“According to Freudian psychology, the ego is that part of us that allows us to correctly perceive external reality and function well in everyday life. People who have this concept of the ego frequently look upon the ego death as a frightening and tremendously negative event--as the loss of ability to operate in the world. However, what really dies in this process is that part of us that holds a basically paranoid view of ourselves and of the world around. Alan Watts called this aspect, which involves a sense of absolute separateness from everything else, "skin-encapsulated ego." It is made up of the internal perceptions of our lives that we learned during the struggle in the birth canal and during various painful encounters after birth.”

“While the demonic quality gradually disappeared from his experience, he still felt tremendously erotic and was engaged in endless sequences of the most fantastic orgies and sexual fantasies, in which he played all roles. All through these experiences, he continued being simultaneously the child struggling through the birth canal and the mother delivering it. It became very clear to him that sex and birth were deeply connected and also that satanic forces had important links with the situation in the birth canal.”

“The renaissance of interest in Eastern spiritual philosophies, various mystical traditions, meditation, ancient and aboriginal wisdom, as well as the widespread psychedelic experimentation during the stormy 1960s, made it absolutely clear that a comprehensive and cross-culturally valid psychology had to include observations from such areas as mystical states; cosmic consciousness; psychedelic experiences; trance phenomena; creativity; and religious, artistic, and scientific inspiration.”

“Perinatal phenomena occur in four distinct experiential patterns, which I call the Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPMs). Each of the four matrices is closely related to one of the four consecutive periods of biological delivery. At each of these stages, the baby undergoes experiences that are characterized by specific emotions and physical feelings; each of these stages also seems to be associated with specific symbolic images. These come to represent highly individualized pyschospiritual blueprints that guide the way we experience our lives. They may be reflected in individual and social psychopathology or in religion, art, philosophy, politics, and other areas of life. And, or course, we can gain access to these psychospiritual blueprints through non-ordinary states of consciousness, which allow us to see the guiding forces of our lives much more clearly.”

“Uncomplicated birth seems to be the blueprint for coping with all later difficult situations in life. Various complications, such as prolonged and debilitating delivery, the use of forceps, or heavy anesthesia appear to be correlated to specific problems in dealing with future projects of all kinds. The same is true for induced birth, premature delivery, and Caesarean section.”

“Love is the movement within life that carries us, that enables us, that causes us to break out of what Alan Watts calls the “skin-encapsulated ego.” Without love, we are self-centered, but love enables us to move the center of our lives outside our ego. Therefore it expands our lives and, needless to say, enriches it. Any human being would give anything to love or be loved. When it really happens, it is like heaven on earth.”

“This sense of perfection has a built-in contradiction, one that Ram Dass once captured very succinctly by a statement he had heard from his Himalayan guru: "The world is absolutely perfect, including your own dissatisfaction with it, and everything you are trying to do to change it.”