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Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind (Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)

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Christopher M. Bache's new book "Dark Night, Early Dawn" is a fascinating synthesis of transpersonal thought. Bache has tapped into something great through his many years of personal experience with non-ordinary states of consciousness. His revisions to the cosmological views of Stanislav Grof, Robert Monroe, and in the field of near-death research go a long way in making these paradigms more complete. Each of these fields can still go much further into the dynamics of the collective. This book should set them in the right direction. In Part Three of this work, Bache explores the Field Dynamics of Mind. Of particular interest to me were the chapters on transpersonal pedagogy, the great awakening, and the fate of individuality. The idea that we are all connected is one that we all need to explore more. The chapter on the Great Awakening posits the idea that the impending crisis of sustainability will shake humanity to a new depth of understanding and a new way of being. This book, more than any other I've read, brings together many of the facets of transpersonal thought. There is little theory in this book. The author has been to where he speaks of. I highly recommend it!

Millions of sane, intelligent people living today seem to live in a world that modern, scientific cosmology tells us just doesn't exist. Either they are deluded, or what they have to say about the world calls into question the dominant cosmological myth.

Judging by a deluge of media reports and a growing body of respectable scientific literature, a great many people are having experiences that don't fit into our civilization's dominant cosmological map. You may be one of them: someone who has experienced, for example, powerful, even predictive, dreams; remarkable synchronicities; undeniable psychic events; or convincing mystical experiences.

But, according our culture's cosmology, none of these experiences is supposed to be possible.

In this book, transpersonal psychologist Chris Bache opens up a different way of approaching this conundrum - by exploring the spectrum of our consciousness and what it implies for a much wider and comprehensive cosmology. The personal and social consequences of such an expanded worldview are profound.

Cosmology orients us in the universe. It tells us where we came from, where we are, and where we are going. Implicitly or explicitly, it defines what is possible for us as human beings, and thus it channels, or limits, our highest ambitions.

Modern Western culture lives entirely within the confines of what Bache identifies as "daytime" consciousness - that is, it takes into account only what we can perceive through our outer, physical, senses, and of those perceptions it takes seriously only those we can measure. These data are then organized according to the rules of logic and reason (mostly mathematical). "Nighttime" consciousness - what we can learn about the world through, for example, dreams, intuition, psychic or mystical experiences, and other nonordinary states - plays no part in designing modern cosmology.

As a result, we are moving into a kind of cultural dislocation, in which the official cosmology fails to map many of the experiences that matter most to us.

Combining philosophical reflections with deep self-exploration to delve into the ancient mystery of death and rebirth, Bache emphasizes collective rather than individual transformation. Drawing on 20 years of experience working with nonordinary states, he argues that when the deep psyche is hyper-stimulated using powerful psychedelic techniques, the healing that results sometimes extends beyond the individual to the collective unconscious of humanity itself.

Bache presents one of the most persuasive accounts - based on many years of personal spiritual exploration and incisive scholarly work - of why our culture needs to take seriously the spectrum of nonordinary states of consciousness experienced by so many people.

If you want a powerful, at times dramatic, account of the sheer majesty and mystery of our multidimensional cosmos and how the psyche fits in, this book is a must-read. If you want a transformative approach to learning and eduction about who we are and our place in the cosmos this book will inspire you.

Dark Night Early Dawn

This is an interesting and even heroic work, well worth the money. In large part the author combs the relevant literature and supplements it with his own experience from deliberately induced psychedelic states in order to mine for the material he presents.

Among other things the book deals with collective mind and group karma. As a professional worker in the field of environment I can vouch for the fact that some of the shared mind phenomena reported by the author, particularly elements involving group pain are quite real. I have encountered this effect in the course of environmental work. My experience did not evolve from any clinical or therapeutic exercise but rather as the result of the intense conflict (non-physical) involved in trying to manage environmental activities. Until I opened this book, I had not the remotest idea that some of the experiences I went through were of a form recognized by Mr Bach.

It is true that group karma exists and apparently the tragedy of Cambodia is a case in point. However, it is important to note that the perceived effects of group suffering referred to in the book may not necessarily indicate the operation of "group mind" but rather may arise as the results of "aspects of mind shared by a group". There is a big difference. In the first instance it may be easy to depose the ego-self from its central throne and to substitute, as Mr Bach attempts to do, a group responsibility (group mind). In the case "aspects of mind shared by a group" this displacement is not so easily accomplished. I think a better term than "group mind" or even "collective mind" might be the term "shared aspects of mind".

Apart from "Earth experience" in general, that is humankind's experience with matter, evolutionary progression (our animal nature) and so forth, the particular character of situations that spark group karma is directly due to limited numbers of people. In the matter of human strife, there is always one person or, perhaps a few people, acting to precipitate trouble. In general this is also true of the causes of most large environmental problems. The author of Dark Night Early Dawn feels that the collective human actions currently despoiling the environment will lead to a broad physical catharsis (as a karmic act involving all of humankind). He proposes that the survivors of such a global tragedy, knowing the causes of the events, and with the collective ego of the despoilers eliminated, will thus be driven to experience a great awakening.

However, one is minded to ask, as I continually do, if perhaps the idea that there will be survivors to such a catastrophe is not merely wishful thinking. The result of inappropriate environmental response (by humanity considered in the collective) will, on the contrary, very likely be extinction. For it is a fact that most species having inhabited the Earth are actually extinct right now and many major branches of life have withered without issue. Humanity might "pull through", promoted by an enlightened cadre of survivors but equally likely it might not, and on present balance it will not.

In order to justify the overall analysis, the author goes to great lengths to argue that the personal ego-self can be, as it were, eliminated. He says, "as the self dies a deeper form of individuality is liberated", which in itself is fine. He goes on to say "as the isolation of the private mind is consumed the self or ego dies - this is nothing more than the awakening ego of our - ashes - a truer form of individuality etc".

However, to my mind the whole form of one's ego must yet remains as an accessible construct regardless of the way one may choose to become detached from it. With effort, the ego can obviously be suppressed, shelved or transcended but it cannot be destroyed, how could it be otherwise? It can of course be superceeded but it is true that the sense of spiritual-self remains where the ego is suppressed. Subsequently this superceeds and modifies the ego in its development (if one is still in an apparently specific incarnation). One should be careful about the true implications of "eliminating" the ego-self. One remains responsible for what one is and what one has done regardless of forays into higher planes of consciousness. This responsibility is assumed by the "higher-self" even if manipulating one or an infinite number of avatars (threads of self-consciousness).

I agree with Ramakrishna (as quoted in Dark Night Early Dawn) that "The genuinely human body & mind of the avatara is an opaque covering. Beneath this veil there is no individual soul, no eternal facet of the divine, instead there resides the complete divine reality, with infinite facets". Of course the infinite facets shine into the "avatars" and these are responsible for producing the ego as they forget their true origin. As to the purpose of this, I suppose the only answer can be that in this manner the divine reality thus recreates itself into a "higher" more advanced state. In this sense the individual ultimatly realises its identity with the divine state which is and was never anything but perfection in the first place and the truth dawns that the whole thing was just a self-test, successfuly executed.The Journey To Enlightenment

This book has stirred me deeply, and I like what I feel. While the presentation is framed in dense academic language (complete with footnotes and literature citations), the trajectory is beyond the limitations of emperical science and intellect. What Bache does is to synthesize the worldview of our current scientific, emperical paradigm, with the various cosmologies observed in non-ordinary states of consciousness. Specifically, he looks at psychedelic experiences (induced chemically or through breath work), near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences. He identifies the common elements consistently reported in these experiences, unifies them, and overlays the world view which emerges onto our contemporary scientific paradigm. In doing so he articulates a cosmology which is actually simpler (to my mind) than the inconsistencies which result from considering the fragmentary viewpoints individually. After painting this picture of the world, the goes on to explain how the impending and inevitable ecological crisis which is being brought on by the narrow world view of our species on the planet presents either a hopeful scenario for a species wide change of consciousness or else extinction. His reasoning compels me toward the side of hope. Finally, he comes full circle and demonstrates that a species-wide embrace of transpersonal unity enhances rather than detracts from the potency of our individuality. He shows how each person's personal healing is the work of healing all beings and the planet. This book has changed the way I see my role in the world, and my personal work. I used the insights derived twice in planning meetings yesterday. It is at once a grandly sweeping revision of world view, and an imminently practical guide to making immediate choices in our daily lives.

As Christopher M. Bache explains in the introduction, this book is his "talking himself in from spirit", an attempt to comprehend two decades of experiences in nonordinary states of consciousness, primarily evoked using experimental psychotherapeutic methods such as Holotropic Breathwork and the supervised use of psychedelics.

Unfortunately for his readers, Bache failed to provide us with either a detailed biography and "travelogue" as for example Tom Pinkson did in his book Flowers of Wiricuta or to provide us with a grounded analysis of transpersonal states like Stanislav Grof did in any of his numerous books. What Bache ultimately delivered is just another mix of already seen ideas, personal speculations, ideas on the supposedly upcoming "end of the world", mixed with a few "trip reports" which represent the best parts of the book.

The general idea of the book is that humanity is on the verge of tremendous cataclysmic events, which will cause a species ego-death and its subsequent spiritual rebirth.

Bache fails to take into the account that traumatic events by itself are rarely spiritual liberating, but are more often that not extremely damaging to the psyche which rarely recovers to its previous level of functioning. A short analysis of post-traumatic stress literature would show that.

Instead of merely speculating on potential rebirth humanity may experience after it faces the upcoming cataclysm, Bach could analyze previous global traumatic events humanity as a whole experienced so far and look if any kind of positive spiritual liberations came out of them. If Bache hypothesis would be correct, we would definitely witness an "awakening" of some kind already at the end of World War II. Or were the suffering of millions on the battlefields and concentration camps not enough of a stimuli for the species-mind to awaken - at least even a bit?

In my view, Bache got caught up in the same loop as Terence McKenna did with his I-ching hypothesis (see The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching) and Daniel Pinchbeck did with his Quetzalcoatl hypothesis (see 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl). All three failed to seriously analyze the knowledge they received in non-ordinary states of consciousness and instead took it for granted. They also failed to realize that some things couldn't be understood rationally no matter how hard we try. To paraphrase Carlos Castaneda's mythic character Don Juan - the Abstract by its very nature cannot be understood rationally. Trying to do so only brings out confusing ideas of no real value or use.

The other mistake Bache got caught in was the fact that he failed to keep his process fully internalized. Instead it seems he started to project his inner experience to the outer world. I'm sure the cataclysm Bache saw coming is true, but not outside his own mind. The ego death is not of the specie, but of his own self (identified as the species mind). In starting to project that inner reality Bache ultimately created an amalgam of inner and outer experiences, which he tries to convince us as truth. During my own personal spiritual crisis I did the same, so I can understand his mistake.

In the end, I would like to say that I had great hopes for this book, but after reading it I'm left disappointed. I truly hope Bache will have the grace to write another book, this time with more personal tone, with less speculations on the nature of reality and the future of mankind and more of what got him interested in the psychedelic research in the first place and what were those two decades like for him. That would be something I would love to read.

For anyone interested in stretching the bounds of spirituality and exploring the limits of consciousness--and the unconscious--this is a must-read. Author Chris Basche is both courageous and humble in this undertaking, and the ideas he puts forth add much to the discourse on transpersonal communication and spirituality.

I've read this book three times. Chris offers a realistic, and yet optimistic reaction to the coming ecological crisis. He doesn't back away from what lies ahead, yet he compares the end of the 'world as we know it' to a birthing process. The coming environmental meltdown will be the 'near death experience' for the species. Chris' conclusions rank amoung the best spiritual paradigms for the ecological future.

I knew this book was going to be interesting and deep. Robert Monroe, Stan Grof, reincarnation and near-death experiences all in one book, how could it not be? But I was not expecting it to be so dark.

In Dark Night Early Dawn, Cristopher Bache explores with clarity the dynamics of the collective mind or species mind and how it interacts with the individual. A central notion is that we as a species are evolving culturally and that we are at a point in our evolution where we are facing a collective death-rebirth experience in the not so distant future. This would possibly according to Bache be triggered by suffering (as in the concept of "dark night of the soul") followed by species-wide psycho-spiritual rebirth. Death of the old matter oriented way and the birth of a new spirit-infused way. Bache feels that the coming future ecological crisis followed by social and economic collapse as a form of cathartic release of accumulated species-karma will be the trigger that launches species-wide ego death resulting in collective spiritual opening. From it will be reborn the Godess on Earth.

It is not hard to imagine that there may indeed be some form of great suffering ahead. I don't think that there necessarily *has to be* great collective suffering in order for the human species to be transformed (and it seems Bache doesn't either), although if we do experience great suffering this may very well trigger an enormous transformation especially if western society collapses in the process. A more hopeful view is that the transformation can be made slowly and gently. In practical terms, perhaps in the form of a psychedelic renaissance or archaic revival where modern man is integrated into the ancient shamanic worldview. It may be a race againt time. Will our society fuse with the archaic world of shamanism in time before we face total social, economic and ecological collapse followed by some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario where we kill one another for resources on a mass scale? That seems to be one of the most important questions explored in the book. If we do come to face this doomsday scenario then this book attempts to explore the causes and what might happen to us as a result.

Transpersonal states of consciousness as a means of healing humanity has been mentioned by Terence McKenna among others. Bache takes this one step further in a deeper exploration into the dynamics of individual/collective death-rebirth. The result of his probing contributes to an understanding of how psychedelic states can heal us as a species in a way that goes beyond simply "one person at a time". Grof has written about healing group-karma in a family or group of people, something that connects to this and to my mind remains one of the most intriguing phenomena in transpersonal psychology.

I would like to quote from the book something interesting that has to do with the powerful effect non-ordinary states can have on individuals: (p. 58) "Grof has found that every single person who reaches this level [full psychospiritual death and rebirth] in their work adopts a spirtual interpretation of existance, regardless of their prior psychosocial conditioning." This really says a lot about the benefit of introducing practices based on shamanism to our western culture. Writer Graham Hancock said recently in an interview that it should be required of individuals seeking to gain positions of power to have at the very least ten Ayahuasca sessions before they are considered as candidates. Grof has written about something like this aswell. I agree with this completely.

Before reading Dark Night Early Dawn it is helpful if the reader has some familiarity with the following individuals and their work (although the book contains summaries of some of these things):
- Stanislav Grof (Particularly "Realms of the human unconscious") and his cartography of the deep psyche.
- Ian Stevenson and his work on reincarnation
- Ken Wilber
- Robert Monroe and his work on out-of-body experiences
- NDE Research in general
- Rupert Sheldrake and his morphic fields

Selected points of particular interest:

- One of the most valuable things about this book is that it begins to connect the work of Stanislav Grof with Robert Monroe (Out-of-body experiences) and with Near-death experiences (NDEs). Bache argues that NDEs and OBEs can be understood as part of a death rebirth dynamic, this may be a step towards increased understanding of these phenomena.

- Bache discusses the limtations of a philosophical quest based exclusively on observations from ordinary states of consciousness, such as in our western society. He proposes that in order to explore the totality of human existence, both from a philosophical and psychological perspective, one must have personal experience of non-ordinary states, it is not enough to simply read about them. I think this is a very important point. This is something our culture is really missing out on. How can we as a culture call ourselves the peak of civilization and humanity when we deny ourselves one of the most fundamental of human needs; direct authentic experience of the divine?

- Bache's speculation that individual psychedelic experience are influenced by the collective state of humanity as a whole is interesting and can be connected to something I have heard Grof mention; that archetypal transit astrology (as in Richard Tarnas) can influence individual psychedelic states. It makes one wonder how for example ancient cultures like pharaonic egypt experienced non-ordinary states compared to modern man.

I really enjoyed reading Dark Night Early Dawn even though its really dark sometimes. The format is one of synthesis of different types of non-ordinary states, making connections where connections need to be made. As such this book is important. The fact that a lot of the content is grounded in the authors long experience of non-ordinary states (there are sessions described throughout) adds a lot to its authenticity. One criticism I have is that I think Bache should have written more about how all those years exploring non-ordinary states has changed his personal baseline consciousness other than in the classroom.

To begin with a disclaimer, I am biased by previous inclination towards the perspective evinced in this book. I attend a school where the author obtained a degree and sometimes teaches. While not everyone there holds the same worldview as the author and I, many do. I would say there are three major aspects of the book; they are 1)the exposition of a new paradigm of human evolution; 2)an expanded and more subtle cosmology, and 3)a proposal that the results of a careful use of psychedelics as agents of exploration, therapeutic healing, and personal transformation be considered valid and meaningful, and allowed (with supervision and support) for those who choose to follow that path. This is my current assessment of the book; I am still reading it. I find his observations and insights are congruent with other, related reports from psychonauts, meditators, and the epistemological and ontological schemas proposed by the various esoteric systems and Vedanta that I have read (and myself experienced to a modest degree). The subject matter of the book is, I believe, best considered within a transpersonal psychological perspective.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I helped me to understand better the therapeutic use of psychedelics and made me want to learn more about holotropic breathing. I did skip over the parts that emphasized that self-transformation must have a "dark night" before an "early dawn" is reached. I know well the challenges that face a person truly devoted to self-transformation, but I don't think that is something that should be expected. I do agree that a person has to be called to inner work and ready to face whatever emerges as a result of that inner work, but "hell" is a self-fulfilling prophecy I suspect.