The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death [Paperback]

Stanislav Grof (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2006

Beyond personal history and archetypal themes, a comprehensive psychology must also address the fundamental significance of birth and death. Stanislav Grof, M.D., renowned for his pioneering contributions regarding the psychological and spiritual aspects of the birth process, now adds invaluable insights from more than half a century of research and personal discovery into the experience of death and dying. Dr. Grof distills teachings from ancient wisdom and modern science that suggest how to face the process of death and dying. The ultimate journey challenges us all, and how we approach it is much more than major personal issue. Those who come to terms with death in deep experiential self-exploration tend to develop a sense of planetary citizenship, reverence for life in all its forms, and spirituality of a universal and all-encompassing nature. Such radial inner transformation might be humanityís only real chance for survival. The Ultimate Journey describes ancient and aboriginal ritual and spiritual practices that help us understand the experience of death, develop effective ways of making dying easier, and integrate it as a meaningful part of life. The book also summarizes modern studies that shed new light on a variety of phenomena related to death and dying, including psycho-spiritual death and rebirth, near-death experiences, and the new expanded cartography y of the psyche that has emerged from Grofís fifty years of research of psychedelic therapy, Holotropic Breathwork, and spontaneous psychospiritual crises.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stanislav Grof, M.D., internationally acclaimed psychiatrist and co-founder of the transpersonal psychology, has taught and lectured in academic and workshop settings worldwide. He has served as Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Scholar-in-Residence at Esalen Institute, and Co-President of the Grof Transpersonal Training Program. Dr. Grof is a distinguished faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies and the author of many books, including LSD Psychotherapy, The Adventure of Self-Discovery, The Cosmic Game, and Psychology of the Future.

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS); 1 edition (September 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966001990
• ISBN-13: 978-0966001990
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #704,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Going With Love, February 13, 2007

By 

Renn Butler - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death (Paperback)

Death and dying are the most universal and important experiences in human life, yet until the late 1960s, prominent members of Western civilization - including our medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers - showed an astonishing lack of interest in these crucial areas. "The only plausible explanation for this situation is massive denial of death and psychological repression of everything related to it." So begins Stanislav Grof's new opus on death, dying, and transcendence, The Ultimate Journey, a heartfelt review of past and present efforts to redress this serious omission in our culture.

Grof writes that our modern industrial civilization typically gives more attention to the wardrobe, makeup, and even plastic surgery for the corpse than to counseling dying individuals and their families. This is in marked contrast to preindustrial societies for whom death and dying were paramount in their worldviews and important inspiration for much of their art and architecture. The shamans of many cultures - going back at least thirty thousand years - began their careers with a spontaneous or induced experience of death and rebirth. They explored, firsthand, territories of the psyche that transcend the boundaries of individual consciousness. Similarly, in the rites of passage, initiates were guided into non-ordinary or holotropic ("moving toward wholeness") states of consciousness and had a personal experience of numinous realities that transcend biological death. In the ancient mysteries, neophytes participated in various mind-expanding processes or "technologies of the sacred" to move beyond individual consciousness and experience directly the higher transpersonal dimensions of existence. The Goddess Mysteries of Eleusis, for example, held near Athens for almost two thousand years - and which it is now virtually certain used ergot, a naturally occurring form of LSD - had as their participants many of the creative and intellectual giants of Western culture. Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Euripedes, Sophocles, Plutarch, Pindar, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero all attest to the life-changing power of their holotropic experiences at Eleusis or the other mystery sites.

Grof further enriches this emerging new picture by reviewing important developments in the fields of thanatology, scientific study of reincarnation, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and messages and visits from the Beyond. Reputable published data from researchers in these fields, while by themselves cannot be considered "proof" of survival of consciousness after death, together represent a wave of compelling anomalous phenomena that have not been convincingly explained in the traditional scientific paradigms. Grof suggests that the conflict between science and spirituality was completely unnecessary and reflects a misunderstanding between different domains of reality.

Grof also reviews the groundbreaking work with terminal cancer patients conducted by staff at the Spring Grove Hospital in Maryland, the last federally funded research project with psychedelics in the U.S. until the modern era. Describing in detail the research design, protocols, and procedure of these sessions, as well as a number of poignant case studies, Grof recounts the dramatic and often surprising therapeutic results the Spring Grove team observed in the five categories of: alleviation of emotional suffering, physical pain and distress, fear of death and attitude toward dying, time orientation and basic hierarchy of values, and psychological condition of the survivors. He and his colleagues repeatedly witnessed an astonishing process "that closely resembled the initiation practices of the ancient mysteries of death and rebirth and often involved experiential sequences similar to those reported in the Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead." The inner experiences of these individuals gave them access to transpersonal and unitive domains of consciousness that helped them to live their final days, weeks, and months with less physical pain and fear of death, with more peace of mind, enjoyment of the present moment, and improved quality in their relationships. The accounts of these individuals' transitions are deeply moving and represented exceptionally rewarding experiences for the caregivers. Based on this and other well-published research, Grof invites administrators, legislators, and politicians to inform themselves by reading the professional and scientific journals, rather than the questionable reports of sensation-hunting journalists. He makes a heartfelt and convincing case that we may be depriving the dying of powerful healing tools to make their transitions easier, more joyful, and more dignified.

I recommend this book to anyone seeking to come to terms with their own or anyone else's mortality. From its strikingly appealing cover, its presentation of humanity's rich mythologies of death and rebirth, the reviews of consciousness research, and forty pages of brilliantly reproduced sacred frescoes, evocative tomb paintings, vivid mandalas, and precious personal photos - this book is itself an urgently needed manual for conscious dying and conscious living. It seems clear that our industrial civilization is plundering the earth to compensate for a deep unconscious fear of death and dying. Yet modern consciousness research is confirming what the shamans, mystics, and priestesses have always known. As the poet Rabindrananth Tagore realized: "Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come."

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stan Grof's Legacy, May 15, 2008

By 

Timothy R. O'Hanlon "Record Store Manager / M... (Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death (Paperback)

In or about 1973, Stanislav (who I affectionately call Stan)Grof's very promising study of the effects of LSD and other of what Stan calls "Holotropic" substances, was rudely interrupted by the Federal Government. It was not actually illegal to engage in this type of research; the CIA and Military continued to conduct their nefarious experiments but others were compelled to secure permission from the FDA, which, to my knowledge, was rarely if ever given. I believe, as I'm sure Stan does, that this was a great tragedy.

This book may be Stan's "swan song" and it's a very poignant and beautiful one. It summarizes many of the primary ideas in his previous books and relates them to what, thanks mainly to the Tibetan Buddhists, is becoming a popular subject -- death and dying.

After reading Sogyal Rinpoche's wonderful "The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying", I became very interested in the subject of death and dying, so much so, that I became a hospice volunteer. However, though it is based on an extensive study of the subject, this book is not about death perse but about consciousness, particularly about what Stan calls "Holotropic States of Consciousness".

Though I'm quite familiar with Stan's views, this book is in many ways a revelation. If I may, I'd like to share one short quote from page 140 of the book:
"...information about the universe can be obtained in two radically different ways. Besides the conventional possibility of learning through sensory perception and analysis and synthesis of the data, we can also explore various aspects of the world by directly identifying with them in a holotropic state of consciousness. Each of us thus appears to be a microcosm containing the information about the entire macrocosm."

If the reader has gotten this far, I would like her or him to take the time to ponder the import of that statement. What Stan is saying is that, if we learned to use both hemispheres of our brain and not just the left, we would begin to see the universe and our place in it quite differently. If we and our world are to survive, we need to start doing this now.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading and then keeping to read again, June 20, 2009

By 

Judith (Santa Cruz, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death (Paperback)

Grof is (was) a quite-respected psychiatrist, which is what influenced me to read this book -- that and because I'm intensely curious about what happens to our consciousness after death (that's what most people worry about, I think, not their bodies). I've read rather widely on the subject, and this is one of the few books worth keeping to reread later. It's a comprehensive, clear, relatively succinct, and insightful synthesis of -- for one thing -- the views of various religions and cultures worldwide over time. The parts about drug-induced altered states of consciousness are a bit of a turnoff to me, but I agree with the reviewer who suggested that we can attain some of the same effect and benefit if we work on learning to get there without the LSD or such things. That's called "meditation." The other two reviews before mine were well-written and valuable, so thanks to those readers.