Stanislav Grof e Ken Wilber2

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Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision: Supportive Evidence from Clinical Consciousness Research. Stanislav Grof, M.D.

Ken Wilber e la visione integrale : Elementi di prova a supporto della ricerca clinica sulla coscienza di Stanislav Grof

2° Parte

The area where our theories show the most specific correspondence is Ken’s description of the levels of spiritual evolution that follow the full integration of the body and mind or, in his terminology, the post-centauric levels of consciousness evolution (Wilber 1980). My own classification of transpersonal experiences is strictly phenomenological and not hierarchical; it does not specify the levels of consciousness on which they occur (see table on pages 00-00).

However, it is not difficult to arrange theexperiences in my transpersonal cartography in such a way that they closely parallel Ken’s evolutionary scheme.

Constructing his map of psychospiritual development, Ken used exclusively material from ancient spiritual literature, primarily from Vedanta Hinduism and Theravada Buddhism. My own data are drawn from clinical observations in contemporary populations in a number of European countries, North and South America, and Australia, complemented by some limited experience with Japanese and East Indian groups.

My work thus provides empirical evidence for the existence of most of the experiences included in Ken’s developmental scheme. It also shows that the descriptions in ancient spiritual sources are still to a great extent relevant for modern humanity.

However, as we will see, our two systems are not exactly identical, and incorporating my material into Ken’s scheme would require certain additions, modifications, and adjustments. Ken’s scheme of the post-centauric spiritual domain includes the lower and higher subtle level, lower and higher causal level, and the Ultimate or Absolute.

According to Ken, the low subtle, or astral-psychic, level of consciousness is characterized by a degree of differentiation of consciousness from the mind and body which goes beyond that achieved on the level of the centaur.

Consciousness is thus able to transcend the normal capacities of bodymind and operate in ways that appear impossible and fantastic to the ordinary mind.

The astral level, in Ken’s own words, "includes, basically, out-of-body experiences, certain occult knowledge, the auras, true magic, ‘astral travel,’ and so on.”

Ken's description of the psychic level includes various ‘psi’ phenomena: ESP ,precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and others. He also refers in this connection to Patanjali's Sutras that include on the subtle level all the paranormal powers, mind-overmatter phenomena, or siddhis..

In the higher subtle realm, consciousness differentiates itself completely from the,ordinary mind and becomes what can be called the ‘overself’ or ‘overmind.’ Ken places,in this region high religious intuition and inspiration, visions of divine light, audible,illuminations, and higher presences - spiritual guides, angelic beings, ishtadevas,

Dhyani,Buddhas, and God's archetypes, which he sees as high archetypal forms of our own being. Like the subtle level, the causal level can be subdivided into lower and higher.

Ken suggests that the lower causal realm is manifested in a state of consciousness known as savikalpa samadhi, the experience of final God, the ground, essence, and source of all the archetypal and lesser-god manifestations encountered in the subtle realms. The higher causal realm then involves a "total and utter transcendence and release into Formless Consciousness, Boundless Radiance."

Ken refers in this context to the nirvikalpa samadhi of Hinduism , nirodh of Hinayana Buddhism, and to the eighth of the ten oxherding pictures of Zen Buddhism. On Ken's last level, that of the Absolute, Consciousness awakens as its Original Condition and Suchness (tathagata), which is, at the same time, all that is, gross, subtle, or causal.

The distinction between the witness and the witnessed disappears and the entire World Process then arises, moment to moment as one's own Being, outside of which and prior to which nothing exists. As I mentioned earlier, my own experiences and observations bring supportive evidence for many of the experiential states included in Ken's ontological and cosmological scheme. In a hierarchical classification based on my own data,

I would include in the low subtle or astral-psychic level experiences that involve elements of the material world, but provide information about them in a way that is radically different from our everyday perception. Here belong, above all, experiences that are traditionally studied by parapsychologists (and some of them also by thanatologists and therapists), such as out-of-body experiences, astral travel, ESP phenomena, precognition, andclairvoyance.

I would also add to this list experiences of phenomena that are closely connected to material reality, but reveal aspects or dimensions that are not accessible to ordinary consciousness - the subtle or energy body, its conduits (nadis or meridians), and fields (auras). The concept of crosspoints, bridges between the visible and invisible reality, found in Tantric literature seems to be particularly relevant in this context (Mookerjee nd Khanna 1977).

I would include on the low subtle level also some important transpersonal experiences included in my map but not mentioned by Ken.

Here belong experiential identification with various aspects of space-time - other people, animals, plants, and organic materials and processes, as well as ancestral, racial, collective, phylogenetic, and karmic experiences. I have shown in my previous publications that all these experiences mediated by extrasensory channels provide access to accurate new information about the phenomena involved (Grof 1975, 1980, 1985, 1988, 1998).

I would also add here from my own classification also a category of experiences that I call psychoid, using the term coined by Hans Driesch and adopted by C. G. Jung.

This group includes situations, in which intrapsychic experiences are associated with corresponding changes in the external world (or better in consensus reality). Psychoid experiences cover a wide range from synchronicities and ceremonial magic to psychokinesis and other mind-over-matter phenomena, or siddhis (Grof 1988) thatPatanjali assigns to the subtle level of consciousness.

The categories of my map of transpersonal experiences that could be assigned to the high subtle level include visions of divine light, encounters with various blissful and wrathful archetypal deities, communication with spirit guides and superhuman entities, contact with shamanic power animals, direct apprehension of universal symbols, and episodes of religious and creative inspiration (the ‘Promethean epiphany’).

The visions of archetypal beings or experiential identification with them can portray them in their universal form (e.g. the Great Mother Goddess) or in the form of their specific cultural manifestations ( e.g. Virgin Mary, Isis, Cybele, Parvati, etc.). Over the years, I have had the privilege to be in sessions of many people whose psychedelic or holotropic experiences had the characteristics of those that are assigned in Ken's scheme to the lower and higher causal realms and possibly even those of the Absolute. I have also had personal experiences that I believe qualify for these categories.

In my classification these episodes are described under such titles as experiences of the Demiurg, of Cosmic Consciousness, Absolute Consciousness, or Supracosmic and Metacosmic Void. While I am writing this, I am also fully aware of the fact that having the experience of these levels does not necessarily mean moving permanently to higher levels of consciousness evolution.

The problem of the critical factors that determine when transient experiences of higher states of consciousness lead to lasting changes in evolutionary structures of consciousness is an issue of great theoretical and practical importance.

Ken and I have touched upon it in our past discussions and I hope we willexplore it further at another place and time The last major point of correspondence between my own work and Ken's conceptual system I would like to mention concerns the phenomena of involution and evolution of consciousness, Descent and Ascent, or Efflux and Reflux, that he has extensively explored in his writings (Wilber 1980, 1995). This very subject is the focus of my last book, The Cosmic Game.

As I have illustrated with many personal accounts, the overall vision of existence as an interplay of these two major movements of consciousness, as well as the specific elements and mechanisms involved, are clearly based on direct experiences that are under certain circumstances available to all of us.

In the light of the above observations, I have no doubt that the phenomena that Ken includes in his holarchic scheme are not only experientially, but also ontologically real and are not products of metaphysical speculation or pathological processes in the brain.

The general concept of the Great Chain of Being, according to which reality includes an entire hierarchy (or holarchy) of dimensions that are ordinarily hidden to our perception, is very important and well founded. It would be erroneous to dismiss this understanding of reality as a product of arbitrary metaphysical speculation, primitive superstition, or a manifestation of mental disease, as has so frequently been done.

Anybody attempting to do that would have to offer a plausible explanation why the experiences that systematically support this elaborate and comprehensive vision of reality have in the past occurred so consistently to people of various races, cultures, and historical periods.

He or she would also have to account for the fact that these experiences continue to emerge in modern populations under such diverse circumstances as sessions with various psychedelic substances, during experiential psychotherapy, in meditation of people involved in systematic spiritual practice, in near-death experiences, and in the course of spontaneous episodes of psychospiritual crisis.

I hope that the above discussion of the far-reaching correspondences between the observations and experiences from my clinical consciousness research and Ken Wilber’s integral vision of reality will help to create a more balanced and realistic impression of the relationship between our respective theories than our published exchanges in the past.

I am looking forward to a future opportunity for reconciling our differences, as well as refining our understanding of the areas where our ideas already converge.

References:

Grof, C. and Grof, S. 1990. The Stormy Search for the Self. Los Angeles, CA: J. P. Tarcher.
Grof, S. 1975. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press.
Grof, S. 1980. LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, CA.: Hunter House.
Grof, S. 1985. Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. Albany, N.Y.: State University New York Press.
Grof, S. 1988. The Adventure of Self-Discovery. Albany, N.Y.: State University New YorkPress.
Grof, S. 1998. The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness.
Albany, N.Y.: State University New York Press.
Mookerjee, A. and Khanna, M. 1977.
The Tantric Way. London: Thames and Hudson. Rothberg D. and Kelly, S. (eds.) 1998.
Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers. Quest Books. Wheaton, IL.: The Theosophical PublishingHouse.
Wilber, K. 1977. The Spectrum of Consciousness. Wheaton, IL.: The TheosophicalPublishing House.
Wilber, K. 1980. The Atman Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development. Wheaton, IL.: The Theosophical Publishing House.
Wilber, K. 1995. Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. Boston, MA.: Shambhala Publications.
Wilber, K. 1996. A Brief History of Everything. Boston, MA.: Shambhala Publications.10
As I have tried to show in another context, anybody trying to defend in this respect the monistic-materialistic position of Western science, would also have to account for the fact that these experiences continue to emerge in highly intelligent, sophisticated, and otherwise mentally healthy people of our era (Grof 1998).
This happens not only under the influence of psychedelics, but also under such diverse circumstances as sessions of experiential psychotherapy, in meditation of people involved in systematic spiritual practice, in near-death experiences, and in the course of spontaneous episodes of psychospiritual crisis.