Realms of the Human Unconscious - Preface
Stanislav Grof, M.D.
Realms of the Human Unconscious was first published by The Viking Press
©1975 by Stanislav Grof and Joan Halifax Grof
This volume is the first of a series of books in which I plan
to summarize and condense in a systematic and comprehensive way
my observations and experiences during seventeen years of research
with LSD and other psychedelic drugs. Exploration of the potential
of these substances for the study of schizophrenia, for didactic
purposes, for a deeper understanding of art and religion, for
personality diagnostics and the therapy of emotional disorders,
and for altering the experience of dying has been my major professional
interest throughout these years and has consumed most of the time
I have spent in psychiatric research.
In 1965, I was invited to participate in an international conference
on LSD psychotherapy in Amityville, Long Island, and gave a paper
on the experiences I had gathered during almost a decade of LSD
research in Prague, Czechoslovakia. During a lecture-journey in
the United States after this conference, I was offered an invitation
to come to the West on a one-year fellowship from the Foundations'
Fund for Research in Psychiatry in New Haven, Connecticut. After
my return to Prague, I received a letter from Dr. Joel Elkes,
Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, inviting me to come
to Baltimore and continue my LSD work as a clinical and research
fellow at the Henry Phipps Clinic and in the Research Unit of
Spring Grove State Hospital.
When this unusual opportunity occurred, I was deeply involved
in my research activities in Prague. I had accumulated detailed
records from many hundreds of LSD sessions and was in the process
of analyzing the data, trying to formulate a theoretical framework
for understanding the striking observations that I had encountered
during my work. By then I had completed the first outline of a
conceptual model that seemed to account for most of the findings
in my LSD research; this model allowed for the creation of several
partial hypotheses that could be put to a more rigorous test.
In addition, I became intrigued by the possibilities that LSD
psychotherapy seemed to offer for the alleviation of the emotional
suffering of cancer patients facing the prospect of imminent death.
On the basis of some preliminary observations, I was preparing
a special project to explore this new area in a more systematic
way.
Dr. Elkes' generous offer was too tempting to refuse; I decided
to pursue this possibility and ask the Czech authorities for a
one-year leave of absence and permission to go to the United States.
After many administrative difficulties, this permission was finally
granted. When I arrived at Kennedy Airport in March 1967, more
than half of my forty pounds of luggage consisted of the records
from LSD research that I had conducted at the Psychiatric Research
Institute in Prague. My intention, at that time, was to complete
the analysis of my data and to perform a controlled clinical study
of the efficacy of the technique of LSD psychotherapy that I had
developed during many years of therapeutic experimentation. My
secret hope was that, in addition, I might be able to carry out
at least one of the more theoretical studies testing some aspects
of my new conceptual framework.
After my arrival in the United States, it soon became obvious
that my plans were highly unrealistic, to say the least. I was
astounded by the situation regarding psychedelic drugs that had
developed in this country since my first visit in 1965. In Czechoslovakia
at the time of my departure, LSD was being legally manufactured
by the leading pharmaceutical company sponsored by the government.
It was listed in the official medical pharmacopoeia as a therapeutic
agent with specific indications and contraindications, together
with such reputable drugs as penicillin, insulin, and digitalis.
LSD was freely available to qualified professionals as an experimental
and therapeutic agent, and its distribution was subject to special
regulations. The training required for each LSD therapist more
or less followed the psychoanalytic model; it involved a minimum
of five training LSD sessions for the applicant and his conducting
at least thirty sessions with selected patients under the supervision
of an experienced LSD therapist. The general public knew almost
nothing about psychedelic drugs, since the reports concerning
research with such substances were published almost exclusively
in scientific journals. At the time of my departure, there was
no black-market traffic in psychedelics and no nonmedical use
of them. Anyone interested in self-experimentation could have
an LSD session provided it was conducted by an approved professional
and in a medical facility.
The situation I found in the United States contrasted sharply
with the one described above. Psychedelics had become an issue
of general interest. Black-market LSD seemed to be readily available
in all parts of the country and for all age groups. Self-experimentation
with psychedelics flourished on university campuses, and many
large cities had their hippie districts with distinct drug subcultures.
The casualties from the psychedelic scene were making newspaper
headlines; almost every day one could read sensationalist reports
about psychotic breakdowns, self-mutilations, suicides, and murders
attributed to the use of LSD. At the same time, the psychedelic
movement was profoundly influencing contemporary culture—music,
painting, poetry, design, interior decorating, fashion, movies,
theater, and television plays.
The legislative measures undertaken with the intention of suppressing
dangerous self-experimentation proved rather ineffective in curbing
nonmedical use of LSD but had adverse direct and indirect consequences
for scientific research. Only a handful of projects survived under
these complicated circumstances. As a result, LSD research was
reduced to a minimum and, paradoxically, very little new scientific
information was being generated at a time when it was most needed.
LSD and other psychedelics had become a serious national problem;
it was difficult to imagine how effective measures could be undertaken
without a real understanding of the nature of this problem.
The information about psychedelic drugs spread by the mass media
and various agencies was mostly superficial, inaccurate, and one-sided.
This situation can be attributed, in part, to ignorance and emotional
bias and to a desire to discourage and deter the lay experimentation
that was flourishing in spite of all of the repressive legislative
measures. Such distorted information, since it was unbalanced,
disproportional, and frequently obviously incorrect, was regarded
with suspicion by young people, many of whom found it easy to
laugh it off, reject it totally, and ignore the real dangers associated
with psychedelics.
Under these circumstances, the prestige of mental-health professionals
started deteriorating, especially among members of the younger
generation and counterculture. Many psychiatrists and psychologists
found themselves in situations in which they were called on as
experts to handle various emergencies related to psychedelic-drug
use; they were expected to intervene with authority in crisis
situations and treat casualties from the psychedelic scene. At
the same time, they did not have adequate training and experience
in this area, nor was the opportunity available for them to increase
their theoretical understanding of psychedelics because of the
critical dearth of scientific research.
The situation I encountered in 1967 has not changed substantially
in the following years. Hundreds of thousands of people in the
United States alone have been experimenting with LSD and other
psychedelic drugs; many of them have had frequent, multiple exposures.
This self-experimentation has been accompanied by many extraordinary
experiences and has often resulted in profound changes in the
personality structure, hierarchy of values, and world view of
the experiencer. The phenomena observed in psychedelic sessions
are manifestations of deep areas of the unconscious unknown to
and unacknowledged by contemporary science. The application of
existing theoretical concepts and practical procedures to the
problems related to psychedelic-drug use has been, therefore,
inappropriate, inadequate, and ineffective.
Since my arrival, I have been lecturing in various parts of the
United States, Canada, and Europe for universities, psychiatric
hospitals, research institutes, growth centers, colleges, and
church communities. During these lecture tours, I have found that
heterogeneous audiences consistently manifested a deep, vivid
interest in the data I was presenting. On many occasions, I was
approached by people who wanted more detailed information and
asked for book references and reprints of papers from which they
could learn more about the problems related to serial LSD sessions.
A considerable number of these people were psychiatrists, psychologists,
psychiatric nurses, and social workers concerned about patients
who had problems related to psychedelic-drug use. They wanted
to know more about LSD in order to understand the world of these
patients, establish better rapport with them, and help them more
effectively. I encountered, however, an equal demand for more
honest information in many desperate parents, who felt the need
to bridge the ever-widening generation gap and gain more insight
into the problems of their children. Similarly, a number of teachers
and guidance counselors, puzzled by and alienated from their pupils
and clients, have expressed interest in unbiased information about
LSD. Clerics have also shown a sincere need to fathom the nature
of religious and mystical experiences triggered by psychedelic
drugs. They hoped that such an understanding, in addition to its
philosophical and spiritual relevance, would also help them to
be more sensitive counselors for their communities, which are
so often vexed by drug problems. On occasion, I have also been
approached by lawyers who harbored serious doubts about the adequacy
and efficacy of the existing drug laws and wanted to have a clearer
understanding of the problems involved. Specialists from various
disciplines have asked me for specific details of my observations,
because they felt that these data may have important implications
for such diverse areas as personality theory, psychology of religion,
psychotherapy, genetics, psychology and psychopathology of art,
anthropology, the study of mythology, education, psychosomatic
medicine, and obstetric practice. Last but not least, most requests
for more systematic and comprehensive information have come from
people who have had LSD experiences and were looking for clarification
of problems they encountered. I have found an unusually vivid
and serious interest among members of the younger generation,
especially among students.
As I mentioned earlier, my original plan at the time of my arrival
in the United States was to complete the analyses of the LSD research
data from Prague and to conduct controlled studies that would
test some of the new concepts I had developed. I considered the
ten years of LSD research in Prague to be a continuing pilot study.
This period of time might seem excessively long for orientation
in a new field; it has to be taken into consideration, however,
that the task involved was nothing less than to draw the first
maps of new, unknown, and uncharted territories of the human mind.
My decision to write a series of books at this stage of research
was brought about by several sets of circumstances. I soon realized
that it would be difficult to replicate my European study under
better-controlled circumstances at a time when the existing hysteria
concerning psychedelic drugs was growing rapidly and was further
aggravated by the alarming reports of possible genetic damage
related to LSD use. Another important factor was the increasing
number of people suffering from serious complications associated
with LSD self-experimentation. It seemed that more clinical information
about LSD and better understanding of its effects were urgently
needed for a more effective approach to such problems. Moreover,
the intensity of interest expressed by mental-health professionals
as well as by a cross-section of the general public indicated
that there was a critical demand for honest and objective information
in the area of psychedelic drugs. In addition, some of the unusual
experiences that typically occur in psychedelic sessions have
been observed and described with increasing frequency in the context
of the new psychotherapeutic techniques and experimental laboratory
procedures, among them bioenergetics, marathon sessions, encounter
groups, Gestalt therapy, biofeedback, sensory isolation and sensory
overload. It seemed that the maps of consciousness developed with
the help of a powerful facilitating agent such as LSD could prove
useful for organizing and integrating the data from these related
areas. My final reason for writing this series of books is based
on the conviction that the material from serial LSD sessions even
in its present form is of crucial theoretical significance and
represents a serious challenge to the existing concepts of contemporary
science. I feel that these data should be made available for consideration
and evaluation to researchers from various scientific disciplines.
For this purpose, I have tried to present the material with much
emphasis on actual clinical observations and on illustrative case
histories. In this form, it can, I hope, provide an incentive
and basis for speculations even for those readers who will not
accept the theoretical framework I have suggested for the conceptualization
of the observed phenomena.
After much consideration, I have decided to present the findings
from my LSD research in five separate volumes. In this book, which
is the first part of the intended series, I have summarized the
basic information about LSD, briefly outlined various stages of
my own psychedelic research, and focused primarily on the "cartography
of inner space" or a phenomenological description of the
various levels and types of experiences manifested in psychedelic
sessions. The second volume of this series, to be called The
Human Encounter with Death and co-authored by my wife, Dr.
Joan Halifax-Grof, and myself, will describe the use of psychedelic
therapy in terminal cancer patients and discuss the problem of
dying and death from historical, cross-cultural, clinical, philosophical,
and spiritual perspectives. The third volume will focus on the
practical aspects of LSD psychotherapy, such as the preparation
of the patient, techniques of conducting the sessions, indications
and contraindications, the therapeutic results, and the problem
of side effects and complications. The fourth book will cover
some of the heuristic aspects of LSD research and its implications
for personality theory, the etiology of emotional disorders, the
practice of psychotherapy, and the understanding of human culture.
The last volume of the series will focus on the philosophical
and spiritual dimensions of the LSD experience, with special emphasis
on ontological and cosmological issues. It will describe in detail
the surprisingly consistent metaphysical system that seems to
be emerging from the experimentation with psychedelic substances.
[NOTE: Realms of the Human Unconscious has recently been re-published
and is available at all good book suppliers. —The Psychedelic Library]