By Stephen Russell-Lacy. This is the first script of a series of 6 podcasts asking how we can link ourselves with love and light. One of the great questions of life. Is higher awareness a fallacy? I start by looking at a sense of awe and wonder. Play podcast Download podcast Maybe you can vividly … Continue reading Higher awareness – A fallacy?
The brain, is a soft, mass of gray and white matter. It has been estimated that there are more connections between the nerve cells within each one than all the particles in the universe! But how on earth can a piece of mere biological tissue – albeit an incredibly complex one – have consciousness? How … Continue reading Consciousness: can brain matter have it?
You may wonder that if memories are chemically and electrically stored in the way neuroscience describes, does this mean that your brain is the be-all and end-all of your memory and that without your brain you would remember nothing after death?
With advances in brain scanning equipment, neuroscience can now observe human consciousness — seeing what the brain is doing when the person is aware of remembering, imagining, feeling, thinking and even making choices. Before the invention of this technology, it had been well known that when a brain is damaged, then the mind doesn’t work so … Continue reading Consciousness – Can science explain it?
by Stanislav Grof, Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology, State University of New York Press. 2000. ISBN 0 7914 4622
This book is about modern consciousness research. It is written by one of the founders of transpersonal psychology and covers his ideas regarding non-ordinary states of consciousness. His term for these is ‘holotropic’ experience which signifies ‘moving towards wholeness.’ His discussion draws on for example such fascinating human states of consciousness as past-life experiences, peak experiences, communication with spirit guides and channelling, near-death experiences, crises of shamans like witch-doctors, states of possession, and awakening of Kundalini. He also reports findings from his original research into ‘psychedelic therapy’ and ‘holotropic breathwork’.
One critic has commented ‘If more psychiatrists could be persuaded that human consciousness transcends the limitations of the physical brain and instead is but an aspect of what may best be described as ‘cosmic consciousness,’ we could not only expect treatment modalities to change, but we could also anticipate the possibility of culture-wide rethinking … about the nature of personhood.’