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-As a filmmaker, I try to
remain a neutral observer,

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but what caused me
to tell Stan Grof's story

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and what I learned in the
process made that impossible.

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My name is Susan,
and for most of my life,

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I felt like I really
didn't belong here,

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like I was born
on the wrong planet.

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All I could think of
was how to go back.

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-[ Crying ]

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-The magic that filled my dreams

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would evaporate
with the daylight.

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For a while, ballet seemed
like the place where I belonged,

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but even that
eventually changed.

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Then in my early 20s,
I tried LSD.

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For the first time,
I felt lovable.

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Finally, I believed in myself,
and everything changed.

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But without a structure
to ground me,

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I made bad choices
that harmed my body

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and others
that took years to undo.

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And then I discovered shamanism
and learned how to journey.

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Up I went, past the clouds,

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beyond the Earth's atmosphere,

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until I was surrounded
by darkness.

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I met my teachers and felt
that I had known them forever.

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They healed me, helped me
make sense of the world,

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and could explain anything.

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Once I even asked for a story,
and they showed me one.

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♪♪

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♪♪

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I started to make changes
that were difficult.

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I traveled to France
and fell in love.

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But then we couldn't
get pregnant,

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and I learned that
if I wanted a baby,

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I'd have to tune
back into Earth.

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♪♪

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♪♪

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-We got a lot of candy,
and we got a...

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-When I thought my kids
were old enough,

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I tried to reconnect.

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There were insights,
but no upward journey

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to meet my teachers.

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In the search for another way
to reconnect with them,

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I learned about Stan Grof.

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-Consciousness is not something
that emerges

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as an accident after billions
of years of evolution,

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something that requires
a central nervous system.

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And I had an experience that
just sort of changed my life

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both professionally
and personally.

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People get tranquilizers and
get hospitalized for experiences

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that in other cultures would be
considered extremely valuable.

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-Stan Grof is known

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as the pioneer
of psychedelic psychotherapy.

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Drawing from his own experiences

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and from thousands of high-dose
LSD sessions with is patients.

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The insights he gained
personally combined

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with the experiences
of his patients

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expanded his understanding
of the human psyche.

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It stretched beyond
the biographical information

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that begins after we are born
to memories

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surrounding our time in the womb
and during the birth process.

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His expanded map even included
the spiritual nature

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of humanity,

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recognizing
past-life experiences

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and dimensions of consciousness
we share with all of creation.

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Stan used these insights

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to co-found
Transpersonal Psychology

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with Abraham Maslow,

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and working with his wife,
Christina,

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organized international
transpersonal conferences

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around the world.

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During much of this period,

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Stan was also
the scholar-in-residence

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at the Esalen Institute
in Big Sur.

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Spiritual masters
and groundbreaking pioneers

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representing a broad spectrum
of disciplines

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were frequent guests
at the workshops

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and month-long retreats
he offered

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during his 14 years there.

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It was there that Stan
and Christina

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developed Holotropic Breathwork,

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a breathing technique
that could induce

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powerful non-ordinary states
of consciousness

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similar to an LSD session.

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I had to meet Stan.

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On some deep level I knew

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he could help me
find my way back in.

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When I learned he would
be teaching a course,

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I signed up immediately.

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-I was so far talking about

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non-ordinary
states of consciousness,

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but I have been all these
60 years now interested

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in a very significant
large subgroup

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of these
non-ordinary experiences

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for which current psychology
has no special name.

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They're all put in the category

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of altered states
of consciousness.

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What it suggests somehow
is that there's a correct way

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of experiencing
ourselves in the world,

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and that in these states,
it's distorted.

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We have to use
this new psychology

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if we want to use
effectively Holotropic states.

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You know, if you want
to run psychedelic sessions

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or do Holotropic Breathwork,

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or if we want to work
with people

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who are in spiritual emergency.

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-I had read about
Stan's theories

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on how our experiences
in the womb

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affected our unconscious,

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but to hear him explain it gave
me a whole new understanding.

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-...that the experiences,
if you regress to birth,

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the experiences come
in four patterns.

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I call them perinatal matrices,
basic perinatal matrices.

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The first perinatal matrix
relates to the situation

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of the fetus still in the womb

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before the onset
of the delivery.

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This could be pregnancy
which is a result of planning,

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of the parents'
loving expectation.

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The mother is
physically healthy,

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is in emotionally
good condition.

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Reliving of that kind of state

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would be a very ecstatic
experience.

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Now, this doesn't
necessarily happen.

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There are pregnancy which are
a result of rape,

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of a one-night stand
when both parents were drunk,

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where the marriage was broken,

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the mother is abused physically

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and emotionally unhealthy.

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The pregnancy could be
so unwelcome

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that there are attempts
at abortion.

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Another possibility,
the mother is Rh negative,

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the father is Rh positive,

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so that from the beginning
the fetus is being attacked,

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immunologically treated
as an invader.

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Come nine months, plus/minus,

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this is the onset
of the delivery.

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First hormonal changes
which are then translated

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into mechanical contractions
of the uterus.

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Each contraction compresses
the arteries

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and interrupts
placentary circulation

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between the mother and the child

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which means no supply of oxygen,
no nourishment coming in,

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and there's no removal
of metabolic products.

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There's no resolution for it
because the cervix is not open,

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just contractions of the uterus
in a closed system.

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Now, with each contraction,

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the cervix is being pulled
over the head.

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It's dilating.

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When it reaches
the necessary size,

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then it's the transition
to the third matrix.

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The contractions continue
with all the consequences,

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but the cervix is now open,

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so there is this
laborious propulsions

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through the birth canal.

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Now there are tremendous
pressures here.

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Suffocation and the pain
generate powerful energy

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which has all the qualities
of sexual energy.

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Our first encounter
with sexual energy,

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we were inflicting pain
on another organism.

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Another organism
was inflecting pain on us.

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We couldn't breathe.

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There were a lot of pressures
and fear.

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This kind of experience
then can become

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the basis of the development
of various sexual dysfunctions,

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deviations,
aberrations, perversions.

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Then we have the completion
of the delivery,

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headfirst or feetfirst, and then
the umbilical cord is cut.

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From then on the child exists

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as an anatomically
independent individual,

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still biologically emotionally
dependent, of course.

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♪♪

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-The matrices begin with unity,

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transition to Hell
with no escape,

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then to purgatory
with the end in sight

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where you are the victim and the
perpetrator and the observer,

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and finally culminate
in freedom

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and a newfound sense
of connection.

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-Thank you very much for...
-As Stan finished,

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I remembered
the rebirthing workshop

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I'd taken at Rajneeshpuram
back in the '80s.

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I felt like I was dropping
into a deep pit

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that grew more painful
as I descended.

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Just when I thought
I was going to die,

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I burst through
into an ocean of love and light.

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♪♪

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♪♪

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Joseph Campbell is best known
for his work

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in comparing mythologies
and religions

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from cultures around the world.

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He met Stan in the late '60s

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at a conference
in New York City.

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When Campbell heard
Stan's theory

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on the four perinatal matrices,
he instantly solved a mystery

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that had intrigued him
for years.

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He couldn't understand
how cultures

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from diverse
geographical locations

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could share the same
death-rebirth themes.

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He called it a monomyth.

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But when he saw
Stan's presentation,

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he understand
that these cultures

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were reliving the experience
of their own births.

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The perinatal matrices,

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especially the third moving
into the fourth,

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served as the threshold
for the "Hero's Journey."

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The rites of passage
that these cultures developed

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allowed their initiates

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to access unconscious
birth memories,

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face their fear of death
and finally free themselves

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from a deep maternal dependency.

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-Birth itself is not only
a rite of passage,

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but is perhaps
the universal rite of passage

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that we all go through.

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Perhaps it's through
that experience

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that we come into the world
knowing deeply that if we are

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to succeed in the ongoing
actualization of our potentials,

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whatever they are as individuals
throughout the life cycle

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for however long we live,
we will need to undergo

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repeatedly similar rites
of passage.

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-Holotropic Breathwork is
an experiential approach

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to self-exploration,

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to therapy which uses
very, very simple means.

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It uses faster breathing.

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It uses a powerful,
evocative music

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and also some kind of bodywork
when it's indicated.

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-Each individual
will choose a partner.

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One of those people
does the breathing,

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and the other person
sits with him or her,

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and then they switch roles
so that everybody gets a chance

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to participate
both as a breather

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and as what we call a sitter.

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-And we also combine with what
we call Mandala drawings,

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and after the session
they try to communicated

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what happened to them
in a kind of graphic way.

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-The second day of the
conference was the breathwork.

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I couldn't believe
how anxious I felt.

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♪♪

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Towards the end
of the three hours,

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I sat up thinking
that it was over.

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It had been a pleasant
experience,

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and I tried to tell
the facilitator that I was fine,

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that she could take care
of the next person,

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but she wouldn't leave.

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The minutes stretched on

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when suddenly a wave of sadness
rolled up from my belly,

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and that's when I understood
the meaning of Stan's phrase,

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"As long as it takes."

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Everyone deserves the time
for the process to fully unfold.

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♪♪

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♪♪

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Later during the course,

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Stan showed slides
from his Tantra presentation.

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It was the same theme
that my teacher showed me

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some 20 years earlier.

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Suddenly I realized that on
some deep level, I wasn't alone.

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There was something universal
about what I'd experienced,

256
00:13:49.328 --> 00:13:51.580
and Stan held the wisdom
I needed

257
00:13:51.664 --> 00:13:54.333
to make sense
of how it all fit together.

258
00:13:56.168 --> 00:13:57.586
About nine months later,

259
00:13:57.670 --> 00:13:59.755
I learned that Christina
had died

260
00:13:59.838 --> 00:14:01.924
and worried that
Stan might follow her

261
00:14:02.007 --> 00:14:04.760
if there wasn't something
to keep him engaged.

262
00:14:04.843 --> 00:14:07.596
When I learned about
the conference honoring him,

263
00:14:07.680 --> 00:14:10.808
I knew I had to go.

264
00:14:10.891 --> 00:14:13.561
-Welcome to the Bay Area,

265
00:14:13.644 --> 00:14:17.231
and as Rick Tarnas
has been heard to say,

266
00:14:17.314 --> 00:14:21.443
where new ideas meet
the least resistance.

267
00:14:21.527 --> 00:14:26.448
-For over a half-century,
Stan Grof has fully engaged

268
00:14:26.532 --> 00:14:27.908
and then participated

269
00:14:27.992 --> 00:14:31.078
in the great transformation
of world view

270
00:14:31.161 --> 00:14:32.997
that is taking place
in our era.

271
00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:38.460
-He was my mentor,
fellow explorer of new visions,

272
00:14:38.544 --> 00:14:41.297
copresenter at many seminars,

273
00:14:41.380 --> 00:14:43.924
and guide in
experiential therapies.

274
00:14:44.008 --> 00:14:48.470
-At 75 years ago, Stan and I
were kind of conspiring

275
00:14:48.554 --> 00:14:52.641
to attack the non-ordinary
states of consciousness.

276
00:14:52.725 --> 00:14:54.643
-When I finally overcame
my qualms

277
00:14:54.727 --> 00:14:57.813
and moved from semi-hard drugs
to psychedelics

278
00:14:57.896 --> 00:15:00.190
and started having
LSD experiences,

279
00:15:00.274 --> 00:15:04.361
which were the most
amazing things I had ever had.

280
00:15:04.445 --> 00:15:06.113
-It was a very different...

281
00:15:06.196 --> 00:15:08.198
-Here were all these
accomplished people,

282
00:15:08.282 --> 00:15:11.160
and the one thing they had
in common was an experience

283
00:15:11.243 --> 00:15:15.331
of non-ordinary
states of consciousness.

284
00:15:15.414 --> 00:15:16.707
I had always imagined
that people

285
00:15:16.790 --> 00:15:19.835
who did psychedelics
remained hippies for life.

286
00:15:19.918 --> 00:15:22.004
And what about the mainstream
news warnings

287
00:15:22.087 --> 00:15:25.674
of irreparable damage
from using LSD?

288
00:15:25.758 --> 00:15:27.843
But the presenters were some of
the most accomplished

289
00:15:27.926 --> 00:15:30.888
and insightful people
I'd ever heard.

290
00:15:30.971 --> 00:15:32.848
Stan offered them a context

291
00:15:32.931 --> 00:15:35.517
that they in turn
expanded and shared.

292
00:15:35.601 --> 00:15:38.354
-Stan developed
these descriptions,

293
00:15:38.437 --> 00:15:42.191
described exactly,
I mean, in detail,

294
00:15:42.274 --> 00:15:44.360
some of the most
gruesome experiences

295
00:15:44.443 --> 00:15:47.696
that I'd had that,
you know, where I was, like,

296
00:15:47.780 --> 00:15:52.201
in a Medieval torture chamber
being beaten to death by guys

297
00:15:52.284 --> 00:15:54.870
with enormous clubs
to a bloody pulp,

298
00:15:54.953 --> 00:15:56.372
and, like, I thought,

299
00:15:56.455 --> 00:15:58.874
"Well, how does this relate
to my Oedipus complex

300
00:15:58.957 --> 00:16:01.710
or anything else
for that matter?"

301
00:16:01.794 --> 00:16:04.380
-For me personally
and many who spoke

302
00:16:04.463 --> 00:16:06.048
and many who are in this room,

303
00:16:06.131 --> 00:16:11.261
just going near Stan
changes your life.

304
00:16:11.345 --> 00:16:13.555
-During the event,
Christina was honored

305
00:16:13.639 --> 00:16:15.724
for her contributions as well.

306
00:16:15.808 --> 00:16:18.060
She introduced Stan
to Muktananda,

307
00:16:18.143 --> 00:16:20.854
contributed to the development
of Holotropic Breathwork,

308
00:16:20.938 --> 00:16:24.900
and together, they created an
approach to spiritual emergence

309
00:16:24.983 --> 00:16:26.568
when suppressed memories
and emotions

310
00:16:26.652 --> 00:16:29.405
spontaneously rise
to the surface.

311
00:16:29.488 --> 00:16:30.739
Their technique
helped people

312
00:16:30.823 --> 00:16:35.411
avoid hospitalization
and misdiagnosis.

313
00:16:35.494 --> 00:16:37.079
Christina also shared
her struggle

314
00:16:37.162 --> 00:16:39.581
with kundalini awakening
and alcoholism,

315
00:16:39.665 --> 00:16:41.583
which helped others
find resolution

316
00:16:41.667 --> 00:16:43.085
with their challenges,

317
00:16:43.168 --> 00:16:46.588
and I could more than relate
to her feelings of insecurity

318
00:16:46.672 --> 00:16:51.427
around so many accomplished
academics and professionals.

319
00:16:51.510 --> 00:16:52.928
The next day was the workshop

320
00:16:53.011 --> 00:16:55.597
designed to support
the Grof Foundation.

321
00:16:55.681 --> 00:16:57.933
I'll never forget
how frightened I felt.

322
00:16:58.016 --> 00:17:01.603
Here I was, an outsider,
among people who knew Stan

323
00:17:01.687 --> 00:17:04.940
and had been studying
or working with him for years.

324
00:17:05.023 --> 00:17:06.442
But I found my courage

325
00:17:06.525 --> 00:17:09.445
and suggested that the best way
to share Stan's research

326
00:17:09.528 --> 00:17:11.613
about the healing power
of non-ordinary states

327
00:17:11.697 --> 00:17:14.992
of consciousness
was to make a movie about him.

328
00:17:15.075 --> 00:17:20.789
♪♪

329
00:17:20.873 --> 00:17:23.959
-This is my favorite sculpture
here.

330
00:17:24.042 --> 00:17:25.919
Do you see that?

331
00:17:26.003 --> 00:17:28.130
So it help you see, right,
the helicopter.

332
00:17:28.213 --> 00:17:30.632
You have a flight,
and then you have a ship

333
00:17:30.716 --> 00:17:33.802
and then wheels at the bottom.

334
00:17:33.886 --> 00:17:39.641
So it's protection against
any kind of transportation

335
00:17:39.725 --> 00:17:42.311
that can be involved.

336
00:17:42.394 --> 00:17:45.022
-As I set up my equipment
for the first interview,

337
00:17:45.105 --> 00:17:48.776
I couldn't help thinking,
"Who was I to interview Stan?

338
00:17:48.859 --> 00:17:56.158
♪♪

339
00:17:56.241 --> 00:18:00.496
And yet I felt so open
and clear-headed in his presence

340
00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:02.539
as though I had access
to information

341
00:18:02.623 --> 00:18:05.125
that wasn't available
to me on my own.

342
00:18:05.209 --> 00:18:12.007
♪♪

343
00:18:12.090 --> 00:18:13.675
What took me by surprise

344
00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:16.845
was Stan's incredible kindness
and generosity.

345
00:18:16.929 --> 00:18:21.683
Almost immediately
we dove into his past.

346
00:18:21.767 --> 00:18:24.019
Stan grew up in Czechoslovakia

347
00:18:24.102 --> 00:18:27.147
just before the outbreak
of World War II.

348
00:18:27.231 --> 00:18:29.983
His early childhood
was relatively peaceful,

349
00:18:30.067 --> 00:18:33.695
but the threat of a Nazi
occupation became a reality

350
00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:37.658
when the German army
invaded in 1939.

351
00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:46.208
Stan was 8 years old when
Nazi soldiers invaded Prague

352
00:18:46.291 --> 00:18:48.877
and forced Czech citizens
to surrender.

353
00:18:48.961 --> 00:18:54.049
For six years, Stan was exposed
to their sadistic cruelty,

354
00:18:54.132 --> 00:18:58.053
including the brutal retaliation
after the assassination

355
00:18:58.136 --> 00:19:01.181
of SS Officer Reinhard Heydrich,

356
00:19:01.265 --> 00:19:04.393
Hitler's third in command.

357
00:19:04.476 --> 00:19:06.895
Known as the architect
of the Holocaust,

358
00:19:06.979 --> 00:19:08.897
Heydrich had been sent to Prague

359
00:19:08.981 --> 00:19:12.901
to wipe out
defiance of German rule.

360
00:19:12.985 --> 00:19:15.737
On May 27, 1942,

361
00:19:15.821 --> 00:19:19.533
Heydrich was attacked
by Czech resistance fighters

362
00:19:19.616 --> 00:19:23.203
and died from his injuries
a few days later.

363
00:19:23.287 --> 00:19:27.457
The Nazi retaliation lasted
more than three months.

364
00:19:27.541 --> 00:19:31.044
The neighboring villages
of the Lidice and Lezaky

365
00:19:31.128 --> 00:19:33.213
were destroyed.

366
00:19:33.297 --> 00:19:36.383
Most of the adult population
was murdered,

367
00:19:36.466 --> 00:19:39.761
while all but
a few children disappeared.

368
00:19:39.845 --> 00:19:42.264
Stan was 12 years old
at the time

369
00:19:42.347 --> 00:19:44.600
and remembers the continuous
executions

370
00:19:44.683 --> 00:19:46.935
leading up to the death
of the resistance fighters

371
00:19:47.019 --> 00:19:48.896
who had killed Heydrich.

372
00:19:48.979 --> 00:19:52.482
It was a terrifying period
for the entire country.

373
00:19:54.192 --> 00:19:57.446
Thankfully when the war
ended in 1945,

374
00:19:57.529 --> 00:20:01.116
Czechoslovakia was restored
to its pre-war boundaries

375
00:20:01.199 --> 00:20:03.785
and enjoyed
a peaceful existence.

376
00:20:06.371 --> 00:20:07.789
But just three years later,

377
00:20:07.873 --> 00:20:10.292
with the support
of the Soviet Union,

378
00:20:10.375 --> 00:20:11.960
the communists took over.

379
00:20:12.044 --> 00:20:15.923
Two Czech national heroes died
under suspicious circumstances,

380
00:20:16.006 --> 00:20:19.927
and once again, a shadow spread
over Czechoslovakia.

381
00:20:20.010 --> 00:20:25.307
♪♪

382
00:20:25.390 --> 00:20:29.102
Stan was 17 when he was accused
of possessing a leaflet

383
00:20:29.186 --> 00:20:32.314
encouraging people to challenge
the Communist Party.

384
00:20:32.397 --> 00:20:34.483
-After school, it was 1:00,

385
00:20:34.566 --> 00:20:37.194
and a bell was ringing.

386
00:20:37.277 --> 00:20:39.154
And I opened the door,
and there were two men

387
00:20:39.237 --> 00:20:42.658
in leather coats
and just broke in.

388
00:20:42.741 --> 00:20:48.205
And they just completely
ransacked the apartment.

389
00:20:48.288 --> 00:20:53.669
-Stan was arrested and held
in prison for four months.

390
00:20:53.752 --> 00:20:55.504
In fact, his experiences

391
00:20:55.587 --> 00:20:57.839
with non-ordinary states
of consciousness

392
00:20:57.923 --> 00:20:59.841
happened during
a two-week period

393
00:20:59.925 --> 00:21:03.053
of disrupted sleep
and interrogations.

394
00:21:03.136 --> 00:21:06.848
-And basically we had to go
through our biography,

395
00:21:06.932 --> 00:21:10.185
the whole life from childhood,

396
00:21:10.269 --> 00:21:13.230
and then we were sent back
to the cell.

397
00:21:13.313 --> 00:21:16.233
And we didn't know if they would
come back in another 20 minutes,

398
00:21:16.316 --> 00:21:19.736
or if we'll be able to sleep
the rest of the night.

399
00:21:22.280 --> 00:21:25.033
As I was talking about
the childhood,

400
00:21:25.117 --> 00:21:30.080
I started actually seeing
the scenes from my childhood.

401
00:21:30.163 --> 00:21:32.207
What was really interesting was,

402
00:21:32.290 --> 00:21:35.877
in spite of the very,
very difficult situation,

403
00:21:35.961 --> 00:21:37.921
I started realizing

404
00:21:38.005 --> 00:21:41.717
that there was something
about it that I enjoyed.

405
00:21:41.800 --> 00:21:44.219
-It's something of a miracle
that he ever made it

406
00:21:44.302 --> 00:21:45.721
into medical school after that,

407
00:21:45.804 --> 00:21:48.098
but a two-month stint
on a student brigade

408
00:21:48.181 --> 00:21:51.727
was the first in a series
of events that turned it around.

409
00:21:51.810 --> 00:21:55.063
-Basically our task
was to remove the rock

410
00:21:55.147 --> 00:21:59.359
from one side to another so that
there was a space for a highway,

411
00:21:59.443 --> 00:22:02.070
and they really didn't have
any other way

412
00:22:02.154 --> 00:22:05.741
of finding out how we worked
than by giving them

413
00:22:05.824 --> 00:22:09.745
the count of the wheelbarrows
that we sort of transferred,

414
00:22:09.828 --> 00:22:12.748
so there was
a possibility of cheating.

415
00:22:12.831 --> 00:22:15.584
-Fellow classmates who had
joined the Communist Party

416
00:22:15.667 --> 00:22:18.253
despite their lack of commitment
to party beliefs

417
00:22:18.336 --> 00:22:19.755
tried to protect Stan

418
00:22:19.838 --> 00:22:22.424
by giving him an award
for his outstanding work

419
00:22:22.507 --> 00:22:25.927
and exceptional relationship
with the working class.

420
00:22:26.011 --> 00:22:28.096
Stan was later assigned
to a school filled with

421
00:22:28.180 --> 00:22:31.600
students from laborer
and farm-worker families.

422
00:22:31.683 --> 00:22:34.311
As the school's director was
recovering from a heart attack

423
00:22:34.394 --> 00:22:37.397
when Stan was admitted,
he failed to read Stan's file

424
00:22:37.481 --> 00:22:40.442
and recommended him
for a Presidential Gold Medal

425
00:22:40.525 --> 00:22:42.152
for a his exceptional studies,

426
00:22:42.235 --> 00:22:44.279
so when the medical school's
admissions staff

427
00:22:44.362 --> 00:22:45.781
read Stan's file,

428
00:22:45.864 --> 00:22:47.949
they saw that he'd been
acquitted for lack of evidence,

429
00:22:48.033 --> 00:22:51.119
but that he'd also been honored
as an outstanding laborer

430
00:22:51.203 --> 00:22:54.456
and awarded a gold medal
by President Gottwald.

431
00:22:54.539 --> 00:22:58.627
And so Stan was admitted
to medical school.

432
00:22:58.710 --> 00:23:01.296
-But when I was a student
working in psychiatry,

433
00:23:01.379 --> 00:23:03.757
that was in the psychedelic
clinic in Prague.

434
00:23:03.840 --> 00:23:08.303
There was a lot of very drastic
therapeutic methods

435
00:23:08.386 --> 00:23:09.638
that were being used.

436
00:23:09.721 --> 00:23:11.139
Then when I graduated,

437
00:23:11.223 --> 00:23:14.810
I was working in
a psychiatry hospital,

438
00:23:14.893 --> 00:23:18.980
and as a newcomer, as a sort
of freshly baked psychiatrist,

439
00:23:19.064 --> 00:23:22.150
I had to get up early
and give the electroshocks

440
00:23:22.234 --> 00:23:26.655
and the insulin comas up to,
like,

441
00:23:26.738 --> 00:23:32.869
25 electroshocks
and 15 insulin comas.

442
00:23:32.953 --> 00:23:35.831
-From the late 1920s
to the 1950s,

443
00:23:35.914 --> 00:23:39.501
insulin comas were used
to treat schizophrenia.

444
00:23:39.584 --> 00:23:43.672
After an insulin injection,
patients might perspire heavily.

445
00:23:43.755 --> 00:23:46.550
Many salivated profusely,

446
00:23:46.633 --> 00:23:50.846
and eventually
they would contort in spasms.

447
00:23:50.929 --> 00:23:54.015
Once a profound state
of unconsciousness was reached,

448
00:23:54.099 --> 00:23:56.518
a nasogastric tube was inserted,

449
00:23:56.601 --> 00:24:00.355
bile was drawn to verify the
correct placement of the tube,

450
00:24:00.438 --> 00:24:03.859
and then a glucose solution
was administered.

451
00:24:03.942 --> 00:24:05.402
Archival films depict patients

452
00:24:05.485 --> 00:24:08.321
waking to feel
energetic and hungry.

453
00:24:08.405 --> 00:24:12.200
The procedure had a mortality
rate of 1 in a 100.

454
00:24:12.284 --> 00:24:16.913
Stan induced
15 insulin comas a day.

455
00:24:16.997 --> 00:24:20.167
Electroshock therapy began
in the late 1930s

456
00:24:20.250 --> 00:24:23.503
from the belief that
artificially induced convulsions

457
00:24:23.587 --> 00:24:25.213
could cure mental illness.

458
00:24:25.297 --> 00:24:27.716
Electrodes were placed
on a patient's temples

459
00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:30.177
while an electric current
passed through them.

460
00:24:30.260 --> 00:24:32.721
The resulting convulsions
were strong enough

461
00:24:32.804 --> 00:24:33.930
to cause broken bones

462
00:24:34.014 --> 00:24:36.099
if the patients
weren't restrained.

463
00:24:36.183 --> 00:24:39.060
Curare, derived from
South American plants,

464
00:24:39.144 --> 00:24:41.730
was later used to
paralyze motor nerves

465
00:24:41.813 --> 00:24:43.231
and lessen the convulsions.

466
00:24:43.315 --> 00:24:48.361
Stan administered 25
electroshock convulsions daily.

467
00:24:48.445 --> 00:24:52.240
Even psychoanalysis proved
disappointing for Stan.

468
00:24:52.324 --> 00:24:55.952
-I mean, I was in
psychoanalysis for seven years,

469
00:24:56.036 --> 00:24:57.746
and when in the fourth year

470
00:24:57.829 --> 00:24:59.414
I started bringing in my dreams

471
00:24:59.497 --> 00:25:02.417
images that were
connected to the --

472
00:25:02.500 --> 00:25:04.419
you know, this was
considered to be,

473
00:25:04.502 --> 00:25:08.548
you know, relatively
successful psychoanalysis.

474
00:25:08.632 --> 00:25:11.426
-Fortunately for Stan,
Sandoz Laboratories

475
00:25:11.509 --> 00:25:13.428
needed help
exploring applications

476
00:25:13.511 --> 00:25:16.431
for a new drug synthesized
by Albert Hofmann,

477
00:25:16.514 --> 00:25:20.602
lysergic acid diethylamide,
or LSD.

478
00:25:20.685 --> 00:25:22.437
The Swiss scientist
was revisiting

479
00:25:22.520 --> 00:25:24.773
his synthesis
of the ergot fungus

480
00:25:24.856 --> 00:25:27.484
when he accidentally
intoxicated himself.

481
00:25:27.567 --> 00:25:30.320
A drop of the clear solution
touched his finger

482
00:25:30.403 --> 00:25:33.448
and was absorbed into his system
when he wiped his eye.

483
00:25:33.531 --> 00:25:36.076
Intrigued by
the unusual sensations,

484
00:25:36.159 --> 00:25:39.621
Hofmann decided to try
a tiny dose a few days later.

485
00:25:39.704 --> 00:25:42.749
What followed was
an endless bike ride home

486
00:25:42.832 --> 00:25:44.125
and a call for a doctor

487
00:25:44.209 --> 00:25:46.336
when Hofmann thought
he might be dying.

488
00:25:46.419 --> 00:25:47.921
Once the crisis passed,

489
00:25:48.004 --> 00:25:50.423
Hofmann realized
that his discovery

490
00:25:50.507 --> 00:25:54.678
was in incredibly powerful
psychotropic substance.

491
00:25:54.761 --> 00:26:01.643
-And 1954, we got a sample
of ampules of LSD.

492
00:26:01.726 --> 00:26:04.479
They got an idea that it might
be something interesting

493
00:26:04.562 --> 00:26:08.024
for psychiatrists,
psychologists,

494
00:26:08.108 --> 00:26:10.986
and would we want
to work with it?

495
00:26:11.069 --> 00:26:14.322
So my preceptor did not have
the time to spend

496
00:26:14.406 --> 00:26:18.493
six to eight hours
with people on LSD,

497
00:26:18.576 --> 00:26:21.830
and so he used
several of us as gophers.

498
00:26:21.913 --> 00:26:23.790
We were sitting there
and, you know,

499
00:26:23.873 --> 00:26:28.837
taking care of the experimental
subjects and keeping records.

500
00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:32.007
But in that early stage,
students were excluded,

501
00:26:32.090 --> 00:26:34.676
so I had two years
when I was listening

502
00:26:34.759 --> 00:26:36.177
to these incredible stories

503
00:26:36.261 --> 00:26:38.388
and not being able
to have the experience.

504
00:26:38.471 --> 00:26:41.516
So just about the first thing
I did when I graduated,

505
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:45.353
you know, was to have
this experience myself.

506
00:26:45.437 --> 00:26:47.689
My teacher was specifically
interested

507
00:26:47.772 --> 00:26:49.357
in training the brainwaves,

508
00:26:49.441 --> 00:26:52.861
which means exposing people
to powerful stroboscopic light

509
00:26:52.944 --> 00:26:55.196
of various frequencies
and finding out

510
00:26:55.280 --> 00:26:57.991
if you can influence
the brainwaves

511
00:26:58.074 --> 00:26:59.701
in the sub-occipital area.

512
00:26:59.784 --> 00:27:02.871
So all of those of us who wanted
to have a session,

513
00:27:02.954 --> 00:27:05.206
we had to agree that we also

514
00:27:05.290 --> 00:27:08.209
would be going through
this experiment.

515
00:27:08.293 --> 00:27:11.046
When my own experience
was culminating,

516
00:27:11.129 --> 00:27:15.175
a research assistant took me
to a very little room,

517
00:27:15.258 --> 00:27:18.386
and then she brought
this gigantic strobe.

518
00:27:18.470 --> 00:27:20.388
And in the next moment
there was light like

519
00:27:20.472 --> 00:27:23.558
I had never seen in my life.

520
00:27:23.641 --> 00:27:27.896
My consciousness was catapulted
out of my body.

521
00:27:27.979 --> 00:27:30.398
I lost the research assistant.

522
00:27:30.482 --> 00:27:31.691
I lost the clinic.

523
00:27:31.775 --> 00:27:34.861
I lost Prague.
I lost the planet.

524
00:27:34.944 --> 00:27:38.740
And then I had the feeling that
I was completely extinguished.

525
00:27:38.823 --> 00:27:43.745
I ceased to exist in the form
in which I knew myself,

526
00:27:43.828 --> 00:27:45.413
and instead I had the feeling

527
00:27:45.497 --> 00:27:48.958
that I somehow became
all of existence.

528
00:27:49.042 --> 00:27:50.585
I became nothing,

529
00:27:50.668 --> 00:27:54.255
but by becoming nothing
I became everything.

530
00:27:57.884 --> 00:28:00.595
I was in the astronomical
universe.

531
00:28:00.678 --> 00:28:03.598
I was the universe.

532
00:28:03.681 --> 00:28:05.433
And there were things
happening for which

533
00:28:05.517 --> 00:28:07.727
at the time
I didn't even have a name,

534
00:28:07.811 --> 00:28:09.604
but later I read
about the Big Bang

535
00:28:09.687 --> 00:28:13.400
and the black holes
and white holes and wormholes,

536
00:28:13.483 --> 00:28:17.112
just an amazing
cosmic spectacle.

537
00:28:19.572 --> 00:28:21.116
And then she turned it off.

538
00:28:21.199 --> 00:28:23.660
My consciousness
started shrinking again.

539
00:28:23.743 --> 00:28:25.745
I became myself.

540
00:28:25.829 --> 00:28:29.124
But there was a problem because
I ended up finding the planet,

541
00:28:29.207 --> 00:28:30.959
finding the clinic,
finding my body,

542
00:28:31.042 --> 00:28:34.295
but my consciousness was kind
of floating around the body,

543
00:28:34.379 --> 00:28:38.967
and I couldn't find ways
of aligning those two.

544
00:28:39.050 --> 00:28:41.094
At that point it was
absolutely clear to me

545
00:28:41.177 --> 00:28:42.971
that what they taught me
at the university,

546
00:28:43.054 --> 00:28:45.849
that consciousness
is somehow created

547
00:28:45.932 --> 00:28:49.144
by the activity
of the neurons in the brain,

548
00:28:49.227 --> 00:28:51.146
suddenly it seemed
totally absurd.

549
00:28:51.229 --> 00:28:52.480
It was clear to me

550
00:28:52.564 --> 00:28:55.817
that consciousness
is a cosmic phenomenon.

551
00:28:55.900 --> 00:28:59.821
Could matter, bouncing off atoms
or subatomic particles

552
00:28:59.904 --> 00:29:04.159
create all that we see,
including the beauty of nature,

553
00:29:04.242 --> 00:29:06.327
the beauty of the universe,

554
00:29:06.411 --> 00:29:08.705
the intelligence
that you see in animals,

555
00:29:08.788 --> 00:29:10.457
that you see in people,

556
00:29:10.540 --> 00:29:15.628
is it really something that can
create science and philosophy?

557
00:29:15.712 --> 00:29:17.505
Then you see it's absurd.

558
00:29:17.589 --> 00:29:19.883
There is a beauty
and there is an intelligence

559
00:29:19.966 --> 00:29:22.051
which cannot come out of matter.

560
00:29:22.135 --> 00:29:27.182
♪♪

561
00:29:27.265 --> 00:29:29.684
So then I came down
from this session

562
00:29:29.767 --> 00:29:32.020
with the fact that I was
now stuck with psychiatry.

563
00:29:32.103 --> 00:29:34.856
This is by far the most
interesting thing I could do,

564
00:29:34.939 --> 00:29:38.026
studying these
non-ordinary states.

565
00:29:40.778 --> 00:29:43.364
-At a complex of research
institutes near Prague,

566
00:29:43.448 --> 00:29:46.826
Stan was involved in
laboratory testing of LSD

567
00:29:46.910 --> 00:29:50.747
and other substances such
as psilocybin and mescaline.

568
00:29:50.830 --> 00:29:52.207
40 test subjects,

569
00:29:52.290 --> 00:29:55.376
a mix of healthy individuals
and psychiatric patients

570
00:29:55.460 --> 00:29:57.545
would undergo
hourly blood draws,

571
00:29:57.629 --> 00:30:00.548
urine samples, and psychological
and neurological

572
00:30:00.632 --> 00:30:04.886
testing during their sessions
all in the hope of identifying

573
00:30:04.969 --> 00:30:09.015
the chemical source
of mental illness.

574
00:30:09.098 --> 00:30:12.894
-Well, the initial excitement
was that LSD can produce

575
00:30:12.977 --> 00:30:15.563
what we called
experimental psychosis.

576
00:30:15.647 --> 00:30:18.024
We can give it to
"normal people."

577
00:30:18.107 --> 00:30:21.069
We can do all kinds of tests
before, during and after,

578
00:30:21.152 --> 00:30:24.364
and we get an idea
what's happening biochemically

579
00:30:24.447 --> 00:30:27.450
when the psyche is
so profoundly influenced.

580
00:30:27.534 --> 00:30:30.870
And this was fascinating
because we are talking about

581
00:30:30.954 --> 00:30:34.582
in microscopic amounts,

582
00:30:34.666 --> 00:30:36.584
you know, hundred millions
of a gram

583
00:30:36.668 --> 00:30:39.587
can change profoundly
human consciousness

584
00:30:39.671 --> 00:30:42.423
for six to eight hours.

585
00:30:42.507 --> 00:30:44.592
If this is the case,
mental diseases,

586
00:30:44.676 --> 00:30:47.428
it would be aberrations
of chemistry.

587
00:30:47.512 --> 00:30:50.765
Now, if we could identify
this chemical culprit,

588
00:30:50.848 --> 00:30:54.769
we could also find some kind
of neutralizing agent,

589
00:30:54.852 --> 00:30:55.979
and this would have been, like,

590
00:30:56.062 --> 00:30:59.107
test-tube solution
of schizophrenia

591
00:30:59.190 --> 00:31:00.984
and other psychosis.

592
00:31:01.067 --> 00:31:06.281
This would be like
Holy Grail of psychiatry.

593
00:31:06.364 --> 00:31:09.075
-But during the testing,
it became clear

594
00:31:09.158 --> 00:31:10.743
that it was impossible
to predict

595
00:31:10.827 --> 00:31:13.454
the kind of experience
subjects would have

596
00:31:13.538 --> 00:31:16.332
regardless of
what psychedelic they took.

597
00:31:16.416 --> 00:31:18.626
In fact, the same subject

598
00:31:18.710 --> 00:31:21.170
could have dramatically
different experiences

599
00:31:21.254 --> 00:31:25.800
while taking the same substance
on different occasions.

600
00:31:25.883 --> 00:31:28.803
-So this is not
the way pharmacology works.

601
00:31:28.886 --> 00:31:30.930
You have pretty good idea

602
00:31:31.014 --> 00:31:34.142
what response you would get
with antibiotics

603
00:31:34.225 --> 00:31:36.519
or whatever substance
we are talking about.

604
00:31:36.603 --> 00:31:38.146
They are dealing with a catalyst

605
00:31:38.229 --> 00:31:41.316
and that the content is not
produced by the substance,

606
00:31:41.399 --> 00:31:44.652
but it's released from
the deep unconscious realms

607
00:31:44.736 --> 00:31:47.614
that current psychiatry and
psychology doesn't know about

608
00:31:47.697 --> 00:31:50.658
because when it comes,
they think it's pathological.

609
00:31:50.742 --> 00:31:52.035
They don't see it as something

610
00:31:52.118 --> 00:31:56.122
that's germane
to the human psyche,

611
00:31:56.205 --> 00:31:59.667
and then I started seeing it
as a telescope or a microscope.

612
00:31:59.751 --> 00:32:02.003
With telescope,
we can see galaxies

613
00:32:02.086 --> 00:32:04.172
that we cannot normally study.

614
00:32:04.255 --> 00:32:08.676
With microscope, you discover
micro world that is here,

615
00:32:08.760 --> 00:32:13.681
but you are not aware of it
unless we have the proper tool.

616
00:32:13.765 --> 00:32:15.683
So then I took it
from the laboratory

617
00:32:15.767 --> 00:32:17.518
to a clinical practice

618
00:32:17.602 --> 00:32:19.312
and started seeing it
as something

619
00:32:19.395 --> 00:32:23.483
that is going to deepen
and intensify psychotherapy.

620
00:32:23.566 --> 00:32:26.027
-During this period,
Stan won a competition

621
00:32:26.110 --> 00:32:29.030
with a paper he wrote
about his realization.

622
00:32:29.113 --> 00:32:31.324
The prize earned him
the directorship

623
00:32:31.407 --> 00:32:32.700
of the psychedelic program

624
00:32:32.784 --> 00:32:35.536
at a newly built
research center.

625
00:32:35.620 --> 00:32:37.538
Just as in
the laboratory testing,

626
00:32:37.622 --> 00:32:39.374
subjects in the clinical tests

627
00:32:39.457 --> 00:32:41.709
had a broad range
of experiences,

628
00:32:41.793 --> 00:32:44.587
including blissful
and ecstatic ones

629
00:32:44.671 --> 00:32:47.256
and even emotionally
challenging experiences

630
00:32:47.340 --> 00:32:50.218
were soothed as a session
ended and memories

631
00:32:50.301 --> 00:32:52.387
that had surfaced were resolved.

632
00:32:52.470 --> 00:32:55.056
Stan even noted that
the clinical sessions

633
00:32:55.139 --> 00:32:58.101
seemed very similar
to classic psychotherapy,

634
00:32:58.184 --> 00:33:01.396
but over time, patterns emerged.

635
00:33:01.479 --> 00:33:04.732
-The contents of the unconscious
were not stored

636
00:33:04.816 --> 00:33:07.610
in a form of kind of
disconnected mosaic,

637
00:33:07.694 --> 00:33:11.114
but they were forming certain
dynamic constellations.

638
00:33:11.197 --> 00:33:15.076
Certain issues were appearing
on different levels

639
00:33:15.159 --> 00:33:17.954
at different times
of their biography,

640
00:33:18.037 --> 00:33:21.582
and they were creating
these dynamics packets

641
00:33:21.666 --> 00:33:24.585
that were connected
to the same type of emotions

642
00:33:24.669 --> 00:33:26.587
or a physical feeling.

643
00:33:26.671 --> 00:33:29.424
Let's say they would have
a choking constellation.

644
00:33:29.507 --> 00:33:32.260
They would be near drowning
when they were 7,

645
00:33:32.343 --> 00:33:34.262
then being choked
by an older brother

646
00:33:34.345 --> 00:33:37.765
repeatedly when they were 4,
then whooping cough,

647
00:33:37.849 --> 00:33:41.644
but then the deeper level
was the choking at birth.

648
00:33:41.728 --> 00:33:47.942
So I started talking about these
constellations as COEX systems.

649
00:33:48.025 --> 00:33:51.112
-In addition to the
understanding of COEX systems,

650
00:33:51.195 --> 00:33:54.282
Stan observed how
the experiences of his clients

651
00:33:54.365 --> 00:33:57.785
evolved dramatically
during a series of sessions.

652
00:33:57.869 --> 00:34:00.788
-Only the early sessions
seemed to have the nature

653
00:34:00.872 --> 00:34:04.417
of the experiences
that I knew from psychoanalysis,

654
00:34:04.500 --> 00:34:05.793
but then sooner or later,

655
00:34:05.877 --> 00:34:08.463
even if we are using sort of
just medium dosages,

656
00:34:08.546 --> 00:34:11.758
people started talking about
being in a place where they felt

657
00:34:11.841 --> 00:34:14.302
their life was threatened,
that they're going crazy,

658
00:34:14.385 --> 00:34:16.637
they will never
get out of that state.

659
00:34:16.721 --> 00:34:20.183
They started having experiences
of choking or nausea,

660
00:34:20.266 --> 00:34:24.312
and then one after another,
they told me that they believed

661
00:34:24.395 --> 00:34:27.982
that what they are experiencing
must be reliving of birth.

662
00:34:28.065 --> 00:34:31.110
At a certain point,
I decided to test this,

663
00:34:31.194 --> 00:34:37.617
and I took 300 micrograms
on my own at home.

664
00:34:37.700 --> 00:34:41.496
Within an hour, I was
in a very, very difficult place.

665
00:34:41.579 --> 00:34:43.706
On the wall, I had paintings
which I painted,

666
00:34:43.790 --> 00:34:47.835
and there was one which was like
a stylized dog with a soldier.

667
00:34:47.919 --> 00:34:50.671
They started fighting,
and then I had the feeling

668
00:34:50.755 --> 00:34:53.341
that everything
was kind of closing in,

669
00:34:53.424 --> 00:34:55.676
and very quickly,
I was in something

670
00:34:55.760 --> 00:34:59.514
that I now called
the second perinatal matrix.

671
00:34:59.597 --> 00:35:04.185
It was, like, a space where
it seemed absolutely hopeless,

672
00:35:04.268 --> 00:35:08.022
very, very uncomfortable
emotionally,

673
00:35:08.105 --> 00:35:11.192
and then I started
a pressure on my head.

674
00:35:11.275 --> 00:35:14.904
I realized that I was somehow
stuck in the birth canal,

675
00:35:14.987 --> 00:35:18.199
and all my life appeared
to be absolutely meaningless.

676
00:35:18.282 --> 00:35:22.036
I started seeing the deep truths
in existential philosophy --

677
00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:23.704
you know, life is absurd.

678
00:35:23.788 --> 00:35:25.540
We go from nowhere to nowhere.

679
00:35:25.623 --> 00:35:28.376
We start life as infants
in pain,

680
00:35:28.459 --> 00:35:30.711
and this is how
we are going to end,

681
00:35:30.795 --> 00:35:33.589
but even if I knew
that this was birth,

682
00:35:33.673 --> 00:35:37.385
then somehow the thought came
that this state would not end

683
00:35:37.468 --> 00:35:40.555
unless I find meaning in life.

684
00:35:40.638 --> 00:35:42.557
And then I said,
"Well, it's knowledge,"

685
00:35:42.640 --> 00:35:44.851
and I saw myself
going to libraries,

686
00:35:44.934 --> 00:35:47.019
devouring one book
after another,

687
00:35:47.103 --> 00:35:49.230
and then it took me
to the end of my life

688
00:35:49.313 --> 00:35:51.566
when I couldn't remember
what I had for dinner,

689
00:35:51.649 --> 00:35:54.902
let alone what I read
in all those books.

690
00:35:54.986 --> 00:35:56.737
And then I said,
"Well, having children

691
00:35:56.821 --> 00:35:59.699
gives meaning to your life,"
and then it was like,

692
00:35:59.782 --> 00:36:01.742
"Well, you don't give
meaning to your life

693
00:36:01.826 --> 00:36:05.746
by creating creatures whose life
is as meaningless as yours."

694
00:36:05.830 --> 00:36:07.248
And then after some time,

695
00:36:07.331 --> 00:36:09.750
it just sort of very,
very rapidly opened up,

696
00:36:09.834 --> 00:36:13.087
and suddenly I was
in a very ecstatic state,

697
00:36:13.170 --> 00:36:17.425
and I realized you cannot find
meaning in life using reason.

698
00:36:17.508 --> 00:36:19.635
This was a very important
first experience

699
00:36:19.719 --> 00:36:25.808
that suddenly showed me whole
new potentials of psychedelics.

700
00:36:27.518 --> 00:36:30.771
-Through his own experiences
and those of his patients,

701
00:36:30.855 --> 00:36:32.565
Stan learned that lower doses

702
00:36:32.648 --> 00:36:34.442
brought up
biographical information

703
00:36:34.525 --> 00:36:37.486
while higher ones
brought patients much farther.

704
00:36:37.570 --> 00:36:41.115
He also noted that something
fascinating was happening.

705
00:36:41.199 --> 00:36:43.451
-When I was hitting
some difficult places,

706
00:36:43.534 --> 00:36:46.120
I had a parade of my patients,

707
00:36:46.203 --> 00:36:47.788
and I suddenly understood
where they were,

708
00:36:47.872 --> 00:36:51.959
including the meaninglessness
and even suicidal impulses.

709
00:36:52.043 --> 00:36:53.794
Equipped with
current psychiatry,

710
00:36:53.878 --> 00:36:55.296
I just had no clue.

711
00:36:55.379 --> 00:36:57.840
The only way was
experiential learning.

712
00:36:57.924 --> 00:37:00.134
You cannot learn that from books

713
00:37:00.217 --> 00:37:04.263
what these patients
are going through.

714
00:37:04.347 --> 00:37:06.807
-Without the distraction
of constant testing

715
00:37:06.891 --> 00:37:08.684
and with higher doses of LSD,

716
00:37:08.768 --> 00:37:11.520
Stan's clients were
encouraged to go inward.

717
00:37:11.604 --> 00:37:14.273
To Stan's surprise,
they kept journeying back

718
00:37:14.357 --> 00:37:17.151
to the perinatal realm.

719
00:37:17.234 --> 00:37:20.488
-It's not easy
to really question.

720
00:37:20.571 --> 00:37:23.491
It was some of the really
fundamental assumptions,

721
00:37:23.574 --> 00:37:25.826
and I had very
personal experience

722
00:37:25.910 --> 00:37:27.328
that made it even worse.

723
00:37:27.411 --> 00:37:29.497
I went as a second-year student

724
00:37:29.580 --> 00:37:32.375
to a lecture of
Professor Vilem Laufberger,

725
00:37:32.458 --> 00:37:36.128
and I asked, "How far back
does our memory go?

726
00:37:36.212 --> 00:37:39.173
Can we, for example,
relive our births?"

727
00:37:39.257 --> 00:37:43.386
And he looked at me like I was
a total asshole and said,

728
00:37:43.469 --> 00:37:47.640
"Of course not. I mean,
the cortex is not myelinized."

729
00:37:47.723 --> 00:37:51.978
And then everybody was laughing,
so I was pretty ashamed.

730
00:37:52.061 --> 00:37:54.522
So I had that kind of
additional memory,

731
00:37:54.605 --> 00:37:58.192
like, this was really
stupid to think

732
00:37:58.275 --> 00:37:59.527
that you could relive your birth

733
00:37:59.610 --> 00:38:02.029
even if it seems
very convincing.

734
00:38:02.113 --> 00:38:04.407
But then of course,
if I saw it again and again,

735
00:38:04.490 --> 00:38:07.493
and I had a few more
experiences myself,

736
00:38:07.576 --> 00:38:12.707
I realize that this edifice
of psychiatry,

737
00:38:12.790 --> 00:38:14.375
you know,
that looks so respectable,

738
00:38:14.458 --> 00:38:19.547
it's like a Colossus
on clay feet.

739
00:38:19.630 --> 00:38:22.883
-Stan described the scientific
establishment's reluctance

740
00:38:22.967 --> 00:38:24.844
to accept perinatal memories.

741
00:38:24.927 --> 00:38:26.887
I remembered
my 30 hours of labor

742
00:38:26.971 --> 00:38:29.223
giving birth
to my daughter Charlotte.

743
00:38:29.306 --> 00:38:32.393
I eventually needed help
pushing her out.

744
00:38:32.476 --> 00:38:34.562
Maybe that's why she wouldn't
go through those tunnels

745
00:38:34.645 --> 00:38:35.730
at the play group.

746
00:38:35.813 --> 00:38:40.735
-It's okay, honey.
Go in the tube.

747
00:38:40.818 --> 00:38:44.739
-I was so concerned that
I took her to see an osteopath.

748
00:38:44.822 --> 00:38:47.199
The doctor swore that
she wasn't applying

749
00:38:47.283 --> 00:38:49.493
any pressure
to Charlotte's head.

750
00:38:52.830 --> 00:38:57.335
Afterwards, Charlotte had no
problem going to the tunnels.

751
00:38:59.170 --> 00:39:00.921
When Charlotte was
20 months old,

752
00:39:01.005 --> 00:39:02.590
we were attacked by two gunmen.

753
00:39:02.673 --> 00:39:05.259
We were living in the suburbs
outside of Paris,

754
00:39:05.342 --> 00:39:09.096
and I was four months pregnant
with my son, Oscar.

755
00:39:09.180 --> 00:39:11.974
The first shot missed my head
by about 12 inches,

756
00:39:12.058 --> 00:39:15.561
and the remaining three
shattered our bedroom windows.

757
00:39:15.644 --> 00:39:18.606
We escaped unharmed,
but for a month or so,

758
00:39:18.689 --> 00:39:21.776
I'd wake up at night,
reliving the experience

759
00:39:21.859 --> 00:39:25.821
and imagining
where I would hide.

760
00:39:25.905 --> 00:39:29.116
Later, when Oscar was old enough
to play hide and seek,

761
00:39:29.200 --> 00:39:31.952
no one could find him.

762
00:39:32.036 --> 00:39:33.662
-Oscar?

763
00:39:38.209 --> 00:39:39.585
Oscar?

764
00:39:49.220 --> 00:39:52.264
-It was clear to me now
that my children's behavior...

765
00:39:52.348 --> 00:39:53.808
-Oscar?
-...had been influenced

766
00:39:53.891 --> 00:39:56.644
either by what had happened
while they were in the womb

767
00:39:56.727 --> 00:39:59.647
or during their actual birth.

768
00:39:59.730 --> 00:40:04.819
-[ Babbles ] Hide.

769
00:40:04.902 --> 00:40:08.155
I'm trying to hide.

770
00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:09.824
I'm trying to hide.

771
00:40:09.907 --> 00:40:11.492
-How could scientists so easily

772
00:40:11.575 --> 00:40:14.662
dismiss the reality
of perinatal memories?

773
00:40:14.745 --> 00:40:17.998
-I'm trying to hide.

774
00:40:18.082 --> 00:40:19.834
-The usual view about the mind

775
00:40:19.917 --> 00:40:22.336
is that the mind
is confined to the head.

776
00:40:22.419 --> 00:40:26.674
It's nothing but the activity
of the brain.

777
00:40:26.757 --> 00:40:29.844
For the materialists
who represent the majority

778
00:40:29.927 --> 00:40:34.014
of position within academic life
and in science,

779
00:40:34.098 --> 00:40:36.016
minds are what brains do,

780
00:40:36.100 --> 00:40:38.477
and memories are stored material
inside the brain.

781
00:40:38.561 --> 00:40:40.521
It's all inside the brain.

782
00:40:40.604 --> 00:40:44.358
I think that's an incredibly
truncated and narrow view.

783
00:40:44.442 --> 00:40:45.860
First of all,

784
00:40:45.943 --> 00:40:48.362
I think we access our memories
by morphic resonance.

785
00:40:48.445 --> 00:40:50.197
They're not inside the brain.

786
00:40:50.281 --> 00:40:53.868
And secondly, I think that
our consciousness, our minds,

787
00:40:53.951 --> 00:40:55.870
are not confined
to the inside of our heads

788
00:40:55.953 --> 00:40:58.706
but stretch out beyond
and through fields.

789
00:40:58.789 --> 00:41:00.875
We're all used to the idea
of magnetic fields

790
00:41:00.958 --> 00:41:03.711
being inside magnets
and stretching beyond them

791
00:41:03.794 --> 00:41:06.005
or the gravitational fields
of the Earth

792
00:41:06.088 --> 00:41:08.716
being inside the Earth
and stretching out into space

793
00:41:08.799 --> 00:41:11.677
invisibly or the fields
of cellphones

794
00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:13.345
being inside the cellphone

795
00:41:13.429 --> 00:41:15.723
and stretching invisibly
around it,

796
00:41:15.806 --> 00:41:17.057
which is why they work.

797
00:41:17.141 --> 00:41:20.060
All matter now has fields
associated with it,

798
00:41:20.144 --> 00:41:21.228
and of course the brain does.

799
00:41:21.312 --> 00:41:22.730
It has electromagnetic fields

800
00:41:22.813 --> 00:41:25.191
you can measure with
an electroencephalograph.

801
00:41:25.274 --> 00:41:27.568
But I think that the fields
of the mind

802
00:41:27.651 --> 00:41:29.111
are much more extensive,

803
00:41:29.195 --> 00:41:31.572
and these extended fields
of the mind

804
00:41:31.655 --> 00:41:33.240
are a kind of morphic field,

805
00:41:33.324 --> 00:41:36.368
so it's really a field theory
of the mind.

806
00:41:38.495 --> 00:41:41.081
-Now that I realized that
we could hold memories

807
00:41:41.165 --> 00:41:42.458
from our time in the womb,

808
00:41:42.541 --> 00:41:44.585
I couldn't stop thinking
about the influence

809
00:41:44.668 --> 00:41:47.963
these unconscious memories
might have on our lives.

810
00:41:48.047 --> 00:41:49.757
One of Stan's clients showed

811
00:41:49.840 --> 00:41:52.927
just how powerful
these memories are.

812
00:41:53.010 --> 00:41:54.970
-You know, the patient
whom I call Peter

813
00:41:55.054 --> 00:41:58.933
came with kind of a combination
of obsession

814
00:41:59.016 --> 00:42:02.978
and masochistic impulses
and tremendous need

815
00:42:03.062 --> 00:42:05.606
and wish to be locked
in a cellar

816
00:42:05.689 --> 00:42:12.446
and be exposed to some emotional
and physical pains, tortures.

817
00:42:12.529 --> 00:42:14.615
-Peter would search
for these men in parks,

818
00:42:14.698 --> 00:42:17.785
train stations,
and other public places,

819
00:42:17.868 --> 00:42:22.790
and on one occasion, he was
struck on the head and robbed.

820
00:42:22.873 --> 00:42:25.960
The last episode occurred
when Peter was on a train

821
00:42:26.043 --> 00:42:28.837
with a man who claimed
to have the perfect cellar

822
00:42:28.921 --> 00:42:31.131
to satisfy his obsession.

823
00:42:31.215 --> 00:42:33.008
When the man got up
to use the toilet,

824
00:42:33.092 --> 00:42:37.805
Peter gave into his gnawing
doubt and opened the man's bag.

825
00:42:37.888 --> 00:42:39.848
Horrified by what he found,

826
00:42:39.932 --> 00:42:41.976
Peter jumped
from the moving train

827
00:42:42.059 --> 00:42:44.478
and ended up in the hospital.

828
00:42:44.561 --> 00:42:46.981
When psychiatric treatment
failed to help him,

829
00:42:47.064 --> 00:42:48.482
he was sent to Stan,

830
00:42:48.565 --> 00:42:52.820
where he underwent a series
of high-dose LSD sessions.

831
00:42:52.903 --> 00:42:55.990
-A very, very interesting
COEX system emerged

832
00:42:56.073 --> 00:42:57.658
in a series of sessions.

833
00:42:57.741 --> 00:43:01.120
The most superficial layers
were actually the traumas

834
00:43:01.203 --> 00:43:03.664
that he, himself, created.

835
00:43:03.747 --> 00:43:05.165
Then as we continued,

836
00:43:05.249 --> 00:43:07.835
another layer of
the COEX system emerged,

837
00:43:07.918 --> 00:43:11.547
which was from
the Second World War

838
00:43:11.630 --> 00:43:14.675
when he was taken
to Nazi Germany,

839
00:43:14.758 --> 00:43:16.051
and he was in a situation

840
00:43:16.135 --> 00:43:18.846
where there was
a great danger of bombardment.

841
00:43:18.929 --> 00:43:21.682
Two of the SS Officers
were using him

842
00:43:21.765 --> 00:43:26.979
for their homosexual practices,
initially under gunpoint.

843
00:43:27.062 --> 00:43:30.024
And then it went to his
childhood, when his father,

844
00:43:30.107 --> 00:43:32.693
who was alcoholic,
was very, very brutal

845
00:43:32.776 --> 00:43:35.195
and used to beat him
with a leather strap,

846
00:43:35.279 --> 00:43:38.699
and his mother,
who actually always wore black,

847
00:43:38.782 --> 00:43:42.536
punished him repeatedly
by locking him in a dark cellar

848
00:43:42.619 --> 00:43:46.373
and leaving him without food.

849
00:43:46.457 --> 00:43:50.252
So on that level, it seemed like
it was a combined punishment

850
00:43:50.336 --> 00:43:54.048
from the two parents
that he was seeking.

851
00:43:54.131 --> 00:43:55.758
Finally, it ended up
in a situation

852
00:43:55.841 --> 00:43:58.344
where he was stuck
in the birth canal

853
00:43:58.427 --> 00:44:01.096
and realized that was
the template of the situation

854
00:44:01.180 --> 00:44:03.891
that he was searching for,

855
00:44:03.974 --> 00:44:06.393
but when he actually
experienced that,

856
00:44:06.477 --> 00:44:09.396
he got more
than he bargained for.

857
00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:11.565
-Because Stan had previously
experienced

858
00:44:11.648 --> 00:44:14.902
the kind of death-rebirth
process Peter underwent,

859
00:44:14.985 --> 00:44:17.571
he was not fearful
for Peter's safety

860
00:44:17.654 --> 00:44:20.741
and could allow
the full process to unfold.

861
00:44:20.824 --> 00:44:24.244
After that session,
Peter was finally liberated

862
00:44:24.328 --> 00:44:26.455
from his self-destructive
impulses

863
00:44:26.538 --> 00:44:29.291
and able to live
a productive life.

864
00:44:31.001 --> 00:44:33.253
Around the time Stan
was working with Peter,

865
00:44:33.337 --> 00:44:37.758
he traveled to Amsterdam for a
conference on LSD psychotherapy.

866
00:44:37.841 --> 00:44:39.927
-Pauline McCririck
and Joyce Martin

867
00:44:40.010 --> 00:44:44.098
were two psychoanalysts
who were actually using LSD

868
00:44:44.181 --> 00:44:46.600
and doing
what they called fusion therapy.

869
00:44:46.683 --> 00:44:50.145
Clients who were deprived
in their childhood of being held

870
00:44:50.229 --> 00:44:53.107
would lie
with full-body contact,

871
00:44:53.190 --> 00:44:56.485
and they had
amazing results with this.

872
00:44:56.568 --> 00:44:57.778
We were both in Amsterdam,

873
00:44:57.861 --> 00:45:01.615
and so we decided
to have a session.

874
00:45:01.698 --> 00:45:04.243
As part of my last
perinatal session,

875
00:45:04.326 --> 00:45:06.453
I really got
into this atmosphere

876
00:45:06.537 --> 00:45:07.955
of bloody revolutions,

877
00:45:08.038 --> 00:45:12.000
and in the middle of it,
I really identified with Lenin.

878
00:45:12.084 --> 00:45:14.670
I shared his passion
against oppression,

879
00:45:14.753 --> 00:45:16.922
and I realized
that part of it was desire,

880
00:45:17.005 --> 00:45:20.426
but a good part of it was the
compression of the birth canal,

881
00:45:20.509 --> 00:45:22.636
so this kind of atmosphere
of revolutions

882
00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:27.099
and struggling for birth
come out completely fused,

883
00:45:27.182 --> 00:45:28.976
and I realized that there's
a relationship

884
00:45:29.059 --> 00:45:32.646
between historical events
like wars and revolutions

885
00:45:32.730 --> 00:45:36.650
and what we carry
in the perinatal level,

886
00:45:36.733 --> 00:45:39.987
possibly even something
that is a source

887
00:45:40.070 --> 00:45:42.656
of that kind of violence.

888
00:45:42.739 --> 00:45:45.367
But then the session ended,
and I went through

889
00:45:45.451 --> 00:45:48.787
the whole range
of relationships with women,

890
00:45:48.871 --> 00:45:51.790
the destructive feminine
that comes in birth,

891
00:45:51.874 --> 00:45:55.169
the adventure, the exciting,
like a sexual partner,

892
00:45:55.252 --> 00:45:59.339
and then I had the feeling
of being an infant on her body.

893
00:45:59.423 --> 00:46:02.509
The transition from the third
matrix into the fourth

894
00:46:02.593 --> 00:46:05.345
was like emerging
sort of in fire.

895
00:46:05.429 --> 00:46:08.182
There was, like, a goddess
with dark complexion

896
00:46:08.265 --> 00:46:10.851
and a peacock paradise
or heaven,

897
00:46:10.934 --> 00:46:13.187
so it was a very,
very blissful experience.

898
00:46:13.270 --> 00:46:16.565
She became, like,
a great mother for me.

899
00:46:16.648 --> 00:46:18.984
-Stan's session with Pauline
in Amsterdam

900
00:46:19.067 --> 00:46:22.196
revealed the archetypal nature
of the birth experience,

901
00:46:22.279 --> 00:46:23.530
during which the fetus

902
00:46:23.614 --> 00:46:25.741
is exposed
to a collective dimension

903
00:46:25.824 --> 00:46:28.869
filled with powerful imagery
and emotion,

904
00:46:28.952 --> 00:46:30.871
but a newborn lacks the capacity

905
00:46:30.954 --> 00:46:32.873
to make sense
of what is witnessed,

906
00:46:32.956 --> 00:46:36.084
and so these impressions
remain in the unconscious,

907
00:46:36.168 --> 00:46:40.297
influencing us in ways
that we don't realize.

908
00:46:42.299 --> 00:46:44.718
-One of the great contributions
of Stan's work

909
00:46:44.801 --> 00:46:48.055
is that he uncovered
the deep structure,

910
00:46:48.138 --> 00:46:50.724
the archetypal pattern,
you might say,

911
00:46:50.807 --> 00:46:55.729
of the life process
as it is incarnated

912
00:46:55.812 --> 00:47:00.400
and reincarnated
in us as individuals.

913
00:47:00.484 --> 00:47:02.736
-When Stan discovered
the work of Lloyd Dumas

914
00:47:02.819 --> 00:47:04.530
and the field of psychohistory,

915
00:47:04.613 --> 00:47:07.074
he noted the parallels
between the imagery

916
00:47:07.157 --> 00:47:10.410
used to goad people
to war and experiences

917
00:47:10.494 --> 00:47:14.081
that he and his patients
had during their sessions.

918
00:47:14.164 --> 00:47:17.251
It became clear to Stan
that these unconscious memories

919
00:47:17.334 --> 00:47:19.920
of helplessness
from the second matrix and anger

920
00:47:20.003 --> 00:47:24.883
from the third were driving
factors in the need for power.

921
00:47:24.967 --> 00:47:27.970
This need for control
was clearly evident in the book,

922
00:47:28.053 --> 00:47:30.222
"A Sexual Profile of Men
in Power,"

923
00:47:30.305 --> 00:47:33.600
which detailed a 7-year study
of call girls and madams

924
00:47:33.684 --> 00:47:35.269
whose primary clients

925
00:47:35.352 --> 00:47:39.439
were politicians
and government officials.

926
00:47:39.523 --> 00:47:41.942
The study find that over
50% of those men

927
00:47:42.025 --> 00:47:45.279
regularly hired prostitutes,
and more than half of them

928
00:47:45.362 --> 00:47:48.073
demanded kinky
or sadomasochistic sex

929
00:47:48.156 --> 00:47:50.617
as a means of coping
with the powerlessness

930
00:47:50.701 --> 00:47:54.121
that they experienced
in government.

931
00:47:54.204 --> 00:47:55.956
-Nine months in the total
dependence

932
00:47:56.039 --> 00:47:57.499
of the maternal organism.

933
00:47:57.583 --> 00:48:00.919
Then there is this incredible
roller coaster of birth

934
00:48:01.003 --> 00:48:02.337
that we are taken through

935
00:48:02.421 --> 00:48:05.632
and then emerging with total
dependence on the mother.

936
00:48:05.716 --> 00:48:09.928
It leaves a very deep fear of
the feminine in the male psyche,

937
00:48:10.012 --> 00:48:13.307
and frequently clumsy effort
to compensate for it --

938
00:48:13.390 --> 00:48:15.017
not giving women
the same rights,

939
00:48:15.100 --> 00:48:18.645
not to treat them
as equal citizens, and so on.

940
00:48:18.729 --> 00:48:20.022
Women go through that also,

941
00:48:20.105 --> 00:48:22.149
but because of their
physiological function,

942
00:48:22.232 --> 00:48:26.153
because of their anatomy,
they are able to participate

943
00:48:26.236 --> 00:48:28.822
directly in
the process of creation.

944
00:48:28.905 --> 00:48:32.159
The male participation
is very marginal.

945
00:48:32.242 --> 00:48:37.164
It can take, you know, a few
minutes, and then it's over.

946
00:48:37.247 --> 00:48:41.043
The way to resolve traumatic
unconscious memory would be

947
00:48:41.126 --> 00:48:45.839
if that material fully
emerges into consciousness,

948
00:48:45.922 --> 00:48:47.507
which will be therapeutic.

949
00:48:47.591 --> 00:48:49.176
What can happen
in everyday lives,

950
00:48:49.259 --> 00:48:50.844
it comes close to the surface,

951
00:48:50.927 --> 00:48:54.681
but the person does not realize
what it is exactly,

952
00:48:54.765 --> 00:48:58.352
but they feel the need
to create a situation

953
00:48:58.435 --> 00:49:00.520
that would involve
those elements.

954
00:49:00.604 --> 00:49:02.856
So for example, the transition
from the third

955
00:49:02.939 --> 00:49:07.694
to the fourth matrix frequently
is experienced as fire.

956
00:49:07.778 --> 00:49:10.656
I've worked with some people
who were arsonists,

957
00:49:10.739 --> 00:49:13.533
and they had this impulse.

958
00:49:13.617 --> 00:49:15.702
They felt that something
fantastic would happen

959
00:49:15.786 --> 00:49:19.039
if they could experience
a big fire.

960
00:49:19.122 --> 00:49:20.707
When that happens,
they watched it

961
00:49:20.791 --> 00:49:24.544
and feel excitement for a while,
but it is a real let down.

962
00:49:24.628 --> 00:49:27.547
They expected something
much more phenomenal,

963
00:49:27.631 --> 00:49:29.383
but the drive can be
strong enough

964
00:49:29.466 --> 00:49:33.220
to drive them to do it again
and again.

965
00:49:33.303 --> 00:49:36.515
In a very similar way,
the third matrix involves

966
00:49:36.598 --> 00:49:39.184
a lot of sadomasochistic
kind of experiences,

967
00:49:39.267 --> 00:49:42.729
where you feel sexual arousal,
and you feel confined,

968
00:49:42.813 --> 00:49:45.440
and you feel sort of choked
and so on.

969
00:49:45.524 --> 00:49:48.735
It's a kind of unrecognized
healing impulse,

970
00:49:48.819 --> 00:49:50.070
but for it to be therapeutic,

971
00:49:50.153 --> 00:49:51.738
it would have to involve
introspection,

972
00:49:51.822 --> 00:49:54.241
understanding what you are
dealing with

973
00:49:54.324 --> 00:49:59.246
and really be fully consciously
in touch with that material.

974
00:49:59.329 --> 00:50:01.623
-Nothing the conscious mind
can think up

975
00:50:01.707 --> 00:50:04.084
will ever satisfy
the unconscious.

976
00:50:04.167 --> 00:50:07.879
It has to originate from
the unconscious to be cleared.

977
00:50:07.963 --> 00:50:10.882
♪♪

978
00:50:10.966 --> 00:50:13.719
After hearing so many
of Stan's stories,

979
00:50:13.802 --> 00:50:15.095
it was time for me
to find out

980
00:50:15.178 --> 00:50:18.098
what shadows were lurking
in my unconscious.

981
00:50:18.181 --> 00:50:20.600
Would they be as dark
as what Stan had seen?

982
00:50:20.684 --> 00:50:25.439
And if so, would I have
the courage to confront them?

983
00:50:25.522 --> 00:50:28.775
Rule number one,
never do this alone.

984
00:50:28.859 --> 00:50:31.069
The sitter is there
to keep you safe,

985
00:50:31.153 --> 00:50:34.906
ground you, and, more
importantly, to hold the space

986
00:50:34.990 --> 00:50:38.869
so that you can completely
open to whatever comes.

987
00:50:41.705 --> 00:50:43.290
As the LSD took effect,

988
00:50:43.373 --> 00:50:46.460
there was a flood
of geometric imagery.

989
00:50:46.543 --> 00:50:48.795
Some people call it
retinal discharge,

990
00:50:48.879 --> 00:50:50.964
but now I think
I was seeing fractals

991
00:50:51.047 --> 00:50:52.799
or even the dimension
that holds

992
00:50:52.883 --> 00:50:55.135
the blueprints
of the physical world.

993
00:50:55.218 --> 00:50:59.139
♪♪

994
00:50:59.222 --> 00:51:01.475
Soon, it transitioned
into Christina,

995
00:51:01.558 --> 00:51:05.479
and then, as though I was
seeing through Christina's eyes,

996
00:51:05.562 --> 00:51:07.147
it was Stan.

997
00:51:07.230 --> 00:51:08.482
There was a sadness

998
00:51:08.565 --> 00:51:11.443
as she realized
that she was leaving him,

999
00:51:11.526 --> 00:51:14.321
but then Stan transitioned
into my father,

1000
00:51:14.404 --> 00:51:16.782
and Christina
dissolved into me.

1001
00:51:16.865 --> 00:51:23.955
♪♪

1002
00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:30.837
♪♪

1003
00:51:30.921 --> 00:51:35.634
The pain was so intense that
I knew it couldn't just be mine.

1004
00:51:37.761 --> 00:51:40.722
I actually felt as though
I was choking.

1005
00:51:43.433 --> 00:51:45.685
In that moment,
I understood that

1006
00:51:45.769 --> 00:51:47.354
although
I might have been triggered

1007
00:51:47.437 --> 00:51:49.689
by the pending death
of my father,

1008
00:51:49.773 --> 00:51:53.193
I was also tapping into
the collective sadness,

1009
00:51:53.276 --> 00:51:55.362
and what a depth of it
there was --

1010
00:51:55.445 --> 00:52:00.242
addiction, drugs, alcohol,
sex, compulsive behavior,

1011
00:52:00.325 --> 00:52:04.204
anything to dissolve back
into the formless ocean of love

1012
00:52:04.287 --> 00:52:07.833
and avoid this unbearable
sadness of separation.

1013
00:52:07.916 --> 00:52:13.046
♪♪

1014
00:52:13.129 --> 00:52:16.049
It took me two days
to feel whole again.

1015
00:52:16.132 --> 00:52:18.760
If it hadn't been for my kids
to think about

1016
00:52:18.844 --> 00:52:20.554
or the sitter to talk to,

1017
00:52:20.637 --> 00:52:23.139
I don't know if I would
have come out of it.

1018
00:52:25.141 --> 00:52:29.062
But because I had grieved
my dad's death before he died,

1019
00:52:29.145 --> 00:52:31.398
I was able to listen
to his daydreams

1020
00:52:31.481 --> 00:52:34.067
during those last weeks
of his life,

1021
00:52:34.150 --> 00:52:36.695
and when he finally
slipped into a coma,

1022
00:52:36.778 --> 00:52:39.573
I knew how to help him
detach from his body

1023
00:52:39.656 --> 00:52:42.576
so he wasn't afraid or in pain.

1024
00:52:42.659 --> 00:52:45.871
He lay like that for 28 hours,
and then an hour

1025
00:52:45.954 --> 00:52:49.958
before my daughter's last
ballet performance, he died.

1026
00:52:52.335 --> 00:52:54.087
I was filming
while Charlotte danced

1027
00:52:54.170 --> 00:52:58.258
when suddenly I remembered
that he had sat in that theater,

1028
00:52:58.341 --> 00:53:01.428
and I remembered exactly
where he had sat.

1029
00:53:01.511 --> 00:53:04.890
The memory was so clear
that I realized

1030
00:53:04.973 --> 00:53:07.100
that I was
seeing through his eyes.

1031
00:53:07.183 --> 00:53:09.436
His spirit was there
in the theater

1032
00:53:09.519 --> 00:53:11.813
to watch
his granddaughter dance.

1033
00:53:11.897 --> 00:53:17.652
♪♪

1034
00:53:17.736 --> 00:53:23.283
♪♪

1035
00:53:23.366 --> 00:53:26.620
After the performance,
I went to help my mom.

1036
00:53:26.703 --> 00:53:28.330
When I had finally
cleaned the space

1037
00:53:28.413 --> 00:53:32.626
so that she could remember him
in better health, I went home.

1038
00:53:34.502 --> 00:53:37.589
A few hours later,
I let the tears well up

1039
00:53:37.672 --> 00:53:41.343
and felt myself once again
pulled out by my heart,

1040
00:53:41.426 --> 00:53:44.262
but because I knew
that I could survive it,

1041
00:53:44.346 --> 00:53:49.643
I allowed the sadness to flow,
and it felt amazing.

1042
00:53:49.726 --> 00:53:53.438
If I hadn't witnessed Stan's
courage and trusted his example,

1043
00:53:53.521 --> 00:53:57.817
I doubt any of that
would have happened.

1044
00:53:57.901 --> 00:54:00.946
He wasn't afraid
to confront the darkness.

1045
00:54:01.029 --> 00:54:07.494
♪♪

1046
00:54:07.577 --> 00:54:11.331
In 1967, Stan was invited
to continue his research

1047
00:54:11.414 --> 00:54:14.000
at Johns Hopkins University
in Maryland,

1048
00:54:14.084 --> 00:54:16.378
but pushback against
psychedelics was growing,

1049
00:54:16.461 --> 00:54:20.966
inflamed by flawed studies
engineered to generate fear.

1050
00:54:22.759 --> 00:54:25.887
-We have children that are born
without legs or arms.

1051
00:54:25.971 --> 00:54:29.516
The kind of thing we seen
after thalidomide exposure.

1052
00:54:29.599 --> 00:54:32.185
-Even though the studies
were eventually dismissed,

1053
00:54:32.268 --> 00:54:35.855
the culture was reeling
from the impact of psychedelics.

1054
00:54:35.939 --> 00:54:37.857
As a result,
the research program

1055
00:54:37.941 --> 00:54:40.694
at Johns Hopkins University
was terminated.

1056
00:54:40.777 --> 00:54:42.195
Fortunately for Stan,

1057
00:54:42.278 --> 00:54:44.698
the program at Spring Grove
Psychiatric Hospital

1058
00:54:44.781 --> 00:54:46.199
was still operational.

1059
00:54:46.282 --> 00:54:48.702
While there, he continued
his research,

1060
00:54:48.785 --> 00:54:52.038
encountering even more
intriguing patients.

1061
00:54:52.122 --> 00:54:53.707
-This was a patient who had
some of

1062
00:54:53.790 --> 00:54:55.500
the most difficult pathology,

1063
00:54:55.583 --> 00:54:58.211
if you want to call it that way,
that I have ever seen.

1064
00:54:58.294 --> 00:55:02.048
She was 4 years in prison,
and while on parole,

1065
00:55:02.132 --> 00:55:04.592
she became
a multiple drug addict.

1066
00:55:04.676 --> 00:55:08.221
She had very difficult
episodes of depression,

1067
00:55:08.304 --> 00:55:09.889
so it was kind of
a life decision,

1068
00:55:09.973 --> 00:55:12.559
and so we decided
to take our chances.

1069
00:55:12.642 --> 00:55:15.562
So she had two
very powerful sessions.

1070
00:55:15.645 --> 00:55:18.231
She was from a family
where there was alcoholism,

1071
00:55:18.314 --> 00:55:21.234
there was abuse,
there was incest.

1072
00:55:21.317 --> 00:55:22.610
And then
in the third session,

1073
00:55:22.694 --> 00:55:24.738
suddenly she started crying,

1074
00:55:24.821 --> 00:55:31.244
she started screaming, and then
vicious expression in her eyes,

1075
00:55:31.327 --> 00:55:34.914
incredible, incredibly
sort of evil expression

1076
00:55:34.998 --> 00:55:39.586
and this very deep voice came
and introduced itself,

1077
00:55:39.669 --> 00:55:41.421
himself, as the devil,

1078
00:55:41.504 --> 00:55:46.259
and then came this barrage
of insults and threats.

1079
00:55:46.342 --> 00:55:49.429
There was information
that the patient

1080
00:55:49.512 --> 00:55:52.265
as such could not have known.

1081
00:55:52.348 --> 00:55:55.935
I had a wonderful nurse
that was Southern Baptist,

1082
00:55:56.019 --> 00:55:57.103
and she was shaking.

1083
00:55:57.187 --> 00:55:58.563
I thought she was getting
a heart attack,

1084
00:55:58.646 --> 00:56:02.108
so I was watching
the patient and the nurse.

1085
00:56:02.192 --> 00:56:03.610
At one point, I said,

1086
00:56:03.693 --> 00:56:06.279
"Well, this is obviously
the Jungian archetype

1087
00:56:06.362 --> 00:56:07.947
that's manifesting here,

1088
00:56:08.031 --> 00:56:09.783
but maybe for that
kind of archetype

1089
00:56:09.866 --> 00:56:13.411
the crucifix would be
the best remedy."

1090
00:56:13.495 --> 00:56:18.124
As I was reacting emotionally,
it was just becoming more real.

1091
00:56:18.208 --> 00:56:20.460
So I started meditating
on light.

1092
00:56:20.543 --> 00:56:22.962
I knew that, you know,
from my spiritual reading

1093
00:56:23.046 --> 00:56:27.133
that these creatures
don't like light.

1094
00:56:27.217 --> 00:56:30.970
Suddenly stopped the way
it started,

1095
00:56:31.054 --> 00:56:33.640
so everything relaxed.

1096
00:56:33.723 --> 00:56:35.475
Then as she was coming down,

1097
00:56:35.558 --> 00:56:37.977
we sort of started
talking about it,

1098
00:56:38.061 --> 00:56:41.189
and I realized she remembered
only what happened

1099
00:56:41.272 --> 00:56:43.316
before this episode
and what happened after.

1100
00:56:43.399 --> 00:56:46.444
There's just total amnesia
for this.

1101
00:56:46.528 --> 00:56:49.322
You know, I wondered if I should
sort of bring that up

1102
00:56:49.405 --> 00:56:53.326
and talk about it
and decided not to do it at all,

1103
00:56:53.409 --> 00:56:55.161
but she, herself, wonderful,

1104
00:56:55.245 --> 00:56:56.996
and then very shortly
afterwards,

1105
00:56:57.080 --> 00:56:58.498
she left the hospital

1106
00:56:58.581 --> 00:57:02.335
and probably was a little
lying on the questionnaire.

1107
00:57:02.418 --> 00:57:07.173
She got a job
as a taxi driver.

1108
00:57:07.257 --> 00:57:10.176
-But despite the tremendous
success of his work,

1109
00:57:10.260 --> 00:57:13.012
the program lost funding.

1110
00:57:13.096 --> 00:57:14.681
-We were finding it more
and more difficult

1111
00:57:14.764 --> 00:57:17.559
to continue the research,
and I had a lot of materials.

1112
00:57:17.642 --> 00:57:22.021
I really wanted a sabbatical,
and do some writing,

1113
00:57:22.105 --> 00:57:25.692
and I got invitations
from several publishers,

1114
00:57:25.775 --> 00:57:26.860
so I could take a year off.

1115
00:57:26.943 --> 00:57:29.863
And I went to a party
in New York City,

1116
00:57:29.946 --> 00:57:31.489
and there was
Michael Murphy there,

1117
00:57:31.573 --> 00:57:33.867
and he...
the co-founder of Esalen.

1118
00:57:33.950 --> 00:57:37.704
-When I met Stan, first in '65,
he was probably

1119
00:57:37.787 --> 00:57:41.207
the best-looking man
in the human potential movement.

1120
00:57:41.291 --> 00:57:44.169
I mean, he was as good looking
as Richard Burton.

1121
00:57:44.252 --> 00:57:46.379
-He said, "So, Stan,
what are you doing these days?"

1122
00:57:46.462 --> 00:57:48.673
I said, "Well, I'm actually
taking a year off

1123
00:57:48.756 --> 00:57:52.886
to write a book," and he said,
"Why don't you come to Esalen?"

1124
00:57:52.969 --> 00:57:56.222
-It was my instinct
as a director and producer

1125
00:57:56.306 --> 00:57:58.725
of this
ongoing theater at Esalen,

1126
00:57:58.808 --> 00:58:00.727
he was perfect.

1127
00:58:00.810 --> 00:58:04.063
And of course
we had been right in the middle

1128
00:58:04.147 --> 00:58:08.276
of a lot of experimentation
with psychedelics,

1129
00:58:08.359 --> 00:58:11.404
and although psychedelics
were not my ally,

1130
00:58:11.487 --> 00:58:17.577
Stan represented not only
another doorway into this

1131
00:58:17.660 --> 00:58:20.246
but also sobriety.

1132
00:58:20.330 --> 00:58:22.457
I mean, he actually
thought about it.

1133
00:58:22.540 --> 00:58:24.125
Tim pretended to think about it,

1134
00:58:24.209 --> 00:58:29.923
but he just proclaimed a vision
of taking LSD every Sunday.

1135
00:58:30.006 --> 00:58:32.050
If it's good,
just have more of it,

1136
00:58:32.133 --> 00:58:36.262
and we saw disaster
after disaster during the '60s,

1137
00:58:36.346 --> 00:58:38.598
so Bob Schwartz
gave us some money,

1138
00:58:38.681 --> 00:58:41.434
and Esalen provided
a beautiful house,

1139
00:58:41.517 --> 00:58:42.936
and off we went.

1140
00:58:43.019 --> 00:58:48.608
And he became the leading force
in our overall programming

1141
00:58:48.691 --> 00:58:51.611
for most of the years
he was there.

1142
00:58:51.694 --> 00:58:53.613
-Besides our breath
work workshops,

1143
00:58:53.696 --> 00:58:56.616
we offered then months-long
workshops.

1144
00:58:56.699 --> 00:58:59.494
People were coming to Esalen
from all over the world,

1145
00:58:59.577 --> 00:59:02.121
and they didn't want to take
just one workshop.

1146
00:59:02.205 --> 00:59:05.250
So this gave me a chance
to choose a topic

1147
00:59:05.333 --> 00:59:07.627
I was interested in
and see who in the world

1148
00:59:07.710 --> 00:59:10.004
was doing
some cutting-edge research

1149
00:59:10.088 --> 00:59:13.299
and invite those people,
and then always finding,

1150
00:59:13.383 --> 00:59:17.136
like, 36 people
who would want to do it with us.

1151
00:59:17.220 --> 00:59:21.140
-One popular program combined
vipassana with breath work.

1152
00:59:21.224 --> 00:59:23.810
-I think of a time
when we were holding

1153
00:59:23.893 --> 00:59:27.939
our large holotropic breath work
and Buddhist practice retreats,

1154
00:59:28.022 --> 00:59:31.484
and there's a room full
of some hundreds of people

1155
00:59:31.567 --> 00:59:34.821
doing the breath work
after we had meditated,

1156
00:59:34.904 --> 00:59:36.656
going through these
profound openings

1157
00:59:36.739 --> 00:59:37.949
with this music playing.

1158
00:59:38.032 --> 00:59:40.159
Some people are in
heavenly states,

1159
00:59:40.243 --> 00:59:41.786
and some people feel
like they're dying

1160
00:59:41.869 --> 00:59:44.372
and getting reborn,
and some people have past life

1161
00:59:44.455 --> 00:59:47.166
experiences or turning
into birds or animals,

1162
00:59:47.250 --> 00:59:50.503
and some people are having
the reliving of their childhood,

1163
00:59:50.586 --> 00:59:51.838
every possible thing.

1164
00:59:51.921 --> 00:59:53.881
It's like being
in Dante's inferno

1165
00:59:53.965 --> 00:59:57.176
and purgatorio and paradisio
all at the same time,

1166
00:59:57.260 --> 01:00:00.013
and it's really quite marvelous
because it's so well held

1167
01:00:00.096 --> 01:00:02.890
and tended by the facilitators,

1168
01:00:02.974 --> 01:00:06.519
and then when things get really
dicey, they call Stan over.

1169
01:00:06.602 --> 01:00:11.190
So I remember one who was
a multiple personality

1170
01:00:11.274 --> 01:00:12.859
who had different alters

1171
01:00:12.942 --> 01:00:15.570
that would show themselves
at different points,

1172
01:00:15.653 --> 01:00:18.531
and one of them
was really demonic,

1173
01:00:18.614 --> 01:00:21.868
and this whole demonic side
started to come out, like,

1174
01:00:21.951 --> 01:00:25.413
"If you come near me,
I will slash and kill you."

1175
01:00:25.496 --> 01:00:28.041
So the facilitators were
a little bit nervous

1176
01:00:28.124 --> 01:00:31.878
because the voice and
the aggression of this demon --

1177
01:00:31.961 --> 01:00:35.381
"You try to fix or help me,
and I will get you,

1178
01:00:35.465 --> 01:00:36.883
and I will kill you
and slash you."

1179
01:00:36.966 --> 01:00:40.053
It was not an easy person to be
tending,

1180
01:00:40.136 --> 01:00:41.554
so they called Stan over

1181
01:00:41.637 --> 01:00:44.766
because it seemed like this
demon wanted to eat everybody,

1182
01:00:44.849 --> 01:00:49.395
and Stan came over very calm
and cool and sat down and said,

1183
01:00:49.479 --> 01:00:52.565
"Tell me more.
You know, you're a demon.

1184
01:00:52.648 --> 01:00:55.401
You have some powers.
What are those powers you have,

1185
01:00:55.485 --> 01:00:57.945
and who do you think
you really are as a demon?

1186
01:00:58.029 --> 01:01:00.573
I mean, do you really know
what your identity is?"

1187
01:01:00.656 --> 01:01:02.241
He didn't quite ask it
in that way,

1188
01:01:02.325 --> 01:01:05.244
but he began to, like,
look directly at the demon

1189
01:01:05.328 --> 01:01:06.913
and say,
"You don't know really where

1190
01:01:06.996 --> 01:01:08.748
you come from, do you,
who you are?

1191
01:01:08.831 --> 01:01:10.750
I'm very pleased to meet you,
but you don't"...

1192
01:01:10.833 --> 01:01:13.628
And the demon started
to get confused

1193
01:01:13.711 --> 01:01:15.254
and started to look around,

1194
01:01:15.338 --> 01:01:18.257
and it was, like, instead
of being afraid of the demon,

1195
01:01:18.341 --> 01:01:21.260
Stan met this demonic energy

1196
01:01:21.344 --> 01:01:24.430
with a kind of curiosity
and interest and fearlessness

1197
01:01:24.514 --> 01:01:26.599
that the demon
that never met before,

1198
01:01:26.682 --> 01:01:28.768
and it started to kind
of lose its way,

1199
01:01:28.851 --> 01:01:31.604
and then
the whole thing morphed.

1200
01:01:31.687 --> 01:01:35.108
Magic happened when other
people were frightened.

1201
01:01:35.191 --> 01:01:37.610
That kind of innocence
that Stan has,

1202
01:01:37.693 --> 01:01:38.903
he's like this giant kid

1203
01:01:38.986 --> 01:01:41.447
wandering around saying,
"Wow, look at that."

1204
01:01:41.531 --> 01:01:45.076
He has this tremendous
appreciation for everything.

1205
01:01:45.159 --> 01:01:47.954
♪♪

1206
01:01:48.037 --> 01:01:51.791
-In 1974, Stan was about
43 years old,

1207
01:01:51.874 --> 01:01:56.295
and I was about 24 working
at Esalen as a night guard

1208
01:01:56.379 --> 01:01:58.464
and then writing
my dissertation,

1209
01:01:58.548 --> 01:01:59.966
you know, during the day,

1210
01:02:00.049 --> 01:02:04.971
and we got a call at about 4:00,
4:30 in the morning.

1211
01:02:05.054 --> 01:02:07.807
The night guard who was
on that night said,

1212
01:02:07.890 --> 01:02:13.813
"We've got a crisis, and we need
you guys here right away."

1213
01:02:13.896 --> 01:02:15.982
1:00 a.m. to 5:30 every morning,

1214
01:02:16.065 --> 01:02:19.277
we would let in people
from outside of Esalen

1215
01:02:19.360 --> 01:02:20.653
to use the baths.

1216
01:02:20.736 --> 01:02:23.990
A young man had taken LSD
with his girlfriend

1217
01:02:24.073 --> 01:02:27.118
and started to flip out at some
point during the session,

1218
01:02:27.201 --> 01:02:28.870
became violently paranoid.

1219
01:02:28.953 --> 01:02:32.331
The girlfriend had escaped
from the guy.

1220
01:02:32.415 --> 01:02:36.002
He had gone up the hill
to their van.

1221
01:02:36.085 --> 01:02:38.004
All we knew was that
he's got a knife,

1222
01:02:38.087 --> 01:02:39.213
he's naked,

1223
01:02:39.297 --> 01:02:42.341
he's psychotically paranoid
and violent.

1224
01:02:42.425 --> 01:02:45.887
As we're approaching the van,
I'm thinking to myself,

1225
01:02:45.970 --> 01:02:47.680
"Oh, this is great,"
just because I'm writing

1226
01:02:47.763 --> 01:02:51.184
a dissertation
on LSD psychotherapy.

1227
01:02:51.267 --> 01:02:54.854
I'm now, you know,
in a life-and-death situation.

1228
01:02:54.937 --> 01:02:57.023
-A victim of...

1229
01:02:57.106 --> 01:03:00.568
-So Stan opens
the sliding van door,

1230
01:03:00.651 --> 01:03:02.987
and the bottle is thrown
right by his head,

1231
01:03:03.070 --> 01:03:05.323
and then he goes in,
picks up a blanket,

1232
01:03:05.406 --> 01:03:08.409
wraps it around the man,
and puts him in a bear hug.

1233
01:03:08.493 --> 01:03:12.538
He says, "Okay. You've taken a
very powerful psychoactive drug.

1234
01:03:12.622 --> 01:03:14.373
I want you to close your eyes
and pay attention

1235
01:03:14.457 --> 01:03:16.334
to what's going on inside you."

1236
01:03:16.417 --> 01:03:20.213
♪♪

1237
01:03:20.296 --> 01:03:22.048
Within about 15 minutes,

1238
01:03:22.131 --> 01:03:24.717
the young man
was laughing at himself

1239
01:03:24.800 --> 01:03:29.388
but at the same time embarrassed
for what he had caused.

1240
01:03:29.472 --> 01:03:32.725
It was a real testament
to Stan's personal courage,

1241
01:03:32.808 --> 01:03:37.730
but it also was an illustration
of his whole philosophy

1242
01:03:37.813 --> 01:03:40.441
of trusting the psyche.

1243
01:03:42.818 --> 01:03:44.904
You know, the very first lecture
that I ever heard

1244
01:03:44.987 --> 01:03:48.574
Stan give in March
of 1974 at Esalen,

1245
01:03:48.658 --> 01:03:50.743
I asked him at the end,

1246
01:03:50.826 --> 01:03:53.120
"What do you do
in the case of someone

1247
01:03:53.204 --> 01:03:55.915
who's in a really bad trip

1248
01:03:55.998 --> 01:03:58.918
where they're descending
into an incessant loop

1249
01:03:59.001 --> 01:04:00.419
that they can't get out of,

1250
01:04:00.503 --> 01:04:02.088
and they feel like they're
losing their sanity?"

1251
01:04:02.171 --> 01:04:05.258
and these things can have
enduring effects, you know, too,

1252
01:04:05.341 --> 01:04:08.928
and he said with a kind
of poetic conciseness

1253
01:04:09.011 --> 01:04:10.972
that I've never forgotten,
he just said,

1254
01:04:11.055 --> 01:04:13.266
"Well, the full experience
of an emotion

1255
01:04:13.349 --> 01:04:16.894
is the funeral pyre
of the emotion,"

1256
01:04:16.978 --> 01:04:21.107
and he just pointed out
that we have a tendency to,

1257
01:04:21.190 --> 01:04:25.444
of course, wall
ourselves off from the pain,

1258
01:04:25.528 --> 01:04:28.281
the scary things in our psyche
that are trying to emerge,

1259
01:04:28.364 --> 01:04:30.616
but he says,
"That's actually the way

1260
01:04:30.700 --> 01:04:34.287
out of the pathology
of the suffering."

1261
01:04:34.370 --> 01:04:38.791
So he was able to convey
with that one sentence

1262
01:04:38.874 --> 01:04:43.796
the idea that bad trips
and negative material,

1263
01:04:43.879 --> 01:04:47.758
which Tim Leary did not
prepare the masses for,

1264
01:04:47.842 --> 01:04:55.808
were actually a royal road
to transformative healing.

1265
01:04:55.891 --> 01:04:58.644
-I think it's essential
when we discussed psychedelics

1266
01:04:58.728 --> 01:05:02.815
now to talk about
the challenging experiences

1267
01:05:02.898 --> 01:05:04.942
and that it's not all easy.

1268
01:05:05.026 --> 01:05:08.988
MAPS does psychedelic
harm reduction at Burning Man

1269
01:05:09.071 --> 01:05:11.490
and at festivals
all over the world,

1270
01:05:11.574 --> 01:05:13.618
and one of our main
principles is,

1271
01:05:13.701 --> 01:05:16.203
"Difficult is not
the same as bad,"

1272
01:05:16.287 --> 01:05:19.999
and I think that's where with
psychedelic therapy right now,

1273
01:05:20.082 --> 01:05:22.460
we prepare people
in a much different way

1274
01:05:22.543 --> 01:05:24.837
and really talk about a lot
of the kernels of wisdom

1275
01:05:24.920 --> 01:05:28.841
will come wrapped in these
very difficult experiences.

1276
01:05:28.924 --> 01:05:32.678
-Stan recognized early on that
existing schools of psychology

1277
01:05:32.762 --> 01:05:35.181
couldn't explain
the profound experiences

1278
01:05:35.264 --> 01:05:37.016
and resulting transformations

1279
01:05:37.099 --> 01:05:39.685
that he
and his patients underwent.

1280
01:05:39.769 --> 01:05:41.228
Even before moving to Esalen,

1281
01:05:41.312 --> 01:05:44.982
Stan worked with Abe Maslow
and Tony Sutich to develop

1282
01:05:45.066 --> 01:05:46.359
transpersonal psychology,

1283
01:05:46.442 --> 01:05:49.195
which recognized
the spiritual nature of humanity

1284
01:05:49.278 --> 01:05:52.198
and the importance of memories
from our time

1285
01:05:52.281 --> 01:05:54.700
in the womb and beyond.

1286
01:05:54.784 --> 01:05:57.036
-We got to the point
where we were very satisfied

1287
01:05:57.119 --> 01:05:59.372
with the kind
of new psychology,

1288
01:05:59.455 --> 01:06:02.541
but we had no idea
how we could possibly link

1289
01:06:02.625 --> 01:06:06.879
that gap between this
kind of system that we created

1290
01:06:06.962 --> 01:06:10.216
and what we knew as
the scientific psychology,

1291
01:06:10.299 --> 01:06:12.218
and that's where meeting
Fritjof Capra

1292
01:06:12.301 --> 01:06:14.387
and reading his book,
"The Tao of Physics,"

1293
01:06:14.470 --> 01:06:17.056
was extremely important for me.

1294
01:06:17.139 --> 01:06:20.559
Frances Vaughan invited him
to Tiburon

1295
01:06:20.643 --> 01:06:23.229
to meet transpersonal
psychologists,

1296
01:06:23.312 --> 01:06:24.730
and we really hit it off.

1297
01:06:24.814 --> 01:06:27.233
-We planned these seminars
together,

1298
01:06:27.316 --> 01:06:31.278
which we called "Journeys
Beyond Space and Time,"

1299
01:06:31.362 --> 01:06:37.868
and those were an inner journey
of transpersonal experiences

1300
01:06:37.952 --> 01:06:39.370
and the outer journey of,

1301
01:06:39.453 --> 01:06:42.581
you know, physicists
delving into matter

1302
01:06:42.665 --> 01:06:44.417
at the atomic
and subatomic level.

1303
01:06:44.500 --> 01:06:48.087
-Fritjof would take the morning
and tell people, you know,

1304
01:06:48.170 --> 01:06:53.592
how scientists, physicists now
see the world of matter.

1305
01:06:53.676 --> 01:06:57.096
-I presented the perception
of reality

1306
01:06:57.179 --> 01:07:01.767
where the solid objects
of our everyday experience

1307
01:07:01.851 --> 01:07:05.104
dissolve into energy patterns

1308
01:07:05.187 --> 01:07:10.484
and where particles can travel
backward and forward in time,

1309
01:07:10.568 --> 01:07:13.279
where these energy patterns,
furthermore,

1310
01:07:13.362 --> 01:07:16.615
are intrinsically dynamic,
the whole universe

1311
01:07:16.699 --> 01:07:20.786
being some sort of
a cosmic dance of energy.

1312
01:07:20.870 --> 01:07:25.291
Stan was describing
very similar experiences,

1313
01:07:25.374 --> 01:07:28.627
and as I did,
he was comparing them

1314
01:07:28.711 --> 01:07:31.088
to the experience of mystics.

1315
01:07:31.172 --> 01:07:33.799
Now we had
three perspectives --

1316
01:07:33.883 --> 01:07:35.509
the mystical experience,

1317
01:07:35.593 --> 01:07:39.305
the transpersonal experience,
and the experience of physicists

1318
01:07:39.388 --> 01:07:41.640
in those subatomic paradigms.

1319
01:07:41.724 --> 01:07:43.142
-After lunch, when people came,

1320
01:07:43.225 --> 01:07:46.312
it was time for me
to talk about my research.

1321
01:07:46.395 --> 01:07:50.649
It was pretty sober as compared
to what Fritjof was describing,

1322
01:07:50.733 --> 01:07:52.485
and I was talking
about something that happens

1323
01:07:52.568 --> 01:07:54.487
in some unusual states
of consciousness

1324
01:07:54.570 --> 01:07:57.656
whereas Fritjof was redefining
the material world

1325
01:07:57.740 --> 01:07:58.949
that we live in.

1326
01:07:59.033 --> 01:08:00.826
-One of the key insights
from the new physics

1327
01:08:00.910 --> 01:08:04.663
is that reality has something
of a holographic structure

1328
01:08:04.747 --> 01:08:08.167
or a fractal structure,
and the simplest example of this

1329
01:08:08.250 --> 01:08:12.338
is a mathematical structure
that we call the Mandelbrot set.

1330
01:08:12.421 --> 01:08:14.840
Now in science,
this is called nested

1331
01:08:14.924 --> 01:08:18.302
sets of self-similar structures,

1332
01:08:18.385 --> 01:08:20.846
but I like to think
that this is actually

1333
01:08:20.930 --> 01:08:24.683
a modern scientific discovery
of an ancient

1334
01:08:24.767 --> 01:08:26.393
Hermetic principle of alchemy --

1335
01:08:26.477 --> 01:08:30.981
"As above, so below.
As within, so without,"

1336
01:08:31.065 --> 01:08:36.529
that basically the microcosm
replicates the macrocosm.

1337
01:08:36.612 --> 01:08:39.698
If we apply these ideas
to spirituality,

1338
01:08:39.782 --> 01:08:43.702
what I would propose
is that consciousness itself

1339
01:08:43.786 --> 01:08:46.372
has this same fractal structure,

1340
01:08:46.455 --> 01:08:49.250
which means that there is
a self-similarity

1341
01:08:49.333 --> 01:08:52.378
at all levels of existence.

1342
01:08:52.461 --> 01:08:56.423
-Stan was one of the very first

1343
01:08:56.507 --> 01:08:59.885
to give this
new conception of life

1344
01:08:59.969 --> 01:09:04.557
and this new perception of
reality an emotional content,

1345
01:09:04.640 --> 01:09:06.392
an experiential content.

1346
01:09:06.475 --> 01:09:11.063
I think this is one of his
many great contributions.

1347
01:09:11.146 --> 01:09:13.399
-So many new perspectives
were introduced

1348
01:09:13.482 --> 01:09:16.402
during those workshops
and month-long intensives.

1349
01:09:16.485 --> 01:09:19.238
Michael Harner, who Stan had met
on his first trip

1350
01:09:19.321 --> 01:09:20.573
to the United States,

1351
01:09:20.656 --> 01:09:24.076
presented his work
in Core Shamanic practices.

1352
01:09:24.159 --> 01:09:25.244
-It was 1965.

1353
01:09:25.327 --> 01:09:29.248
We met in the Esalen
bathhouses, right?

1354
01:09:29.331 --> 01:09:31.750
-Yes.
This was an interesting meeting.

1355
01:09:31.834 --> 01:09:34.253
We were both stark naked

1356
01:09:34.336 --> 01:09:36.589
when we first met.
-Yeah.

1357
01:09:36.672 --> 01:09:41.594
Good way to start
and had nothing to hide.

1358
01:09:41.677 --> 01:09:43.596
-Richard Tarnas,
together with Stan,

1359
01:09:43.679 --> 01:09:45.306
developed archetypal astrology

1360
01:09:45.389 --> 01:09:48.934
as a means for gaining a deeper
understanding of the forces

1361
01:09:49.018 --> 01:09:52.438
influencing individual
and collective psyches.

1362
01:09:52.521 --> 01:09:56.483
-We noticed the phenomenology
of the perinatal matrices

1363
01:09:56.567 --> 01:10:00.613
could have been passages
from handbooks of astrology.

1364
01:10:00.696 --> 01:10:01.947
So that was mind-blowing

1365
01:10:02.031 --> 01:10:04.617
because I had no
understanding of astrology

1366
01:10:04.700 --> 01:10:06.118
when I was doing it,

1367
01:10:06.201 --> 01:10:08.120
but then we found out
something even more amazing

1368
01:10:08.203 --> 01:10:11.832
that actually people were having
in their sessions the encounter

1369
01:10:11.916 --> 01:10:14.126
with elements
of these matrices at the time

1370
01:10:14.210 --> 01:10:18.339
when they had these planets
in some significant transit,

1371
01:10:18.422 --> 01:10:20.799
so it became, you know,

1372
01:10:20.883 --> 01:10:22.509
something that
allowed prediction,

1373
01:10:22.593 --> 01:10:25.596
what kind of experiences
people would have.

1374
01:10:25.679 --> 01:10:28.807
I had a chance to spend
very informal time

1375
01:10:28.891 --> 01:10:31.644
with people who were
the pioneers, you know --

1376
01:10:31.727 --> 01:10:34.813
Fritjof Capra, Rupert Sheldrake,
Karl Pribram.

1377
01:10:34.897 --> 01:10:37.816
We had Huston Smith,
Joseph Campbell.

1378
01:10:37.900 --> 01:10:41.487
No university had
that kind of a staff,

1379
01:10:41.570 --> 01:10:42.780
so when I started

1380
01:10:42.863 --> 01:10:45.157
the International
Transpersonal Association,

1381
01:10:45.240 --> 01:10:47.493
I could pick up
the telephone and say,

1382
01:10:47.576 --> 01:10:49.995
"I want to do a conference
in Bombay, in India,

1383
01:10:50.079 --> 01:10:53.499
and I can pay the
round-trip ticket and feed you.

1384
01:10:53.582 --> 01:10:57.503
They will put you up,
but I can't give any honoring.

1385
01:10:57.586 --> 01:11:00.839
Do you want to come?"
and they all said, "Yes."

1386
01:11:00.923 --> 01:11:03.467
-Stan Grof wrote me
a long handwritten letter

1387
01:11:03.550 --> 01:11:05.344
saying how much
he liked my book.

1388
01:11:05.427 --> 01:11:06.845
He'd had a copy shipped,

1389
01:11:06.929 --> 01:11:09.515
and he invited me
to speak at a conference

1390
01:11:09.598 --> 01:11:11.684
he was organizing in Bombay,

1391
01:11:11.767 --> 01:11:13.477
but I'd never been
to California.

1392
01:11:13.560 --> 01:11:16.188
I'd never heard of things
like the New Age Movement.

1393
01:11:16.271 --> 01:11:17.690
I'd never heard of Stan Grof.

1394
01:11:17.773 --> 01:11:20.693
I'd never heard of Esalen,
and suddenly, in this hotel,

1395
01:11:20.776 --> 01:11:23.696
it was a kind of
astonishing world of people

1396
01:11:23.779 --> 01:11:25.531
who were into
consciousness research

1397
01:11:25.614 --> 01:11:27.700
talking about
the Esalen Institute.

1398
01:11:27.783 --> 01:11:31.203
Stan was talking about
his psychotropic breathing

1399
01:11:31.286 --> 01:11:34.039
and LSD research and so on.

1400
01:11:34.123 --> 01:11:36.500
I was amazed to find myself
in an environment

1401
01:11:36.583 --> 01:11:37.876
where I could talk
about the things

1402
01:11:37.960 --> 01:11:39.378
I was really
most interested in,

1403
01:11:39.461 --> 01:11:42.881
where people were interested
in finding out more,

1404
01:11:42.965 --> 01:11:48.512
a kind of fizz of excitement
and discovery and new horizons.

1405
01:11:48.595 --> 01:11:51.557
-People were just very hungry
to find an atmosphere

1406
01:11:51.640 --> 01:11:54.059
where they could connect
with like-minded people.

1407
01:11:54.143 --> 01:11:56.061
They were not afraid
of criticism

1408
01:11:56.145 --> 01:11:57.896
that would have
any implications, you know,

1409
01:11:57.980 --> 01:12:00.899
for their reputation
or their position.

1410
01:12:00.983 --> 01:12:04.236
So we really got the truth
from people.

1411
01:12:04.319 --> 01:12:08.407
-...that there is
a domain of potentiality

1412
01:12:08.490 --> 01:12:12.911
which is nonlocal,
and therefore, it is oneness.

1413
01:12:12.995 --> 01:12:14.580
-The universe
doesn't work on...

1414
01:12:14.663 --> 01:12:19.418
-Stan represents what
has been sorely lacking,

1415
01:12:19.501 --> 01:12:24.590
which is the long through line
of work over decades

1416
01:12:24.673 --> 01:12:30.262
because in this wild,
meandering exploration

1417
01:12:30.345 --> 01:12:32.931
of the further reaches
of human nature,

1418
01:12:33.015 --> 01:12:34.558
particularly in the '60s,

1419
01:12:34.641 --> 01:12:37.770
but even in the long
sobering-up of the '70s,

1420
01:12:37.853 --> 01:12:43.442
he's been able to provide
a huge body of empirical lore.

1421
01:12:43.525 --> 01:12:45.611
-It's fair to say, I think,

1422
01:12:45.694 --> 01:12:47.112
that I wouldn't be
doing the research

1423
01:12:47.196 --> 01:12:50.783
that I'm doing
had it not have been for reading

1424
01:12:50.866 --> 01:12:54.119
Stan's "Realms of the
Human Unconscious."

1425
01:12:54.203 --> 01:12:55.996
-Yet despite the tremendous
insights

1426
01:12:56.080 --> 01:12:58.165
shared during Stan's tenure
at Esalen

1427
01:12:58.248 --> 01:13:00.959
and his continued exploration
of the healing power

1428
01:13:01.043 --> 01:13:03.295
of nonordinary states
of consciousness,

1429
01:13:03.378 --> 01:13:05.798
so little has changed.

1430
01:13:05.881 --> 01:13:08.801
-The work with holotropic
states also provide very,

1431
01:13:08.884 --> 01:13:10.594
very interesting insight

1432
01:13:10.677 --> 01:13:14.973
into how we should approach
the situation

1433
01:13:15.057 --> 01:13:18.602
that we have in the world
where we are in global crisis,

1434
01:13:18.685 --> 01:13:21.647
in some sense, on the verge
of possible extinction --

1435
01:13:21.730 --> 01:13:26.819
not just our species but taking
a few species with us.

1436
01:13:26.902 --> 01:13:29.154
You know, changing this
situation is not simple.

1437
01:13:29.238 --> 01:13:33.325
We cannot just to do kind of
transpersonal,

1438
01:13:33.408 --> 01:13:36.662
spiritual sanitization
of creation,

1439
01:13:36.745 --> 01:13:39.164
simply eliminate everything
that we don't like

1440
01:13:39.248 --> 01:13:43.335
that we think is bad or evil.

1441
01:13:43.418 --> 01:13:46.004
-It was hard for me to hear
what Stan was saying.

1442
01:13:46.088 --> 01:13:49.675
I'd always hoped that one
could avoid darkness and pain.

1443
01:13:49.758 --> 01:13:52.177
I didn't want to believe
that light and shadow

1444
01:13:52.261 --> 01:13:55.514
were equal parts
of the whole.

1445
01:13:55.597 --> 01:13:58.851
Perhaps ayahuasca could help me
make peace with that.

1446
01:14:01.770 --> 01:14:04.022
The problem with ayahuasca
is that it can take

1447
01:14:04.106 --> 01:14:06.024
a long time to come on.

1448
01:14:06.108 --> 01:14:09.695
The mistake that I made was
thinking I hadn't had enough.

1449
01:14:09.778 --> 01:14:14.533
♪♪

1450
01:14:14.616 --> 01:14:18.745
I really thought I was dying,
but in my heart,

1451
01:14:18.829 --> 01:14:21.540
I knew that it was too late.

1452
01:14:21.623 --> 01:14:26.044
There was nothing to be done,
so I purged and surrendered.

1453
01:14:26.128 --> 01:14:32.050
♪♪

1454
01:14:32.134 --> 01:14:35.387
It took me a while to realize
that I was in another dimension

1455
01:14:35.470 --> 01:14:39.433
and that as long as I remained
formless in it, I was fine.

1456
01:14:39.516 --> 01:14:43.562
If I tried to feel my body,
I was instantly nauseous.

1457
01:14:43.645 --> 01:14:47.065
For 6 hours, I stayed
in the quantum fields.

1458
01:14:47.149 --> 01:14:51.236
At times, it seemed I was
watching reincarnation,

1459
01:14:51.320 --> 01:14:54.114
where a soul would merge
with the possibility wave

1460
01:14:54.198 --> 01:14:57.534
and then tumble down
into increasing density,

1461
01:14:57.618 --> 01:15:01.622
flipping like a coin
between victim and perpetrator.

1462
01:15:03.832 --> 01:15:05.417
Pretty much every
deep experience

1463
01:15:05.500 --> 01:15:08.086
I've had since has been
uncomfortable in ways

1464
01:15:08.170 --> 01:15:11.882
I never could've imagined,
but most often,

1465
01:15:11.965 --> 01:15:14.718
I end up in a place
of great beauty and love

1466
01:15:14.801 --> 01:15:17.888
as though the ugliness
had to be fully experienced

1467
01:15:17.971 --> 01:15:21.725
before I had access
to the underlying joy.

1468
01:15:21.808 --> 01:15:24.394
When I look back
at my archetypal astrology,

1469
01:15:24.478 --> 01:15:29.107
I see now that I've been through
a series of deaths and rebirths.

1470
01:15:29.191 --> 01:15:32.444
What died was my limited
sense of self.

1471
01:15:32.527 --> 01:15:34.279
Once that illusion slipped away,

1472
01:15:34.363 --> 01:15:38.617
I could feel my true nature
as energy beyond the creative

1473
01:15:38.700 --> 01:15:41.286
and destructive cycles
of the universe,

1474
01:15:41.370 --> 01:15:42.829
timeless and vast,

1475
01:15:42.913 --> 01:15:47.459
within a unity that might
be forgotten but never lost.

1476
01:15:50.212 --> 01:15:51.505
-I think it's healthier to know

1477
01:15:51.588 --> 01:15:53.966
that the devil is something
within our psyches

1478
01:15:54.049 --> 01:15:58.303
and within our souls as humans
rather than some,

1479
01:15:58.387 --> 01:16:03.016
you know, object out there.

1480
01:16:03.100 --> 01:16:05.644
-I think people who are
in touch

1481
01:16:05.727 --> 01:16:08.355
with the state of the world
right now recognize

1482
01:16:08.438 --> 01:16:11.441
that we're basically
all skating on thin ice.

1483
01:16:11.525 --> 01:16:14.987
There is a profound
sense of uncertainty

1484
01:16:15.070 --> 01:16:20.492
and potentially looming danger
of catastrophic proportions,

1485
01:16:20.576 --> 01:16:23.120
and it takes a lot of courage
to face that.

1486
01:16:23.203 --> 01:16:25.872
We can't simply be sure
we can be bringing

1487
01:16:25.956 --> 01:16:27.666
in some technological fix

1488
01:16:27.749 --> 01:16:30.502
or rational solution
to this situation.

1489
01:16:30.585 --> 01:16:33.714
Uncertainty itself
is a key part

1490
01:16:33.797 --> 01:16:37.009
of any initiatory
transformation.

1491
01:16:37.092 --> 01:16:40.012
You can't have a pretend
near-death experience

1492
01:16:40.095 --> 01:16:44.850
in order to have an effective
transfiguration of how you live.

1493
01:16:44.933 --> 01:16:47.978
You need to really feel
everything is at stake,

1494
01:16:48.061 --> 01:16:50.147
and you don't know
the outcome,

1495
01:16:50.230 --> 01:16:53.025
and if we can have
the courage to face that

1496
01:16:53.108 --> 01:16:55.694
and to go through
this dark night of the soul,

1497
01:16:55.777 --> 01:16:58.697
in some sense,
and to bring all our wits

1498
01:16:58.780 --> 01:17:02.576
and heart and imagination
and bravery together

1499
01:17:02.659 --> 01:17:05.037
to engage
this great threshold,

1500
01:17:05.120 --> 01:17:09.541
I think that's the key
to our future.

1501
01:17:09.625 --> 01:17:11.001
-If anybody is
paying attention,

1502
01:17:11.084 --> 01:17:13.086
they're traumatized
in some way,

1503
01:17:13.170 --> 01:17:16.923
and psychedelics can help us
deal with those fears

1504
01:17:17.007 --> 01:17:19.885
and still look positively
at what we can do

1505
01:17:19.968 --> 01:17:21.553
to contribute
to making it better,

1506
01:17:21.636 --> 01:17:24.181
so a lot of the astronauts
who've looked back at the Earth

1507
01:17:24.264 --> 01:17:28.393
from space and realized
that it's a single organism,

1508
01:17:28.477 --> 01:17:30.937
that there are no clear
country boundaries,

1509
01:17:31.021 --> 01:17:32.522
that we're all
in this together,

1510
01:17:32.606 --> 01:17:35.567
we're all part of this
14 billion years of evolution

1511
01:17:35.650 --> 01:17:37.069
have been spiritualized.

1512
01:17:37.152 --> 01:17:40.405
When people grasp
the sense of the whole,

1513
01:17:40.489 --> 01:17:42.532
that has profound
political implications,

1514
01:17:42.616 --> 01:17:44.409
and it's a lot cheaper to give
somebody a psychedelic

1515
01:17:44.493 --> 01:17:46.078
than shoot them up
to the Moon.

1516
01:17:46.161 --> 01:17:49.247
[ Chuckles ]

1517
01:17:49.331 --> 01:17:51.917
-The power of psychedelics
to profoundly change

1518
01:17:52.000 --> 01:17:53.960
people is remarkable.

1519
01:17:55.962 --> 01:17:59.591
-The information that
was delivered to me

1520
01:17:59.674 --> 01:18:03.762
in those experiences
has pretty much formed

1521
01:18:03.845 --> 01:18:06.098
the rest of my life
since then.

1522
01:18:06.181 --> 01:18:11.603
-The depression was gone,
never came back.

1523
01:18:11.686 --> 01:18:19.277
I became a different person
who was able to enjoy life,

1524
01:18:19.361 --> 01:18:21.780
learn how to laugh,

1525
01:18:21.863 --> 01:18:25.492
who was nicer to my children
and my grandchildren.

1526
01:18:25.575 --> 01:18:30.622
The substance, which was
a psychedelic, helped me so much

1527
01:18:30.705 --> 01:18:34.418
that I dedicated
the rest of my life

1528
01:18:34.501 --> 01:18:39.965
to make it available
to everyone who suffers.

1529
01:18:40.048 --> 01:18:43.468
-I now have completely,
180 degrees

1530
01:18:43.552 --> 01:18:46.304
modified my viewpoint
to understand

1531
01:18:46.388 --> 01:18:50.267
that we are spiritual beings,

1532
01:18:50.350 --> 01:18:53.478
performing and acting
and learning in physical bodies,

1533
01:18:53.562 --> 01:18:56.148
and it is through the power
of some of the psychedelics

1534
01:18:56.231 --> 01:18:58.150
and through some
of the ideas of Stan

1535
01:18:58.233 --> 01:19:00.986
and the people that he has
brought together with him

1536
01:19:01.069 --> 01:19:03.864
that this new opening
has happened in my life

1537
01:19:03.947 --> 01:19:07.033
as well as in the lives
of thousands

1538
01:19:07.117 --> 01:19:09.035
and millions of people.

1539
01:19:09.119 --> 01:19:11.163
-And now, ever since that,

1540
01:19:11.246 --> 01:19:13.623
anytime when things
like that happen --

1541
01:19:13.707 --> 01:19:16.001
Of course, they happen
again and again --

1542
01:19:16.084 --> 01:19:18.712
I remember what Stan told me.

1543
01:19:18.795 --> 01:19:24.843
"You're ready. Face it.
Your psyche will not give you

1544
01:19:24.926 --> 01:19:27.637
any task
that you cannot tackle."

1545
01:19:29.598 --> 01:19:31.808
-Regardless of the method,
it's the state

1546
01:19:31.892 --> 01:19:36.146
one finds themselves in that
matters, awake and joyful

1547
01:19:36.229 --> 01:19:41.860
in the heartfelt knowledge of
being part of something greater.

1548
01:19:41.943 --> 01:19:44.863
It's only fitting that Stan
experienced his own rebirth

1549
01:19:44.946 --> 01:19:46.698
after Christina's passing.

1550
01:19:46.781 --> 01:19:50.076
For years, he had suffered
from debilitating back pain

1551
01:19:50.160 --> 01:19:52.537
and nerve sensitivity
in his legs,

1552
01:19:52.621 --> 01:19:55.373
but a higher-than-normal
dose of medical marijuana

1553
01:19:55.457 --> 01:19:58.877
launched a process
that freed him from that pain.

1554
01:19:58.960 --> 01:20:02.005
-I had the feeling
that I was dying,

1555
01:20:02.088 --> 01:20:05.717
and I saw other people
who died before me,

1556
01:20:05.800 --> 01:20:07.886
Angie Arrien and Christina,

1557
01:20:07.969 --> 01:20:11.223
Sasha Shulgin
and Hans Ruedi Giger,

1558
01:20:11.306 --> 01:20:13.266
so I had the feeling this is,
like, end of an era,

1559
01:20:13.350 --> 01:20:17.229
and I was joining, and then
there was that sense like,

1560
01:20:17.312 --> 01:20:20.899
"No, you are not ready yet,"
and sort of, "You go back.

1561
01:20:20.982 --> 01:20:22.734
You know, you have
more work to do,"

1562
01:20:22.817 --> 01:20:24.569
and I went for
about a month

1563
01:20:24.653 --> 01:20:27.906
into a lot of nonordinary
states of consciousness.

1564
01:20:27.989 --> 01:20:29.908
Spontaneous chanting was coming.

1565
01:20:29.991 --> 01:20:34.412
A significant part of it
was about whales.

1566
01:20:34.496 --> 01:20:36.289
-During this period, Brigitte,

1567
01:20:36.373 --> 01:20:39.584
one of Stan's first students
and dearly loved by him,

1568
01:20:39.668 --> 01:20:41.044
reached out.

1569
01:20:41.127 --> 01:20:44.422
-Hearing the first phone call
where we reconnected,

1570
01:20:44.506 --> 01:20:47.759
she told me that she was
about to go for a trip

1571
01:20:47.842 --> 01:20:49.427
where it was possible

1572
01:20:49.511 --> 01:20:52.597
to actually meet the whales
and swim with the dolphins.

1573
01:20:52.681 --> 01:20:55.976
That was an amazing experience.

1574
01:20:56.059 --> 01:21:00.772
We first met when Brigitte came
to a lecture of mine in Freiburg

1575
01:21:00.855 --> 01:21:05.485
after she had had
a very difficult LSD experience,

1576
01:21:05.569 --> 01:21:07.445
and very shortly afterwards,

1577
01:21:07.529 --> 01:21:11.283
she participated
in our first breathwork

1578
01:21:11.366 --> 01:21:15.954
and decided to come to Esalen,
where she stayed for a year,

1579
01:21:16.037 --> 01:21:17.956
and she did several
of the trainings

1580
01:21:18.039 --> 01:21:22.127
of holotropic breathwork,
so I've always loved her.

1581
01:21:22.210 --> 01:21:25.297
She brought incredible spirit

1582
01:21:25.380 --> 01:21:28.967
into all the groups
that she participated in,

1583
01:21:29.050 --> 01:21:36.266
and she was always a light
of my life at a time when,

1584
01:21:36.349 --> 01:21:38.476
you know, I was committed
to really not have any way

1585
01:21:38.560 --> 01:21:41.813
of sort of bringing
the relationship farther,

1586
01:21:41.896 --> 01:21:44.482
and then the situation changed,

1587
01:21:44.566 --> 01:21:48.820
so we decided to join
our lives together.

1588
01:21:48.903 --> 01:21:52.657
-...a toast
to it's never too late.

1589
01:21:52.741 --> 01:21:53.992
-No.

1590
01:21:54.075 --> 01:21:56.494
-In everyone's life,
it is just never too late.

1591
01:21:56.578 --> 01:21:57.662
-Whoo!

1592
01:21:57.746 --> 01:22:00.332
-I never expected
the late years in my life

1593
01:22:00.415 --> 01:22:06.046
would be
the happiest time of my life.

1594
01:22:06.129 --> 01:22:07.505
-I've just always loved him,

1595
01:22:07.589 --> 01:22:11.009
and I feel very blessed
that we can be together.

1596
01:22:11.092 --> 01:22:13.011
It's a dream come true.

1597
01:22:13.094 --> 01:22:16.806
It's just this oneness that
we share and the humor

1598
01:22:16.890 --> 01:22:19.184
and the way we see things,

1599
01:22:19.267 --> 01:22:21.144
the inner journeys
that we share.

1600
01:22:21.227 --> 01:22:25.857
It's just wonderful
to be married to Stan.

1601
01:22:27.942 --> 01:22:30.236
-And just as Stan
and Brigitte's past circle

1602
01:22:30.320 --> 01:22:33.073
back to Esalen
where they now teach together,

1603
01:22:33.156 --> 01:22:38.328
so has my journey returned me
to a familiar sense of peace.

1604
01:22:38.411 --> 01:22:41.873
What began as a quest
to reconnect with my teachers

1605
01:22:41.956 --> 01:22:44.334
has evolved into
a deeper understanding

1606
01:22:44.417 --> 01:22:46.544
of what it is to be human.

1607
01:22:46.628 --> 01:22:50.548
I followed the path that Stan
forged and explored the darkness

1608
01:22:50.632 --> 01:22:54.052
and the light,
finding beauty in both.

1609
01:22:54.135 --> 01:22:57.389
-This is...
-The tantric imagery

1610
01:22:57.472 --> 01:22:58.890
that drew me to Stan now

1611
01:22:58.973 --> 01:23:02.185
makes up a daily practice
that not just maintains

1612
01:23:02.268 --> 01:23:03.895
but grows
the sense of connection

1613
01:23:03.978 --> 01:23:08.066
I've found
through my psychedelic work.

1614
01:23:08.149 --> 01:23:10.568
What I find amazing
is the parallel

1615
01:23:10.652 --> 01:23:14.072
between what happens
to one's brain on psychedelics

1616
01:23:14.155 --> 01:23:17.242
and what is experienced
in tantric meditation.

1617
01:23:17.325 --> 01:23:21.246
♪♪

1618
01:23:21.329 --> 01:23:23.456
I learned so much from Stan.

1619
01:23:23.540 --> 01:23:26.584
The techniques he developed
and the spiritual grounding

1620
01:23:26.668 --> 01:23:27.919
he provided for them

1621
01:23:28.002 --> 01:23:31.589
hold such promise
for these challenging times.

1622
01:23:31.673 --> 01:23:33.425
May we follow his example

1623
01:23:33.508 --> 01:23:36.761
and begin our own
journeys of discovery.

1624
01:23:36.845 --> 01:23:44.561
♪♪

1625
01:23:44.644 --> 01:23:52.110
♪♪

1626
01:23:52.193 --> 01:23:54.779
-One really fundamental
principle of shamanism

1627
01:23:54.863 --> 01:24:00.618
is that everyone is one
and is alive and has spirit.

1628
01:24:00.702 --> 01:24:03.288
-It was indeed
this other reality

1629
01:24:03.371 --> 01:24:06.124
that could be accessed
in different ways,

1630
01:24:06.207 --> 01:24:11.337
and like Stan,
I've come to that conclusion

1631
01:24:11.421 --> 01:24:14.632
that it's all too logical,
really.

1632
01:24:14.716 --> 01:24:17.510
-The energies that people
liberate in themselves

1633
01:24:17.594 --> 01:24:20.597
is just so beautiful to see.

1634
01:24:20.680 --> 01:24:23.808
I mean, we just live up to
I don't know how little

1635
01:24:23.892 --> 01:24:27.103
of our potential
in our normal, everyday life,

1636
01:24:27.187 --> 01:24:32.817
and so seeing people becoming
alive, including myself,

1637
01:24:32.901 --> 01:24:37.655
and awakening is just beautiful.

1638
01:24:37.739 --> 01:24:41.826
-Bringing about any change
in our way of being in the world

1639
01:24:41.910 --> 01:24:45.330
is having some access
to these deep layers,

1640
01:24:45.413 --> 01:24:51.127
and one of the ways
used by all traditions is sound.

1641
01:24:51.211 --> 01:24:56.466
-Those moments that may be
so tragic or so joyful,

1642
01:24:56.549 --> 01:25:00.345
so ecstatic that reside
in the collective,

1643
01:25:00.428 --> 01:25:02.889
maybe reside in
the collective unconscious,

1644
01:25:02.972 --> 01:25:07.685
they live again through us
in these nonordinary states,

1645
01:25:07.769 --> 01:25:11.981
and again, the practice
of working with the transits,

1646
01:25:12.065 --> 01:25:16.027
of understanding them
through an astrological lens,

1647
01:25:16.110 --> 01:25:17.862
can provide a map

1648
01:25:17.946 --> 01:25:21.366
to see each one of those
experiences through history

1649
01:25:21.449 --> 01:25:26.830
and then how it comes to bear
on our own personal experience.

1650
01:25:26.913 --> 01:25:30.333
-A new concept, a new paradigm
from the ground up,

1651
01:25:30.416 --> 01:25:34.045
what the universe is, who we
are, and where we are going is,

1652
01:25:34.128 --> 01:25:36.881
to me, the key questions,
and they have...

1653
01:25:36.965 --> 01:25:40.218
Basically, it has to be
an integral, integrative answer,

1654
01:25:40.301 --> 01:25:42.762
or if you don't find it,
then it's your fault

1655
01:25:42.846 --> 01:25:46.558
because the universe doesn't
work on little bits and pieces.

1656
01:25:46.641 --> 01:25:48.017
It works as a whole.

1657
01:25:48.101 --> 01:25:53.064
-It's not, like, a side effect
of these drugs, you see?

1658
01:25:53.147 --> 01:25:57.402
Like, you say, "Well, they have
these religious experiences"

1659
01:25:57.485 --> 01:26:00.071
because then you're...

1660
01:26:00.154 --> 01:26:03.408
The spiritual dimension
is the core dimension.

1661
01:26:03.491 --> 01:26:04.742
It's the core dimension.

1662
01:26:04.826 --> 01:26:10.248
It's not an add-on
that you can take or leave.

1663
01:26:10.331 --> 01:26:14.252
That changes everything.

1664
01:26:14.335 --> 01:26:15.920
-People who do some
responsible,

1665
01:26:16.004 --> 01:26:21.050
systematic work with these
powerful experiential methods,

1666
01:26:21.134 --> 01:26:25.430
from some intense spiritual
practice to psychedelics,

1667
01:26:25.513 --> 01:26:28.266
they tend to develop
independently a certain

1668
01:26:28.349 --> 01:26:31.436
kind of worldview
that they share.

1669
01:26:31.519 --> 01:26:33.104
It's the
Buckminster Fuller idea.

1670
01:26:33.187 --> 01:26:34.314
You know, we are on a spaceship.

1671
01:26:34.397 --> 01:26:35.815
We are all in it together,

1672
01:26:35.899 --> 01:26:39.110
and what some of us
do will influence the others.

1673
01:26:39.193 --> 01:26:41.279
There's no way
of isolating that.

1674
01:26:41.362 --> 01:26:43.573
I've seen that
powerful transformation

1675
01:26:43.656 --> 01:26:45.617
happening in individuals.

1676
01:26:45.700 --> 01:26:48.328
Now, whether this is possible
on a large scale

1677
01:26:48.411 --> 01:26:52.957
and whether we have enough time,
that's a different story.

1678
01:26:53.041 --> 01:27:00.757
♪♪