94 Quotes by 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.

For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death – the only certainty that life holds for us – must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.

My consciousness expanded at an inconceivable speed and reached cosmic dimensions. I lost the connection with my everyday identity. There were no more boundaries or difference between me and the universe. I felt that my old personality was extinguished and that I ceased to exist. And I felt that by becoming nothing, I became everything.

The fact that so many different cultures throughout human history have found shamanic techniques useful and relevant suggests that the holotropic states engage what the anthropologists call the “primal mind,” a basic and primordial aspect of the human psyche that transcends race, gender, culture, and historical period.

Very few people, including most scientists, realize that we have absolutely no proof that consciousness is actually produced by the brain and not even a remote notion of how something like that could possibly happen. In spite of it, this basic metaphysical assumption remains one of the leading myths of Western materialistic science and has a profound influence on our entire society.

It is possible to spend one’s entire lifetime without ever experiencing the mystical realms or even without being aware of their existence.

In an effort to find an explanation, he or she might attribute the ominous feelings to poisons, electromagnetic radiation, evil forces, secret organizations, or even extraterrestrial influences. The spontaneous emergence of memories involving intrauterine disturbances or of the onset of the delivery from the womb, seems to be among important causes of paranoid states.

The human mind is so complex that many different theories can be constructed, all of which seem to be logical, coherent, and explain major facts of observation, yet at the same time are mutually incompatible or actually contradict each other.

Materialistic scientists have not been able to produce any convincing evidence that consciousness is a product of the neurophysiological processes in the brain.