“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.”

“The experiences of BPM I typically have strong mystical overtones; they feel sacred or holy. More precise, perhaps, would be the term numinous, which C.G. Jung used to avoid religious jargon. When we have experiences of this kind, we feel that we have encountered dimnensions of reality that belong to a superior order.”

“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.”

“The transpersonal experiences revealing the Earth as an intelligent, conscious entity are corroborated by scientific evidence. Gregory Bateson, who created a brilliant synthesis of cybernetics, information and systems theory, the theory of evolution, anthropology, and psychology came to the conclusion that it was logically inevitable to assume that mental processes occurred at all levels in any system or natural phenomenon of sufficient complexity. He believed that mental processes are present in cells, organs, tissues, organisms, animal and human groups, eco-systems, and even the earth and universe as a whole.”

“There are indeed many interesting parallels between David Bohm's work in physics and Karl Pribram's work in neurophysiology. After decades of intensive research and experimentation, this world-renown neuroscientist has concluded that only the presence of holographic principles at work in the brain can explain the otherwise puzzling and paradoxical observations relating to brain function. Pribram's revolutionary model of the brain and Bohm's theory of holomovement have far-reaching implications for our understanding of human consciousness that we have only begun to translate to the personal level.”

“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.”