Are you dangerous?

Stanislav Grof, MD

In his lecture “The Future of Psychology” Grof, an accomplished psychiatrist and a researcher of consciousness, offers a view of the world that is an alternative to the prevailing mechanistic, industrial, “scientific” reality. In this new (or old but forgotten) paradigm the consciousness is not only separate from the brain but also superior to it. Clearly, medical, therapeutic, social and cultural implications of such a stand are enormous. For example: Grof’s work on para-natal and pre-natal trauma offers a new insight into wars and other social calamities.

To those who are already shrugging their shoulders with dismissal, here are the words of Vaclav Havel as he presented Grof with the Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation Vision 97 Award:

“The Foundation also tries – in the spirit of its name - to orient itself in the direction of what in a certain way points to the future, what is – I would say – farsighted, what transcends the horizon of momentary attractive opportunities, but may not be appreciated and validated until some years pass. What is in a certain way visionary and pioneering.

It is a risky endeavor, because it usually has two groups of opponents. Perhaps not directly opponents, but two groups of dangerous people. One group consists of the hard scientistic traditionalists, who are unable to imagine that modern science could transcend its own boundaries and traditional paradigms; they engage in a great determined fight against that which eludes their grasp. It is interesting that their fight undertaken in the name of rationality often reaches fanatic proportions; they tend to have a peculiar obsessive gleam in their eyes.

The other group that is dangerous, even though probably less, consists of a wide range of madmen, sectarians, and members of various strange fringe groups wanting to attach themselves, by their little claws, to this kind of scientific exploration, so that they could test and validate their various, more or less interesting, delusions.“

To the Havel’s list I would add a third category: religious fanatics and various warriors of “I have the only correct way to perceive The Mystery and if you don’t follow my dogma you are clearly in cahoots with evil.”

I hope you do not belong to any of these groups. If you do and somehow are reading this line - hang on - you have a chance of liberating yourself. Just open your eyes, ears, heart and mind. Do not fall into the “deaf ears madness”, which is the inability to hear what the universe constantly attempts to reveal to us. Constantly, as in “all the time.” This includes now.