Expanding and Reenchanting the Psyche: The Pioneering Thought of Stanislav Grof

Document Type

Audio File

Publication Date

10-24-2014

Abstract

The remarkable achievement of Stanislav Grof was to engage and then contribute to the great transformation of world view of our age, experiencing that paradigm crisis directly within the crucible of his therapeutic research, and eventually bringing forth both a radically expanded map of the human psyche and an extraordinarily powerful method of psychotherapy. Acting as a kind of psychospiritual midwife, Grof combined a radical openness to the mystery of the psyche and trust in the healing power of the unconscious with a willingness to explore, and help others explore, an astonishing range of non-ordinary states of consciousness. The complex, multidimensional understanding of the psyche that emerged has offered depth psychology not only a resolution of its foundational schism between Freud and Jung, but also a nuanced integration of East and West, ancient mystical traditions and contemporary science, and finally opening the innermost depths of the psyche to the cosmos itself.

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Presenter:

Richard Tarnas, Ph.D., founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at CIIS, where he has taught courses annually with Stanislav Grof over the past twenty years. He has also taught archetypal studies and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche. He frequently lectures at various Jung institutes and societies in the U.S. as well as at Eranos in Switzerland, and served on the Board of Governors of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. He began working with Stan Grof at Esalen in 1974, and participated in many conferences of the International Transpersonal Association, on whose board he served.

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