Stanislav Grof Quotes

Dying before dying has two important consequences: It liberates the individual from the fear of death and influences the actual experience of dying at the time of biological demise.

Traditional academic science describes human beings as highly developed animals and biological thinking machines. We appear to be Newtonian objects made of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organs.

The beliefs concerning reincarnation have great ethical impact on human life and our relationship to the world.

Consciousness after death demonstrates the possibility of consciousness operating independently of the body.

Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness.

Whether or not LSD research and therapy will return to society, the discoveries that psychedelics made possible have revolutionary implications for our understanding of the psyche, human nature, and the nature of reality.

The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death.

I have taken part in ceremonies with North American and Mexican shamans, as well as Brazilian ceremonies.

For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death - the only certainty that life holds for us - must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.

This is an extraordinary book of unique psychological power. It reveals not only scholarship and sophistication of the author, but deep and intimate knowledge of the recesses of the human psyche. By masterful juxtaposition of evocative images, poetry, and selected quotes from scholars, Flesh and Blood seems to engage both the right and left hemispheres in an unprecedented dialogue. The result is a multi-dimensional, almost holographic picture of the primordial foundations of the human mind.

There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.

It is possible to transcend the usual limitations of the body, ego, space, and linear time.

I spent much of my later childhood and adolescence very, very involved and interested in art, and particularly in animated movies.

According to materialistic science, any memory requires a material substrate, such as the neuronal network in the brain or the DNA molecules of the genes.

As long as I had easy access to psychedelics at the government-sponsored research project, most of my energy went into psychedelic sessions.

When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced.

The knowledge of the realm of death makes it possible for the shaman to move freely back and forth and mediate these journeys for other people.

Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to conduct our life in such a way that it reflects deep philosophical and metaphysical understanding of reality and of ourselves discovered through personal experience during systematic spiritual pursuit.

If consciousness can function independently of the body during one's lifetime, it could be able to do the same after death.

In some instances, the accuracy of past-life memories can be objectively verified, sometimes with remarkable detail.