Today’s show is about a book from 1975 rented from the ISU Parks Library by Dr. Stanislov Grov of Czechoslovakia.
A pioneering and revolutionary book that lays the foundation for a radical new psychology, based on an expanded cartography of the human unconsciousness. Famous for his lifelong research into psychedelic drugs, Dr. Grof constructs a comprehensive and helpful framework out of the bewildering welter of experiences triggered by LSD in patients and research subjects. Current research into the brain and ways of expanding consciousness give this seminal book, first published in 1979, new importance for the light it throws on many fundamental, but hitherto mysterious, human potentialities. Grof’s theory of the human psyche transcends the personal and opens ways to a greater understanding of our inner selves.
Episode 3
Realms of the Human Unconscious
Prescribed as psychoanalytic (penicillin, same category as penicillin) — psychiatric patients reacted strongly. Stanislov Grov
Edit out NORML discussion
60’s, U.S. stigmatization
Phenomenologically and psychoanalytical shrinks
“The hope that research with LSD would result in a simple test-tube solution,” was thrown out the window.”
Different parts of US offered Dr. Grov 1 year residencies. Took one in 1967, astonished at how much research had prospered over the decade.
Then he describes aesthetics of the experience. Colors, vibrations, patters of the user
Systems of condensed experience: coex-system
– Constellation of memories that are associated with emotional or physiological responses
Peter: Wanted raped and tortured in a cell, would get either scared or masochistic pleasure. Suffered suicidal depression, epileptic seizures. Was raped in WW2, developed fetish for black male clothes, did 15 sessions, coex system instituted. Relived details of Nazi torture, realized masochistic desires were extension of parents wanting to physically abuse him and put him in dark cellars.
Transcendental experiences under LSD would trip and come back, (one lady went to 1500 and saw an execution)
2. Your perinatal (pre-birth/experience in the womb)
3. Players in psych revolution
#2 — Grov says central focus are problems of:
– Physical birth
– Agonies of life
Man as a biological creative accompanied by existential crisis
1st Stage: birth
– In the womb, cosmic unity
2nd Stage:
– Immense suffering during crowning, existential crisis, unbearable, inescapable, will never end, apocalypse, war, concentration camps, black plague/epidemics, meaningless and absurdity of the world, depression, darker colors?
3rd Stage:
– Starting to come out of womb – Grov describes as “volcanic states of ecstasy,” similar to manic episodes, sadomasochistic orgies, murder, battle, intense sexual feelings, experiencers of dying and being reborn, religious imagery, physical manifestations of muscle pains, suffocation feelings, tinnitus,
4th Stage:
– Out of womb, rebirth
– Beautiful colors
– Expansion of space
– Feelings of birth and redemption
– Manic states
– Can be interrupted by umbilical crisis: pain in navel, fear of death, etc
Spirituality and Transpersonal Experiences:
Ligh and dark was vision, once over, dude had feeling of relief and had confidence he could bend space time reality, didn’t want to for fear of bending space time continuum — a psychiatrist colleague of Dr. Grov
Our first episode full of technical difficulties but interesting nonetheless is below:
WeedPress: The Paper Trail 
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