giver forklaringer på værensstige som mennesket i sin erkendelse stiger opad for at erkende (endene med Enhed) udviklingsmæssigt den vej. altså, indad(ned) og derefter op.
Jeg har endnu ikke læst Jacob Böhme, men mit næste projekt bliver nok noget naturmystik, eller tysk idealisme (eller samspillet mellem disse), og så vil jeg da kigge på ham.

Nå, det var vist det for denne gang.

Mvh
Odden.

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