The Emerging Perinatal Unconscious:
Consciousness Evolution or Apocalypse?
Mickel Adzema*
Something’s Happening
"Something’s happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear."
So goes a hugely popular song from the Sixties. Meanwhile Jim Morrison
of the rock group The Doors sang "Break on through to the other side."
A decade later John Lennon sang "Strange days, indeed . . . most peculiar,
mama!" That was in the late Seventies; not long afterwards he was
murdered. Most recently of all, the group R.E.M. enjoyed enormous
success singing "It’s the end of the world, as we know it"; and then, parenthetically
singing, "and I feel fine."
My point is that there is something happening here . . . something
unprecedented in the entire history of this planet, as far as we are able
to know. There are powerful factors and influences at work in our
world now that have the capacity to change us and our world in radical
ways . . . for good or ill. My point also is that this unprecedented
situation, like the "break on through to the other side" lyric indicates,
has something to do with birth feelings, birth trauma . . . an emerging
perinatal unconscious.
What I have in mind in this article is to attempt to reawaken you
to the unique character of our times. Then I expect to persuade you
that this unprecedented time is rife with perinatal symbolism, elements,
evidence, behavior, rituals, and situations—in other words, that the events
of these "strange days" are being sculpted by an emerging perinatal unconscious.
Finally, I intend to say a few words about what might be the outcome of
these emerging perinatal trends—consciousness evolution or apocalypse.
The Perinatal Unconscious
How are we to characterize these strangest of days and the current unprecedented
global condition? As I have said, they are driven by what I call
an "emerging perinatal unconscious."
Why "perinatal"? First, let us remind ourselves that perinatal
means, literally, "surrounding birth." As a one-time college instructor
of pre- and perinatal psychology and as an editor of a professional journal
concerned with perinatal psychology1—as well as a fledgling psychohistorian,
let me explain what might be considered elements of a perinatal unconscious.
The elements I will describe are near universally accepted among perinatal
psychologists as unconscious forces, factors, matrices that exist in us
all as a result of a human birth that is unique, by comparison to all other
species, in its degree of trauma and hence of its impact or imprint on
what we might call—dare I say the word—our "human nature."
Let us look at some of the elements, in general, that characterize
this perinatal unconscious. Stanislav Grof2 describes
basic
perinatal matrices (BPMs)—in other words, typical experiential
constellations related to our births, which happen to be very much akin
to deMause’s perinatal schema, with some slight differences in emphasis,
and more elaboration on the part of Grof. So let us use Grof’s schema
as a basis.
Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrix I, or BPM I, involves
the experiences and feelings related to the sometimes, or at least relatively,
undisturbed prenatal period—that time in the womb sometimes characterized
by feelings of peace, complete relaxation, a feeling of all needs met,
or "oceanic bliss." Since the time in the womb may also be disturbed
by toxic substances that the mother ingests—drugs, chemical additives,
and so on—as well as by disturbing emotions that the mother experiences,
which release stress hormones into the mother’s bloodstream, which then
cross the placental barrier and affect the fetus, BPM I is also sometimes
characterized as feelings of being surrounded by a polluted environment
and being forced to ingest noxious substances, toxins, and poisons, which
sickens the fetus.
In Grof’s schema, BPM I is followed by BPM II, which are experiences
and feelings related to the time of "no exit" and claustrophobic-like feelings
occurring to nearly all humans in the late stages of pregnancy and especially
with the onset of labor, when the cervix is not yet dilated.
Since there does not seem to be any "light at the end of the tunnel"—metaphorically
speaking—it is characterized by feelings of depression, guilt, despair,
and blame, and a characterization of oneself as being in the position of
"the victim." It is very much like deMause’s period of collective
feelings of entrapment, strangulation, suffocation, and poisonous placenta,
which he has found to precede the actual outbreak of war or other violence.3
This of course is followed by BPM III, which involves feelings
and experiences of all-encompassing struggle and is related to the time
of one’s actual birth. Characterized also by intense feelings of
aggression and sexual excess—in the position, now, of "the aggressor"—it
is related directly, in deMause’s schema, to the time of the actual period
of warring.
BPM IV follows this; it corresponds to the time of emergence
from the womb during the birth process and is characterized by feelings
of victory, release, exultation, but also sometimes, after that initial
relief, of depression—when the struggle does not bring the expected rewards,
as when, during modern obstetrical births, the neonate is harshly treated
and then taken away from the mother, disallowing the bonding which should
occur, naturally, immediately after birth.
In summary, we have euphoric, oceanic, blissful feelings, sometimes
feelings of being poisoned or being in a toxic or polluted environment;
followed by crushing, no-exit, depression, claustrophobia, compression,
strangulation, suffocation, and being force-fed by a poisonous placenta;
followed by struggle, violence, war scenarios, birth/death fantasies, sexual
excess; and finally release, triumph, feeling of renewal or rebirth and
a new golden age, but also possibly of being abandoned, tortured, ritually
sacrificed, probed medically, and assaulted by sensations. These
are some of the elements that characterize the experience of the perinatal
unconscious.
Strange Days
With these in mind, now, let us look at some of the forces and elements,
unprecedented and otherwise, that characterize our times. In these
strange days, movies, TV shows, and books are rife with perinatal themes:
From the famous ending image of the movie "2001," where the fetus is pictured
against the blackness of space as a newborn star . . . to some of the most
popular and lucrative movies of our time—"Jaws," for example, with its
huge vagina dentate shark mouth lurking in the depths of the unconscious,
signifying the trauma we have around the mother’s vagina, ringed with teeth,
symbolizing both the pain and death quality of birth as well as pubic hair.
Other perinatal elements manifesting in the contemporary media include:
·
Satanic cult abuse: Which graphically depict BPM III perinatal elements,
as described by Grof, also contain BPM II ("no exit") birth elements: children
being buried, trapped in tight places, and so on. ·
The plethora of plots depicting serial rapists and killers. Indicating
BPM III elements. ·
Simply the amount of violence on television and in movies, which stimulate
perinatal feelings in repeated portrayals of
1. Being in life and death situations from which
one is saved in "the nick of time";
2. Explosions galore—symbolizing the quality of finally
being born, but also the immediate assault of sensation upon coming out
of the sensorally "muffled" womb;
3. High degree of sexual explicitness and, especially,
sexual perversity—indicating BPM III influence;
4. Recurring themes of monsters that eat one (e.g., the
"Alien" movie series), indicating the feelings of fear of death in the
mother’s womb—the vagina dentate mouth. One most obvious portrayal
of this was Steven King’s 1995 miniseries, "The Longoliers." The
monsters, shown at the end, turned out to be flying ball-shaped vagina
dentates, complete with hair covering, as in pubic hair.4 Though
meant to be frightening, from the perinatal perspective, these flying,
attacking vaginas are absolutely hilarious. The perinatal roots of
these movies are indicated in other ways, e.g., the baby alien, in "Alien,"
being "born" out of the abdomen.5
5. The frequency of scenes of death by suffocation, in
water or otherwise. Very interestingly, a more recent addition to
this complex has something being forced aggressively down the throat of
the victim. I have noticed an increasing frequency of this version
of suffocation in the visual media ever since I first remember seeing it
in a scene from "Alien" where a rolled-up magazine is used as a murder
weapon by being forced into the victim’s mouth. It seems to be becoming
a writer/director’s fad, as increasingly creative ways are being imagined
to play it out in scripts. Another common variation is when the suffocating
item comes out of the person’s mouth, e.g., the victim is "infected"
with some kind of alien spore which grows inside of him or her and comes
thrusting up from inside of the person’s body and out of the mouth, lodging
itself there; frequently looking like some huge asparagus emerging.
This always happens suddenly and climatically, almost always resulting
in death. Scenes like this I have observed in the movie "Jacob’s
Ladder," several times on the hit show The X Files, and in many,
many other shows. This version of suffocation probably has its roots
in the force-feeding of toxic elements to the fetus in the womb through
the umbilical cord, and is more definitely related (the symbol is probably
an amalgamation of both feelings) to the ungentle clearing of the fluids
from the neonate’s mouth by the attendants immediately after birth.
This latter connection I can personally validate through my own primal
experiences, but apparently I was not alone in being treated this way as
a newborn in the 1940s and 1950s in America . . . hence the fascination
with this type of trauma in film.
The point of bringing out the occurrence of these media images is that
the projective systems of our culture—our art—are reflecting our collective
changes in consciousness: Specifically, the evolution of our consciousness
as it is confronted by this unconscious pre- and perinatal material . .
. or, as some psychohistorians would have it, the "collapsing" of our "ego
strength" as we are "threatened" by these "dangerous" perinatal elements.
The Scenery of Our Everyday Reality
Beyond the entertainment media, it seems perinatal themes and elements
are showing up everywhere else in modern culture and circumstances.
Serial rapists and murderers as well as satanic cult abuse and the fascination
with death and vampirism (sucking blood themes, akin to fetal malnutrition
and the poisonous placenta) are more than just media images. Unfortunately
they reflect actual contemporary happenings. The scenery of our everyday
reality affecting the masses of us consists of pollution of our air, water,
and food; threat of death "at any moment," caused by the knowledge of the
power of nuclear weapons; fantasies of apocalypse of all kinds, magnified,
perhaps, by the ending of a millennium—including fundamentalist Christian
imaginings of an end to human civilization in an apocalyptic "rapture";
New Age fantasies of ecological, spiritual, and social utopias; and so
on.
Alien abduction stories, while a relatively recent addition to our
cultural landscape, are unusual in the rapidity with which they have gained
cultural currency and are telling in the extreme fascination the public
has with them. They have catapulted more than one show—The X Files
being the prime example, of course—to cult-like status. Yet Alvin Lawson
has pointed out how alien abduction stories are replete with perinatal
elements: passing through walls, umbilical beams of connection to the "mother
ship" (i.e., the placenta), either fetal-looking aliens or aliens whose
eyes are most prominent and the lower parts of their faces undistinguished—similar
to the way a newborn might see an obstetrician wearing a medical mask;
and then of course there are the elements of being medically probed, measured,
samples taken from one, and being swooshed from one place to another with
no say on one’s part—all remarkably like the experience of a newborn, right
out of the womb.6
Lawson has also described perinatal elements in rock concerts.7
Keep in mind that rock music popularity and concert rituals are world-wide
phenomena; youth from nearly all countries are involved in rock culture.
Among other things, Lawson, in his article, refers to placental guitars,
umbilical mikes, and youths jumping into mosh pits—this last of which,
of course, simulates the crushing in the womb. We could also mention
the loud music, fireworks, and flashing and bright explosions of light
at these concerts as perinatal in that they re-create the assault of sensation
that occurs to the newly emerged fetus—an assault which in one’s mind is
like unto a bomb exploding.
The rock groups and their lyrics themselves are often blatantly
perinatal.
The most obvious example of this was the group Nirvana, who came
out with a CD titled "In Utero." The fact that the leader of the
group, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide is a strong indication of his closeness
and access to his perinatal trauma . . . as I will soon explain.
Turning from rock, we see perinatal BPM III elements in the scenery
of our everyday lives evident in the rising incidence of violence by children
at ever younger ages.
In Europe, as pointed out by Mayr and Boederl, it appears a collective
regression to the perinatal is going on, especially among the youth.8
The forms this "regression" has taken include the surprising popularity
of a pop song, sung by a very young child, expressing the difficulties
of being a baby; the wearing of baby pacifiers as ornaments as a powerful
fashion fad; and being enamored of troll-like dolls, which, according to
the authors indicate a "regression to the womb." (I would say a progression
to
the womb, by the way . . . I will soon explain why.)
Additionally, we see the crushing, no-exit, claustrophobic BPM II
elements manifesting in the crushing population densities in major human
cities throughout the world.
One overlooked, but hugely pervasive perinatal element is the increasing
carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere called "the greenhouse effect,"
which, combined with decreased oxygen levels, is analogous to the situation
of "fetal malnutrition," described by Briend9 and deMause, that occurs
prior to birth, and which, as we know, is the basis for deMause’s explanation
of poisonous placenta symbolism.
At any rate, by this atmospheric rearrangement I mean that, while
we reputedly have, and need, an oxygen concentration of twenty percent
in our atmosphere, concentrations of oxygen these days, especially in heavily
industrial areas, have been measured at much lower levels. For example,
an industrial section of Gary, Indiana, was recorded at five percent oxygen
concentration.10
Perinatal and Global Situation Mirroring Each
Other
Now, the connections between these physical conditions and symbols and
the perinatal unconscious should be obvious and may have already to some
extent been spelled out. But let me finish connecting the dots, so
to speak:
As Grof put it,
[W]e have exteriorized in the modern world many of the essential
themes of the perinatal process that a person involved in deep personal
transformation has to face and come to terms with internally. The
same elements that we would encounter in the process of psychological death
and rebirth in our visionary experiences make today our evening news.
This is particularly true in regard to the phenomena that characterize
what I call BPM III.
We certainly see the enormous unleashing of the aggressive impulse
in the many wars and revolutionary upheavals in the world, in the rising
criminality, terrorism, and racial riots. Sexual experiences and
behaviors are taking unprecedented forms, as manifested in sexual freedom
of youngsters, promiscuity, open marriages, overtly sexual books, plays,
and movies, gay liberation, sadomasochistic experimentation, and many others.
The demonic element is also becoming increasingly manifest in the modern
world. A renaissance of satanic cults and witchcraft, the popularity
of books and horror movies with occult themes, and crimes with satanic
motivations attest to that fact. The scatological dimension is evident
in the progressive industrial pollution, accumulation of waste products
on a global scale, and rapidly deteriorating hygienic conditions in large
cities.11
Grof is saying, then, that we have manifested an external modern world
that mirrors and re-creates some of the hellacious circumstances surrounding
our traumatic human births.
In addition to the myriad of ways that Grof has detailed (and there
are many more he could have mentioned), I would like to add a few obvious
commonplace examples. We re-create on a daily basis in major cities
the no-exit frustration/depression/rage prior to birth in the traffic jams
and gridlock of commuter traffic. Another one: the population explosion.
Simple overpopulation of the globe sets up scenarios exactly analogous
to the negative conditions that existed toward the end of pregnancy when
we grew/expanded too much to be any longer comfortable in the womb.
The way this global overpopulation impacts us: the overpopulation and frenzy
in a big city—New York the perfect example—manifesting the situation of
a crushing womb.
I’ve already mentioned reduced oxygen in the atmosphere and its relation
to fetal "malnutrition." However, there is an interesting sidelight
to this. For both Arthur Janov and Stanislav Grof, at one time early
on, experimented with a technique of carbon dioxide ingestion for getting
people into primal and perinatal states. In fact, at the time—in
the late Sixties, early Seventies—though not on a large scale, a number
of professionals were experimenting with this procedure and even offering
it as a means of "expanding consciousness." The point is that increased
carbon dioxide and decreased oxygen naturally stimulate perinatal feelings.
Lucky us, as we continue to turn the entire atmosphere of the Earth into
such a "therapeutic" carbon-dioxide chamber.
After all this, if you still don’t believe that a perinatal unconscious
is emerging at this time in history, I ask you how else to explain how
the simple act of being "cut off" in traffic can trigger so much perinatal
"no exit" frustration as to enrage an "otherwise normal" person to pull
out a gun and blow another’s life away.
The upshot of it all is that somehow or other we have managed to
create a world situation that mirrors in a way unlike any other time in
history our perinatal imprints and thus triggers the emergence of this
perinatal unconscious. Or, you might reverse that and say that an
emerging perinatal unconscious—brought about by other factors, improved
"child-caring" methods perhaps . . . more about that later—has resulted
in our creating a world situation manifesting or acting out those unconscious
perinatal elements, which are having increasing influence on our consciousness
and on our behavior. I suspect both of these processes are occurring—each
one augmenting the other.
What Does This Portend?
The question remaining is, What does this all mean? What does this portend?
What might be the outcome of this emerging perinatal unconscious?
In other words, consciousness evolution or apocalypse?
What we have learned from the experiential modalities—Holotropic
Breathwork™, primal therapy, and others like them—is that unerringly people
need to get "sicker" before they can get well. This should not be
news to psychoanalysts either. Basically, the underlying repressed
material must come to the "surface," must become more conscious . . . and
obviously when it becomes more conscious its accompanying symptoms are
exacerbated. This can be called a "healing crisis" in that the symptoms
get worse, more obvious, more blatant, and there is a period of acting
them out before integration and resolution happens. When Grof talks
about birth/death scenarios in the perinatal unconscious, he is including
these sorts of healings, where one must "die" to one’s sickness before
one can be "reborn" into another way of being, without those sick patterns
or symptoms.
Now, many have proclaimed, in these strange days, that it is our
Western estrangement from Mother Nature, our particular and peculiar need
to control, which is at the core of the threats to the end of life
on this planet. In such a case, one needs to regain harmony with
Nature and acquire a consciousness of cooperation, not control.
As Grof has claimed—and my personal experience attests—such a cooperative
human nature is indeed our most fundamental human nature—in contrast to
the "me versus them," aggressive, and competitive imprint that is derived
from our traumatic and premature human births—this more fundamental human
nature is the result of a more fundamental imprint of symbiosis with the
Other, as was the case in the womb surround during the relatively blissful
prenatal period. The relation of the fetus to the mother at that
time is one of cooperation, all needs met, flow-in <---> flow-out, and
synergy of intents and is manifested in adults in that same kind of reciprocal
relationship with Society and Nature (which represents "the Other" for
an adult).
And as Grof and I and many others have discovered, such a more positive
human nature occurs naturally in a person when they have faced, reexperienced,
and integrated their perinatal unconscious (as opposed to what is usually
done, i.e., completely denying it, projecting it on a scapegoat or enemy
and engaging in wars and social violence). So it is the recovery
of this sort of human nature that would remove us from the brink of extinction.
When you think of it, when you consider that all of Nature is threatened
by the actions of our species, and that that Nature would want to avoid
this by balancing the elements that are currently skewed, it may be just
the kind of global situation we see now around us that Nature would need
to create in order to save "herself." Or, to put it another way,
if we were to concoct a world situation in which we could take a step in
consciousness evolution by healing the nefarious elements of our perinatal
unconscious, would not that world situation look something like what we
see around us today? Would it not be a world rife with obvious perinatal
elements (and influences) with some people resolving and thus being healed
of them; while others would act them out and self-destruct because of them
(not to mention contributing to our collective global self-destruction,
as mentioned earlier). In other words, the situation today, as it
looks, could as easily be seen as a prologue to an apocalypse and just
as easily be seen as a healing crisis preceding a massive consciousness
transformation. Put another way, this same situation can be seen
by one person as the "eve of destruction" and another as the "scenery of
healing on the pathway to peace."
Conclusion: A Race Against Time
So what will be the result? Only time will tell of course.
But just as Lloyd deMause12—in his article, "Restaging
Early Traumas in War and Social Violence"—calls for kinder and gentler
birthing and child-caring practices to help us mitigate an otherwise inevitable
disaster, I would like to call for a larger awareness of and efforts in
the direction of healing these perinatal elements in the consciousness
and unconscious of those already alive right now—through, at this point,
thoroughly tested and effective techniques of experiential regression and
emotional release. For unless we act to heal the people currently
inhabiting this planet, we might not leave a planet that babies can be
born into! . . let alone people to conceive and give birth to them.
Contrary to what many believe, the evidence from the experiential
modalities involving the perinatal, and my own experience, concludes that
the dangers of not accessing the perinatal unconscious are much
greater than the ones of attempting to access them. For the perinatal
unconscious influences us one way or the other. If we deny it, we
can be deluded into acting it out, completely unconsciously, without an
insight or a clue, in a "fetal trance state," in the form of war, social
violence, spouse abuse, sexual promiscuity resulting in the contraction
of AIDS, and a myriad of other destructive and self-destructive ways.
Whereas if we turn to face this supposed "monster," with only a tad of
insight into these forces that direct our life, we are at least able to
avoid the most horrific of the destructive acts that keeping it unconscious
can cause us to participate in. And then, on the more positive side,
fully working through these seemingly hellish inner traumas can result
in a transformation of the person and a lightness, peace, beauty, and fulfillment
of life unlike anything that can be imagined beforehand.
Of course, I do not expect that this sort of application of experiential
techniques can occur on the massive scale that would seem to be necessary
to avoid apocalypse in the short period of time that we have left.
Yet it might be that we would be lucky enough for that not to be necessary.
It is possible that simply a significant fraction of the world’s
population—like the "leaven in the dough"—can make all the difference in
the world, literally, by tipping our course one way as opposed to another,
especially if these people—because of their healing and their awareness
of the crisis—are motivated to place themselves in positions of influence
and education, or to put their efforts toward healing, on individual and
collective levels, in larger numbers than the average populace would.
In other words, not just the leaven in the dough but as persons, standing
in the right place and with the lever big enough, who can move the world.
Truth has its own momentum, as one of our participants stated during
one of our recent workshops. My wife and I conduct regular workshops
in what we call primal breathwork, which is based on the Holotropic
Breathwork™ of Stanislav Grof. In these workshops, which involve
access to all aspects of the unconscious, including the spiritual/transpersonal,
the biographical/psychodynamic, and the sensory, as well as the
perinatal, it is not unusual for us to witness people being motivated,
because of their profound transformative experiences, to commit themselves
with all their being, talents, and resources, to aid in the processes of
renewal on this planet.
At any rate, we must try. As Stanislav Grof put it in his conclusion
to a recent article on this global crisis: For our very survival,
We seem to be involved in a race for time that has no precedent
in the entire history of humanity. What is at stake is nothing less
than the future of life on this planet. If we continue the old strategies,
which in their consequences are extremely destructive and self-destructive,
it is unlikely that the human species will survive. However if a
sufficient number of people undergoes a process of deep inner transformation;
we might reach a level of consciousness evolution that will bring us to
the point of deserving the name given to our species, Home sapiens,
i.e., wise humans.13
* This
article was originally published in The Journal of Psychohistory, V.
25, No. 3, Winter 1998, 262-273.
Notes
1. Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology,
formerly published by the International Primal Association, currently published
by SSILLY God Press, P.O. Box 1348, Guerneville, CA 95446-1348.
2. Stanislav Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations
from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press, 1975; LSD Psychotherapy.
Pomona, CA: Hunter House, 1980; Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and
Transcendence in Psychotherapy. Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 1985; The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness
and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 1988; The Holotropic Mind: The
Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.
3. Lloyd deMause, "Restaging Early Traumas in War and Social
Violence." The Journal of Psychohistory 23 (1995): 344-391. (Reprinted,
with permission, on this website as "Restaging
Prenatal and Birth Traumas in War and Social Violence").
4. Interestingly, the appearance of the Longoliers is caused
by the characters going back in time. Though King has them going
back only fifteen minutes, and not age regressing to birth, I thought the
fact of time regression was telling in the extreme.
5. While a "baby" emerging from a person’s belly is obviously
indicative of birth, the fact that it comes bursting out of the belly,
rather than the vagina, might also relate to the ever increasing use of
cesarean section as a means of birthing in this century.
6. Alvin H. Lawson, "UFO abductions or birth memories?" Fate,
38(3)
March 1985, pp. 68-80; and Alvin H. Lawson, "Perinatal imagery in UFO abduction
reports." In T. Verny (ed.): Pre- and Perinatal Psychology: An Introduction.
Human Sciences Press, New York, 1987.
7. Alvin H. Lawson, "Placental Guitars, Umbilical Mikes, and
the Maternal Rock-Beat: Birth Fantasies and Rock Music Videos." The
Journal of Psychohistory 21 (1994): 335-353.
8. Daniela F. Mayr & Artur R. Boelderl, "The Pacifier Craze:
Collective Regression in Europe." The Journal of Psychohistory 21
(1993): 143-156.
9. A. Briend, "Fetal Malnutrition: The Price of Upright Posture?"
British Medical Journal 2 (1979): 317-319.
10. As reported in the book, O2xygen Therapies by
Ed McCabe. 99-RD1 Morrisville, NY 13408: Energy Publications, 1988.
Other examples of lowered oxygen levels in various arenas of our lives
are given in the book as well, and the book is thoroughly documented.
It makes a convincing case for the lowered oxygen levels as they relate
to the rise of a number of diseases. The connection of these lowered
levels to mental states is my own addition.
11. Stanislav Grof, "Planetary
Survival and Consciousness Evolution: Psychological Roots of Human Violence
and Greed." Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology
2(1): 3-26, p. 23. (Article reprinted, with permission, on this website)
12. deMause, op. cit., 1996.
13. Grof, op. cit., 1996, p. 25.
Bio
Michael Derzak Adzema is a free-lance scholar, who has written for
a variety of international and regional magazines and journals. He
is also a transformational facilitator, offering individual primal process
facilitation; and with his wife, Mary Lynn, he conducts regular workshops
in primal breathwork (based on the Holotropic Breathwork™ of Stanislav
Grof). He specializes in writing about psychology and spirituality;
but has written extensively on their interrelation with topics such as
the environment, consciousness, health and nutrition, and metaphysics,
as well as psychohistory. He is the founder of SSILLY God Ventures
and AHPPI (Alliance for Holotropic, Primal, Pre/Perinatal, and Psychohistorical
Insight and Information). He is the publisher and editor of AHPPI’s
magazine, Primal Spirit: The Deeper Wave of the New Age, and is
webmaster of its site (this site) on the Internet (www.primalspirit.com).
He also serves as the editor of Primal Renaissance: The Journal of
Primal Psychology. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 1348, Guerneville,
CA 95446-1348; phone (570) 262-1166.
Related Article: Go to "Planetary
Survival and Consciousness Evolution: Psychological Roots of Human
Violence
and Greed" by Stanislav Grof, M.D.
Related Article: Go to "Restaging
Prenatal and Birth Traumas in War and Social Violence"
by Lloyd deMause.
Related Article: Go to "The
Scenery of Healing: Commentary on deMause's 'Restaging Prenatal and
Birth
Traumas in War and Social Violence'" by Michael
D. Adzema.
Related Book: Go to Apocalypse,
Or New Age? The Emerging Perinatal Unconscious
by Michael D. Adzema.
Comments? E-mail me by clicking on: mickel@primalspirit.com
Mickel Adzema