One of the psychologists participating in our three year professional training had witnessed a wide variety of transpersonal experiences during the Holotropic Breathwork™ sessions of his colleagues, and he had a few of them himself. However, he continued to be very skeptical about the authenticity of these phenomena, constantly questioning whether or not they deserved any special attention. Then, in one of his holotropic sessions, he experienced an unusual synchronicity that convinced him that he might have been too conservative in his approach to human consciousness.
In one of his sessions he had a vivid experience of encountering his grandmother, who had been dead for many years. He had been very close to her in his childhood and he was deeply moved by the possibility that he might be really communicating with her again. In spite of a deep emotional involvement in the experience, this man continued to maintain a posture of professional skepticism about the encounter. He knew that during her lifetime he had many real interactions with her and theorized that from old memories he could easily have created a great variety of imaginary encounters.
However, this encounter with his dead grandmother was so emotionally profound and convincing that he simply could not dismiss it as a wishful fantasy. He decided to seek proof that the experience was real, not just his imagination. He asked his dead grandmother for some form of confirmation and received the following message: "Go to aunt Anna and look for cut roses." Still skeptical, he decided on the following weekend to visit his aunt Anna's home and see what would happen. Upon his arrival, he found his aunt in the garden, surrounded by cut roses. He was astonished. The day of his visit just happened to be the one day of the year that his aunt had decided to do some radical pruning of her roses.
Experiences of this kind, though certainly far from being definitive proof of the existence of astral realms and discarnate beings, clearly suggest that this fascinating area deserves the serious attention of consciousness researchers.
Energetic Phenomena of the Subtle Body
In non-ordinary states of consciousness it is possible to see and experience energy fields that have been described in the mystical traditions of the East but have not been objectively verified by Western science. I am speaking here of "auras," "subtle bodies," "acupuncture meridians," "nadis," "chakras," and the like. When considering these energy fields it is important to keep in mind that, even in the traditions from which these concepts evolved, it has always been thought that such experiences are associated with the subtle rather than gross physical worlds.
It came as a great surprise to me, many years ago, when Westerners who were totally unfamiliar with these systems, described experiencing such subtle energetic phenomena in great, accurate detail. Some saw energy fields represented by colors around other people, matching the descriptions of auras in ancient esoteric texts. Others experienced in their bodies a flow of energy along conduits that exactly corresponded with diagrams of nadis and chakras from ancient Indian Tantric scriptures or acupuncture meridians from ancient Chinese medical texts.
The ability to see auras, and even to diagnose people's general condition by them, has been practiced for thousands of years. And the work with subtle energies of the body is one of the ancient healing traditions. In this country, I have witnessed the work of Jack Schwarz who is able to use auras to "read" people's past medical histories and diagnose current diseases. His abilities have been tested and documented again and again by medical researchers, under quite rigorous conditions. Schwarz's credentials, overall, are impressive indeed.
Among the various systems employing subtle energies is the concept of Serpent Power, or
Kundalini.
According to the Hindu and Buddhist Tantric traditions, Kundalini is perceived as the creative energy of the universe. It is believed that this energy ordinarily lies in a dormant state at the base of the human spine. It can be activated by spiritual practices or contact with a guru, or it may ascend spontaneously, triggered by unknown factors. When it is awakened, it rises in the form of active energy, or
Shakti,
up through conduits in the person's subtle body (
nadis
); along the way, it opens up and activates the psychic centers (
chakras
) of the body, of which there are seven, located from the base of the spine to the crown of the head.
During a Kundalini experience, there are often powerful sensations of heat and energy that seem to stream up the spine. Along with this rising energy the person may experience intense emotions, tremors, spasms, violent shaking, complex twisting movements, and a wide spectrum of transpersonal phenomena.
My wife, Christina, had such an experience during her first marriage, with the birth of her son—an experience that would ultimately trigger her own quest into the meaning of the transpersonal realm. In preparation for natural childbirth, she had learned to use the Lamaze breathing to help the process. In the final stages of the delivery, she had the following experience. I felt an abrupt snap somewhere inside of me as powerful and unfamiliar energies were released unexpectedly and began streaming through my body. I started to shake uncontrollably. Enormous electrical tremors coursed from my toes up my legs and spine to the top of my head. Brilliant mosaics of white light exploded in my head, and instead of continuing the Lamaze panting, I felt strange, involuntary breathing rhythms taking over.
It was as though I had just been hit by some miraculous but frightening force, and I was both excited and terrified; the shaking, the visions, and the spontaneous breathing were certainly not what I had expected from all of my months of childbirth preparation.
During the birth of her second child, Sarah, she began to have similar sensations and experiences, but this time the doctors administered tranquilizers to suppress what she was feeling. Some years later, a friend invited her to meet Swami Muktananda. Although Christina had little interest in spiritual matters at that time of her life, she used the opportunity to take a weekend off from her responsibilities as a wife and mother.
During the retreat, she sat with others and learned to meditate. Swami Muktananda lectured them from time to time, and his appearance made an important impact on her. Then, on the second day of the retreat, she had an unexpected experience.
During a meditation period, he first looked at me and then, with some force, slapped me several times on the forehead with his hand. The impact of that seemingly simple event blew the lid off the experiences, emotions, and energies I had been holding down since Sarah's birth.
Suddenly I felt as though I had been plugged into a high-voltage socket as I started to shake uncontrollably. My breathing fell into an automatic, rapid rhythm that seemed beyond my control, and a multitude of visions flooded my consciousness. I wept as I felt myself being born; I experienced death; I plunged into pain and ecstasy, strength and gentleness, love and fear, depths and heights. I was on an experiential roller coaster, and I knew I could no longer contain it. The genie was out of the bottle.
During Kundalini experiences such as this, the person may begin laughing or crying involuntarily. They may start chanting songs or mantras, speaking in tongues, emitting animal sounds, and assuming spontaneous yogic
gestures and postures. To the uninitiated observer the person having such an experience may appear to have completely lost their senses. And for the person undergoing the experience without proper preparation, there may be fear that they are going crazy. However, when one approaches the Kundalini experience within the yogic traditions it is seen as an increased awareness of what we call the transpersonal realm, and a dramatic opening to spiritual life.
Contact with Animal Spirits
In earlier discussions of animal consciousness, we explored transpersonal experiences involving full identification with the physical forms of various species. However, it is also possible to experience spiritual aspects of a particular species or its archetypal essence.
Experiences of animal spirits or "power animals" play an important role in shamanism, the oldest religion and healing art of humanity. Shamans of various aboriginal traditions make contact with animal spirits during non-ordinary states of consciousness, achieved either spontaneously or through deliberate trance-inducing techniques. They use their connections with these animal spirits for many different purposes, from locating prey for tribal hunters to diagnosing and healing diseases.
Through his or her
guardian spirit
or power animal, a shaman might connect with the powers of the animal world and other forces of nature. Within shamanic traditions, animal spirit guides can represent the powers of the entire species, which the shaman draws upon for additional knowledge or energy for healing, hunting, or bringing about change that is required within his or her tribe. Techniques for contacting these spirits or powers vary from one culture to another. The Zuni peoples (the Ashiwi) of New Mexico, for example, use small stone carvings of animals, called "fetishes"; through these they call up the spirit of the animal, who either communicates with them directly or acts as a mediator between humans and higher spiritual forms of the natural world.
In shamanic cultures, power animals are seen as sources of personal vitality, health, and the ability to live a joyful existence in harmony with nature. Many of the dances, chants, prayers, and other aspects of ritual life in these cultures revolve around power animals—communicating with them, adopting aspects of their wisdom or power, and re-establishing links with them when the connection has been lost through negligence or lack of reverence, or by offending either the animal spirits or one of the greater spirits of the natural world.
During my research, I have been surprised to discover that experiences with animal spirits are by no means limited to people from aboriginal cultures. In work with non-ordinary states these same kinds of experiences are very common with people from even the most modern, technologically oriented urban societies. Communications with power animals occur regularly in holotropic and psychedelic sessions, shamanic workshops, and in spontaneous psychospiritual crises (spiritual emergencies). I have often witnessed situations in which the power animal experiences were so convincing that they triggered, in previously skeptical Westerners, a deep and genuine interest in shamanism. In a surprising number of cases, people have been so transformed that they eventually pursued further systematic study of shamanism with experienced shamans or anthropologists.
Experiences with animals take many different forms and it is important to distinguish between them. Sometimes the animal appears in a dream or vision and can simply be a symbolic expression of the language of the unconscious mind. The meaning of these images can usually be deciphered through dream analysis, such as Freudian psychotherapy or other approaches to dream interpretation. In dreams or visions, animals may represent a cryptic message revealing something about the experiencer's own feelings and personal qualities. Thus the image of a tiger or panther might be deciphered as an expression of intensely aggressive feelings in the dreamer, while a stallion, bull, or goat might symbolize that person's strong sexual drive.
Symbolic images of this kind need to be differentiated from transpersonal identification with various animals. With the latter, people report that the experience is unusually vivid and authentic, and there is no confusion about the animal having an identity that is quite independent of the person who envisions it. The independent identity of the animal is often confirmed by the fact that the experience reveals information about the animal that the experiencer could not have previously known.
The person who has a truly transpersonal experience with an animal presence usually resists any efforts to assign symbolic meanings to the experience; it is what it is—an experience of being or communicating with an animal—and there is nothing to interpret or analyze.
In addition to identifying with an individual animal, it is also possible to identify with the "soul" of an entire species, composed of the collective experiences of all members of this group. The existence of an entity such as the soul of a species has been seriously explored in Western science. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake believes that the memories and wisdom of various species
are stored in what he calls "morphogenetic fields," which are not accessible to the methods of contemporary science but apparently are accessible through shamanic techniques. Gregory Bateson also discussed this in his pursuit of the role of mind in nature.
The experience of animal spirits or power animals is very different from symbolic experiences of animals or transpersonal identification with individual animals and the species. Symbolic experiences are creations of the unconscious mind, and identification with individual animals, or the soul of various species, deals with phenomena that reflect the physical world. By contrast, power animals belong to the realm of archetypal reality. They have extraordinary characteristics that differentiate them from animals we might encounter in nature. They radiate unusual energy, have the ability to communicate in the language of humans, and may even manifest by alternating between taking animal and human form. Sometimes they function in uncharacteristic environments. For instance, a serpent might fly in the air, with or without the help of wings. These incongruous features show that the spirit animal transcends the usual roles of similar animals in nature.
The following is an excellent example of experiencing animal consciousness and communicating with animal spirits reported by consultant and writer Hal Zina Bennett, who first began working with Zuni fetishes nearly twenty years ago. In this Native American system, the shaman communicates with the animal spirit through a small stone figure of the animal in question.