Quotes from Stanislav Grof

The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped.

Freud said that we are born as a tabula rasa. This is a model that simply is too superficial and inadequate.

I have to say I regretted giving up animated movies.

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

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

Walt Disney was my great hero.

In the kind of world we have today, transformation of humanity might well be our only real hope for survival.

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

There is an urgent need for a radical revision of our current concepts of the nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter and the brain.

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.

Individuals approaching death often experience encounters with their dead relatives, who seem to welcome them to the next world. These deathbed visions are authentic and convincing; they are often followed by a state of euphoria and seem to ease the transition.

A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm.

The psyche of the individual is commensurate with the totality of creative energy. This requires a most radical revision of Western psychology.

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.

Unlike scientism, science in the true sense of the word is open to unbiased investigation of any existing phenomena.

Many instances exist of small children who seem to remember and describe their previous life in another body, another place, and with other people. These memories emerge usually shortly after these children begin to talk.

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

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

The new formula in physics describes humans as paradoxical beings who have two complementary aspects: They can show properties of Newtonian objects and also infinite fields of consciousness.

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

The human psyche shows that each individual is an extension of all of existence.

Ritual use of psychedelic plants and substances has been a particularly effective technology for inducing holotropic states of consciousness.

Each of us can manifest the properties of a field of consciousness that transcends space, time, and linear causality.

A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.