by an inner experience of perceiving oneself as being in the center of all things and dealing directly with the dramatic universal experiences of life like the tension between good and evil, male and female, dark and light, life and death. Ordinary happenings take on mythic symbolic proportion. There is an emphasis on themes of death, afterlife and the return to the beginnings of creation. If this period of absorption in symbols and archetypal themes is validated as positive and respectable, the outcome can be a profound psychological renewal. If this episode is perceived as pathological and the individual is medicated, phenomena of spiritual emergence are pushed into the subconscious and become unavailable as powerful catalysts for psychological renewal.
The next three patterns demand a thorough evaluation of reincarnation and the law of karma. Karma, a concept from Far Eastern religious philosophies, refers to the law of cause and effect in personal life, e.g., if one is a victimizer at one time, one draws to oneself the effect of being victimized at another time. In the West we have an axiom which parallels the law of karma: "one reaps what one sows." The law of karma goes further by suggesting that when we have learned the lessons offered in duality we are no longer completely dominated by this duality. Eastern spiritual practices are devoted to mastering this transcendent stage of consciousness to benefit all of life.
4. Psychic Opening - This pattern is marked by a striking accumulation of instances of extrasensory perception - clairvoyance, clairsentience and clairaudience -or psychokinesis. It may include out of body experiences (OOBE). It may be stimulated by stress, spiritual focusing exercises, a powerful dream, an interaction with an extraterrestrial or a non-physical entity.
5. Emergence of a Karmic Pattern - If the psychic opening happens with a sense of sudden vivid recollection of a life or lifetimes before this life, it triggers a focus on karmic patterns. Frequently these openings deliver profound insight on current interpersonal problems. Perceiving karmic patterns gives an individual the opportunity to resolve dynamic inner conflicts and essentiallife lessons (Weiss, B. ,1988 & 1992).
6. Possession States - This pattern involves a person recognizing that either a disembodied soul that used to inhabit a body or a diabolical entity is having a manipulative or parasitic relationship with his or her vital energy and free will. This possessing entity may be a fragment of the self, a part of the shadow that has been rejected, a negative habit that has been passed down through the lineage of the family, or a victimizing outside force. Whether it is indigenous or foreign to the person, possession states make a demand that an individual review his or her ideas regarding the identity of the soul, free will, the power of the shadow and what happens to the soul after death. Some literature (Crabtree, 1985) suggests that Multiple Personality Disorder and addictive behavior (Lucas, 1993; Weiss, 1988) may be the result of possessing entities. Resolving issues of possession require someone skilled in exorcising these unusual phenomena. In addition to various paraprofessionals and shamans skilled in depossession there are some clinical psychologists who practice "spirit releasement" in the context of ongoing therapy. Apparently they can differentiate personal shadow material from entity possession and the exorcisms they initiate have been highly effective in stopping unwanted behavior, obsessions and fears. See References in Appendix D.
7. Encounters with Extra-terrestrials (ET' s) - After conducting a thorough screening of hundreds who claim to have had an encounter with ET's, John Mack, MD, psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that some people literally seem to have truly encountered extra-terrestrials. He believes their UFO abductions cannot be described by any of the psychiatric literature which means they are not an hallucination, a delusion or a projection (Harvard Magazine, March-April, 1992). These people are challenged to find a new conceptual framework to relieve the profound shock of their unexpected experiences. Often people feel they have been initiated into transpersonal states of consciousness through their abduction because the ET's seem to live at higher stages of consciousness than our own. Other dimensions and other space-time continua become real to abductees. The telepathic communication with ET's opened up channels within them that had been closed before. People who have an encounter with ET's in a vivid dream or spontaneous waking vision may also feel psychically opened by the experience and be compelled to re-examine their beliefs about extra-terrestrials and the other dimensions of reality these beings represent.
8. The Inter-life and other Mystical Experiences: As mentioned above, the mystical experience is defined by a state of complete peace and at-one-ness with all that is. Individuals reach this state through a variety of ways. It may happen by being in communion with nature, through a Near Death Experience, through a powerful experience of love, direct neurological stimulation, or as a result of spiritual practice. The profound peace it brings has a healing effect since it allows one to feel whole within oneself as well as connected in a meaningful way to the world around. This mystical state can be stimulated through regression therapies which gently take people into the state of "being in the light" between lives, the Inter-life (Lucas, 1993).
The phenomena associated with these forms of spiritual emergency can be bizarre and terrifying for someone who experiences them without understanding. In one case, a woman in childbirth was seized by a spontaneous kundalini experience that created strong, uncontrollable vibrations throughout her body. She was frightened for her and her child's life. Her nurses and doctors offered no explanation and only attempted to do what they could to make the vibrations stop through medication. No one had the knowledge to suggest that she may have been blessed with an experience of the Divine or had attained a level of selfrealization which was not only valid, but which gave her extraordinary resources as a human and as a mother. For 10 years after the experience she was afraid to talk or think about the experience until finally she read about kundalini and understood she had had a spiritual awakening during childbirth.
Sympathetic and knowledgeable support at the birth could have helped her enjoy the extraordinary joy that comes with the rise of kundalini.
Confusion with Pathology
Some of the phenomena of spiritual emergence have been misconstrued as indicators of pathology. For instance, some criteria for the diagnosis of psychosis (DSM-III,
1980) are observable in spiritual emergency:
1.A disorientation which makes a person less interested in work, in social contacts and in self-care.
2.A difficulty in communicating about one's experience to others (in spiritual emergency this is the result of the noetic quality of the experience, not symptomatic of confused thinking).
3.Dissociation (in spiritual emergency this dissociation is a transitory part of the process of integrating one's experience.)
These phenomena subside after a spiritual emergency whereas in a chronic psychosis they do not.
The DSM-1V (1994) categorizes possession states as an example of "Dissociative Disorders Not Otherwise Specified." Examples include "Dissociative trance disorder: single or episodic alterations in the state of consciousness that are indigenous to particular locations and cultures. Dissociative trance involves narrowing of awareness of immediate surroundings or stereotyped behaviors or movements that are experienced as being beyond one's control. Possession trance involves replacement of the customary sense of personal identity by a new identity, attributed to the influence of a spirit, power, deity, or other person, and associated with stereotyped "involuntary" movements or amnesia" (American Psychiatric Association, 1993).
This clearly raises a question about differentiating between Dissociative Disorders which are mental disorder and possession states which are indicative of spiritual problems. Perhaps the longevity of the dissociative state will determine if mental disorder is the appropriate diagnosis? Or, perhaps it is not the symptom itself which determines the diagnosis but the individual's attachment to the mechanism of dissociating. Refer to Chapter 3, Diagnosis,
