Here he describes his personal journey from a deeply abused and tormented child to becoming a specialist in cases of spirit possession.

What is the origin of individual behavior and personality? Stanislav Grof proposes that individuals have systems of condensed experience (COEX systems) which become anchored to aspects of the birth trauma. Here, he describes four different basic stages of the birth process and shows how they relate to attitudes developed later in life.

Here he weaves a fascinating tapistry involving the ferment in the early twentieth century, including the emergence of depth psychology and a burgeoning esoteric culture including theosophy, anthroposophy, ritual magick, and – particularly – the Fourth Way movement of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Maurice Nicoll was in the center of this world.

Brian shares that the features of a spiritual emergency and psychospiritual emergence have much in common with what is known as psychosis and are frequently indistinguishable. Indigenous cultures view these experiences as normal and part of the mysteries of being human.

Chris shares his research into left and right-brain processing and the value of understanding these differences. He suggests we’ve gotten ourselves into a thinking problem and we’re under the illusion that we can think our way out using more thinking.

In this video from 2023, he continues his multi-decades exploration into the nature of the “Visitor” phenomena he has been confronting since 1985.