Transpersonal psychology is back and this time it’s real

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Science meets the super-normal in Stanislav Grof’s school of mental health study

Stanislav Grof’s 1972 wedding to ‘Jiko’ Joan Halifax in Iceland

In the 1980s transpersonal psychology staple and Way of the Psychonaut author Stanislav Grof found himself inventing holotropic breath work out of necessity after LSD faded from grace.

Reflecting courageously on the flaws of transpersonal psychology, where science meets the super-normal, he nonetheless pointed out that the approach showed enormous potential for a range of treatment resistant diseases. And that it could be applied to other fields: like ecology, business, social work, maybe even medicine itself again someday.

“The psychology of transformative experience” is how Dr Luke describes ‘transpersonal psychology’. Back in polite conversation thanks to Iain McGilchrist’s philosophy blockbuster The Matter with Things it’s the shrinks’ most progressive field, big in the 60s at Esalen and back with a vengeance thanks to everyone from ecologists to talk therapy refuseniks and engineers of the zero-point field, to pharma giants and governments with nationalised healthcare and their eyes on psychedelics’ potential to cure disease and reboot productivity. 

“The only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being”

The transpersonal are “moments that evolve your current ego identity… by stepping outside normal consciousness to connection with a wider other,” explains Dr Luke. You’re in the realm of the transpersonal when you’re feeling warm and clear after meditating or making it to church: plus when acknowledging childhood trauma, or during a full revelatory, inner-visual spiritual experience… or being abducted by aliens, having a spontaneous DMT exprience, astral projecting, arguably dreaming and so on.

The discipline is “ethnogenic, cognicentric and pragmacentric” meaning entirely inclusive and accepting of other modes of consciousness. It evolved throughout the 20th century from William James’ ‘radical empiricism’ – scientific testing for the mysterious and hitherto unknown – to include Burke’s ‘cosmic consciousness’, Jung and Maslow’s pining for the mystic, and ‘post religious’ belief systems like Ken Wilbur’s integral.

Grof and Halifax exchange vows. They published The Human Encounter With Death together in 1977

You still have to do the graft though. “The only revolution that can work… is the inner transformation of every human being,” said Grof, and transpersonal psychology includes a faith in humanity’s ability to evolve not only physically but mentally, spiritually… and psionically. 

“The mycelium is the message” grins Dr Luke, “other societies have sanctioned altered states, while ours refuses their existence.”

Don’t confuse transpersonal psychology with quantum psychology.

The Wisdom of the Human mind

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Psychedelic treatment prompts our inner self to do the healing

The Centre for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Maryland USA

“I’ve learned to trust how wise the mind is, and how it brings things up the right way, at the right time,” says Dr Richards on the unpredictability of psychedelic experience.

Richards believes his methodist upbringing “saved” him from melting down when left alone in a 1963 testing chamber. His spiritual voyage was considered an intriguing anomaly at the time; other test subjects had indeed mimicked insanity when given LSD in an empty room with zero preparation for what may come.

Schoolin’ around– (L to R) Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and Gary Snyder at the Houseboat Summit in 1967

Richards only ever enjoyed one more trip on that level, his fifth, after he and Walter Pahnke devised ‘set and setting’, venturing into nature for the first time.

Richards certainly relishes the mystical aspect now considered key to significant psychedelic healing. Though he advises that “It’s not a dud if it’s not transcendental,” and what arises from the experience is “what needs to.”

Revelation can occur with eyes closed or open, when installed firmly on the couch wearing headphones or roaming through the wilderness… and whether the experience transcendent, farcical, wild, philosophical, relaxing or downright awful.

“This is the growing edge of spiritual development. We must condone knowledge”

The attitude best to prepare the voyager with is one of “Courage, adventure, desire for development, and abandonment of persona,” says Richards.

In The Psychology of Money Morgan Housel points out that we all invest money with different reasons, tastes, and circumstances. Then we worry that we’re not doing what the other dude who’s supposedly doing it totally right is doing.

Steve McQueen and Nelie Adams in the steam rooms at Esalen

To some, guiding individuals towards their own neo-shamanic state is glib at best and dangerously foolhardy at worst.

But the most experienced western psychedelic therapist of the past sixty years says, “This is the growing edge of spiritual development. The Western World has brought many positive innovations to the experience, and we must condone knowledge.”

Move any mountain with neo-shamanism

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LSD is a promethean invention that has democratised the sacrament, and given humankind the ability to heal itself says Dr Gibson

A neo shaman

The S-word, problematic from the start, is getting ever more laden.

No surprise, when you consider that the criteria for shaman-hood range, depending on your understanding, from genetic lineage, grave dedication, and fighting spirits to cure treatment resistant diseases all the way to a dubious certificate, some bongos and an Instagram account. 

‘Neo shamanism’ to Gibson is humankind’s recent ability to be his own wise counsel and medicine woman. The synthesis of LSD, a colourless tasteless substance able to inspire psychedelic states in minuscule amounts, he believes has democratised the role.

Poetically, this most scientific of revelations has inspired a rebirth of personal spirituality and philosophic examination. Scholars will point out that it’s the first time in 500 years, a la Joe Tafur’s Legend of the Eagle and the Condor, that science and religion have conjoined, whether in the form of transpersonal psychologist Stanislav Grof or the discoveries of quantum physics.

"For once, and for everyone, the truth was not still a mystery. Love called to all”

Mystical healing may be associated with the Shipibo curanderos but they don’t use the word shaman themselves. In many communities associated with ‘shamanism’ the healer role itself is rare, considered apart, and special. Scientific medical training is not uncommon amongst indegeneous mystical healers.

Personally I understand exactly why usage is revered and not to be bandied about, certainly in an “I can cure you by battling with entities” manner. Gibson’s own understanding is that the neo shaman is a contemporary voyager into the new frontiers of the ‘Psyche,’ itself the name for the Greek goddess of wisdom and the soul. Obvious candidates for 20th Century LSD neo-shamanhood might be Grof, Aldous Huxley, Amanda Fielding or Jimi Hendrix. And Timothy Leary, who was scolded by RD Laing for democratising LSD… But if LSD had remained the preserve of the elite, Hendrix might never have wrote in his personal poetry after Woodstock in 1969, "For once, and for everyone, the truth was not still a mystery. Love called to all.”

Mankind’s destiny calls, and we are all ordained to answer.

Saving lost souls for three million years. And now with MDMA

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Could the love drug offer salvation to the lost?

Graciela Arias Salazar, ‘La Virgen del Capinurí out of @centro_selva_arte_y_ciencia via Antricion gallery in Zurich

Dr Tafur saw ayahuasca’s positive effect on beleaguered veterans.

He took this as a validation of his own conversion to plant medicine after ayahuasca was instrumental in his recovery from a depressive episode.

He told Vital students that transcendent unconditional love, of the kind received in a sacred ceremony, has a positive effect on psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) just like family love (the good enough kind).

It can be transmitted via ‘limbic resonance’ – a theoretical term for hormonal interaction between one or more people. With its support our subconscious processes difficult emotions more efficiently. The healing effect moves from the psyche (P) through the nervous system (N) into the immune system (I), bolstering the body’s own intuitive ‘inner healer’.

The importance of empathy has recently been recognised within western medical treatment. But we are all understanding that professional clinicians can only give so much of themselves.

However. Try instead exotic ceremonies, remarkable locations, skilled practitioner, devout participants, and zealous dedication in the form of the ‘only was out is through’ strategy of taking high-strength ancient jungle acid five nights in a row – and you have the missing element required to treat a range of psychoneuroimmunologically-related conditions currently frustrating doctors and destroying families.

The spiritual sector, to its eternal credit, provides the social role of offering salvation to those mired in confusion, or paralysed by ethical quagmire. It can provide rare complex moral reconciliation, of the kind that PTSD treatment benefits from enormously. Where though does MDMA come in? It’s an ‘empathogen’ as opposed to a psychedelic.

Nonetheless the ‘love drug’ too can augment some characteristics of psychotherapy just like psychedelics and traditional healing ceremonies. Not only does MDMA increase the level of limbic resonance between doctor and patient, it’s also been shown to activate areas of the brain used during childhood to ingrain healthy social behaviour patterns.

Besides, “The MAPS PTSD programme going up for FDA-approval has a mystical element,” says Dr Tafur, responding to my disbelief that western psychotherapy can rapidly replicate the awe of ayahuasca, “in my experience the clinical sector is increasingly interested in ceremony. There are some really open-hearted therapists at MAPS,” he expands, referencing the completely accepting nature of spiritual fulfilment… historically known as ecstasy.

Are ‘corporadelics’ doing enough for set, setting… and society?

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Osmond and the early researchers stressed the importance of aesthetics and the divine to LSD therapy. Are those elements sorely lacking down at your local ketamine clinic?

A powerful spirit healing experience taking place in Newcastle, England

During the Q&A session after Vital’s first lecture I asked Dr Dyck what she learned about human nature from her research, that we can apply to the present.

”There’s a risk of reducing history to a cliché to push against,” she responded “or seeing history as ‘they had it wrong and in the past and we’re better now’.”

The early days of LSD research are easily vilified. Spirituality is a dirty word in scientific circles right now: let alone reincarnation or astrology, both of which Stanislav Grof is quick to mention. It’s even considered unprofessional for the healer to develop a connection with the patient. 20th century Western scientists are easily cast cast as distant, privileged figures electro-shocking schizophrenics behind the asylum gates, collaborating with the CIA in return for research permits. And now the spectre of ‘corporadelics’ hangs over LSD’s renaissance.

“We see lots of competing, profit-seeking ways of turning psychedelics into something that, I would argue, are going to be less accessible”

“However there’s still something that we can take from the spirit, the optimism, the motivation, the intentions of these early Western researchers,” says Dyck, “for example, a lot of people who went into these trials were designated as patients – but came through feeling they were collaborators. It pushes back against the competing model of engaging in scientific rigour, where methodology overwhelmed the need for investigating human behaviour in a more diverse way.”

Osmond, Hoffer and their in-house architect Kyoshi Yazumi (more of whom below) were revamping Canada’s mental health system as part of an ambitious pledge by Canada’s new socialist government. Innovations included day trips outside the famously foreboding asylum for inpatients, art and music therapy, and family visits, plus more autonomy for the nurses… who took LSD to ‘empathise better with the patient experience’.

“The early researchers definitely were trying to align a health access point within a publicly funded system,” she responded, “That is certainly not on the horizon today. We see lots of competing, profit-seeking ways of turning psychedelics into something that, I would argue, are going to be less accessible.”