Product Description

A pioneering and revolutionary book that lays the foundations for a radical new psychology, based on the expanded cartography of the human unconscious. Famous for his lifelong research into psychedelic drugs, Dr Grof constructs a comprehensive and helpful framework out of the bewildering welter of experiences triggered by LSD in patients and research subjects. Current research into the brain and ways of expanding consciousness give this seminal book, first published in 1979, new importance for the light it throws on the fundamental, but hitherto mysterious, human potentialities. Grof's theory of the human psyche transcends the personal and opens ways to a greater understanding of our inner selves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46385 in Books
• Published on: 1979-02-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 258 pages

Customer Reviews

A trip that is worth exploring?
Quote from book - "The capacity of LSD and some other drugs to exteriorise otherwise invisible phenomena and processes and make them the subject of scientific investigation gives these substances a unique potential as diagnostic instruments and as research tools for the exploration of the human mind. It does not seem inappropriate and exaggerated to compare their potential significance for psychiatry and psychology to that of a microscope for medicine or the telescope for astronomy"

Obviously, from the outset, I must categorically state that I do not condone the use of LSD or any of its counterparts. If ingested, make sure you are with a friend who you can trust, for it can have adverse side effects. Having never been privy to experiencing LSD first hand, I cannot validate the findings in this book, what I can do however, is comment upon Stanislav Grof and the content of this book from an unbiased outlook.

First and foremost Stanislav is a scientist and so conveys his work in a very ordered fashion, the book, as is his work, is well structured and I believe he is honest with his findings.

The accounts he tells us about can at times seem quite bizarre, and it's the readers' prerogative if they are believed or not. As with most psychiatric studies, the data is empirical and so, as with all empirical findings, with any biased outlook from the outset, results can seem to fit in with the observer's hypothesis. However, to be fair to Grof, I think he has done his best for this not to be the case, as some of his findings were not expected.

This book is more for psychiatrists and psychologists or `would be psychiatrists' than it is for the general public, some terms can confuse the reader if they have not come across them before.

There is some good news at the end of this review! You do not need to take LSD to experience some of what he is discussing within this book. Stanislav and his wife Christina have created a `Holotrophic Therapy', as they call it. This is outlined in another of Stanislav's books, `The Adventure of Self-Discovery', which induces a different state of consciousness without the use of drugs.

`Realms of the Human Unconscious' is worth reading for this `fringe' material and also for not letting Grof's work of the 60's and 70's go unnoticed.

grof's seminal work
This is the book containing the compelling results of years of research of LSD assisted psychotherapy. Grof's main discoveries were of the perinatal layer of unconscious experience and the transpersonal dimension. All of Grof's subsequent work flows from these insights. When LSD research became illegal Grof developed holotropic breathwork to access the same psychological territory. This is a practical repeatable method for developing the work of Jung with the collective unconscious while his work on the perinatal layer does for the birth experience what Klein did for early infancy. This is ground breaking work and deserves 5 stars.

His later books are perhaps more accessable to the general reader but this is essential reading for the serious student of the transpersonal paradigm.

Groundbreaking
This is now a classic in the field of what the possibilities are of human consciosuness and of finding healing from human trauma. Stanislav Grof worked with LSD in Europe and the US, with thousands of people. The importance of this work is such that it is quoted by many other authors. Grof describes how people using LSD found healing from what are still considered incurable conditions. He also describes how people transcended the usual boundaries of awareness.

He concluded his findings by saying that he had no doubt that the present view of the universe and the world around us, what we call 'reality', and especially our understanding of what it is to be human, is superficial, incorrect, and incomplete.