Stanislav Grof

“Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.”

“It is possible to see the intermediate state between lives as being in a way more important than incarnate existence.”

“It became much more complicated politically to work with psychedelics because of the unsupervised experimentation with psychedelics, particularly among young people.”

“Many cultures have independently developed a belief system in reincarnation that includes return of the unit of consciousness to another physical lifetime on Earth.”

“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.”

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

“I read Freud's Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis in basically one sitting. I decided to enroll in medical school. It was almost like a conversion experience.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“I have to say I regretted giving up animated movies.”

“Ancient eschatological texts are actually maps of the inner territories of the psyche that seem to transcend race and culture and originate in the collective unconscious.”

“Research challenges the materialistic understanding of death, according to which biological death represents the final end of existence and of all conscious activity.”

“When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced.”

“For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death - the only certainty that life holds for us - must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.”

“The materialistic paradigm of Western science has been a major obstacle for any objective evaluation of the data describing the events occurring at the time of death.”

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

“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.”

“I have taken part in ceremonies with North American and Mexican shamans, as well as Brazilian ceremonies.”

“The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death.”