1 6 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 2 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 1 6 the fetus, but about an adult who is reliving the experiences of the fetus. This regression is experienced by an individual with differentiated personality and intellectual faculties that include and integrate the development through all the postnatal fulcrums. This vast amount of information is not lost during the regressive experience and forms an integral part of it. It certainly is conceivable that the NOSC facilitates an entirely new creative integration of all structures with the transpersonal domain, thus facilitating the unfolding of still new structures. Similar mechanisms have played an important role not only in religious revelations, but also in many scientific discoveries and artistic inspirations (Harman 1984). Besides including the intellectual and emotional repertoire of the adult individual, regressive experiences also mediate direct extrasensory access not only to what Ken calls “intersubjective space” but also to information about various aspects of space-time and about the archetypal realms of the collective unconscious. I have made over the years numerous observations in this regard and reported them with many illustrative case histories (Grof 1985, 1987, 1992). In addition, the processes involved are characterized by multiple holographic enfolding and unfolding of space and time and escape any efforts of the intellect to arrange and categorize them into a neat linear system. Ken clearly does not understand the nature and complexity of the experiences involved, as can be illustrated by the example of the oak and acorn that he uses to criticize Richard Tarnas’ application of the dynamics of perinatal matrices to the intellectual development of Western civilization (Wilber 1995, 755). To ridicule the idea that regression to the womb could convey genuine mystical insights, Ken uses the image of an oak and the acorn from which it came. He argues that the regression to the fetal state cannot any more mediate a true mystical union with the world than an oak can unify its leaves and branches or become one with the forest by identifying with the original acorn. According to him, the “original union”, whether conceived as the actual womb or as the pre-historical participation mystique of primitive cultures is not a union, but an undifferentiation. This certainly is a logical conclusion we would be inclined to draw on the basis of external observation of these conditions when they occur in the context of linear individual and historical development. However, our only source of information about the subjective aspect of the original situations comes from regressive work. For this reason, all we will ever be able to say about them apart from what we learn from experiential work, will be educated fantasies and guesses, no matter how plausible they might appear to our logical mind. Yet we have ample knowledge about the regressive return to these situations and we know that it is not a simple replay or unearthing of the memories of the original state as understood by materialistic science. The experiences involved represent extremely complex, multidimensional, and even paradoxical phenomena that transcend attempts to fit them neatly into linear schemes. Neither Richard Tarnas nor myself have ever thought, said, or written that the perinatal experiences are nothing but a mechanical replay of the original birth situation, yet this is exactly the way Ken consistently misinterprets these experiences. To more adequately portray the nature of perinatal experiences and the insights that they mediate, the oak of Ken’s simile would have to regress to the original acorn and, while experiencing its oak/acorn identity, become simultaneously aware of its entire (acorn and oak) environmental context involving the cosmos, nature, the sun, the air, the soil, and the rain. This would also be associated with a sense of its embeddedness in the forest and its descent from a line of preceding oak trees and acorns, as well as its entire development from the acorn to its present form. And an important aspect of such an experience would be its connection with the archetypes of Mother Nature or Mother Earth and with the creative divine energy that underlies all of the above forms. If the nature of regressive experiences in NOSC is correctly understood, it does not seem surprising that they represent an important mechanism of spiritual opening and of spiritual evolution. Besides ample evidence from modern consciousness research, this notion can be supported by many examples from the spiritual history of humanity. The experience of psychospiritual death and rebirth, or “second birth”, that is closely associated with the conscious reliving of biological birth, is an essential component in the ritual and spiritual life of many cultures. It plays an important role not only in shamanism, aboriginal rites of passage, and the ancient mysteries of death and rebirth, but also in Christianity (as indicated by the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus about the importance of second birth, “birth from water and spirit”), Hinduism (becoming a dvija or twice-born), and other great religions. Some spiritual texts also indicate that – in spite of the obvious differences – there are certain significant similarities between the mystical state and the child’s perception of the world (“you have to become like children to enter the kingdom of God”). There are other important aspects of spiritual development for which regression to earlier stages of evolution is absolutely essential. The most important of these are the
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