CITE: Grof S. The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. Harper One; 1993.
SUMMARY
In “The Holotropic Mind,” Stanislav Grof discusses the three levels of human consciousness – the sensory, the perinatal, and the transpersonal – and how they shape our lives. He explores how these levels of consciousness relate to various states of mind, including those induced by meditation, psychedelics, and other altered states of consciousness. Grof also examines the role of the holotropic experience, which involves accessing non-ordinary states of consciousness through techniques like breathwork, in facilitating psychological healing and spiritual growth.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The three levels of human consciousness are the sensory, the perinatal, and the transpersonal.
- The sensory level is our everyday waking consciousness, in which we perceive and interact with the world around us through our senses.
- The perinatal level is associated with our birth and pre-birth experiences, including feelings of being in the womb, the struggle of birth, and early infancy.
- The transpersonal level is characterized by experiences that transcend our personal identity and connect us with the universe as a whole.
- Holotropic experiences, which involve accessing non-ordinary states of consciousness through techniques like breathwork, can facilitate psychological healing and spiritual growth.
SELECTED QUOTES
- “In the holotropic model, the psyche is not limited to the ego and to what we conventionally call consciousness, but it includes the entire spectrum of energies, impulses, and mental contents that have been disowned, repressed, or split off from awareness.” (p. 7)
- “The breath is a particularly powerful and effective tool for inducing and modulating nonordinary states of consciousness because it is intimately connected with our emotions, our physiology, and our basic survival functions.” (p. 89)
- “The transpersonal experiences suggest that our individuality, our sense of personal identity, is only a temporary manifestation of a deeper underlying reality that transcends time and space and is not limited by the boundaries of our physical bodies.” (p. 164)
