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Preface

Nepal 1968. Hippy era. A horse caravan negotiates its way over winding, narrow, moonlit mountain pathways towards the Tibetan border; the destination is Lo Mustang, a tiny, independent kingdom within the nation of Nepal. A friend, who is a lama, and myself, aged eighteen, long hair, beads around our necks, in Indian clothes and full of naive dreams, are part of a group of kampas: Tibetan guerrillas, who organize their resistance against the Chinese occupation from Nepalese territory.

After a march lasting several weeks, we arrive in Lo Mustang. This tiny kingdom of Lo Mustang is completely unknown in the West at this time; never had a Western person set foot there until that day. I am stared at and touched with a great sense of curiosity. Cymbal and drum sounds emanate from inside a house and when I inquire about their origin, I am guided to a dark cellar, to meet a man who has lived here for a long time, in complete darkness. His aspiration is the dissolution of the limiting I-consciousness.

This was to be my first encounter with Yangtik, or Dark Therapy, as I refer to it today. I learned that Yangtik was the final phase to conclude the monks’ training in some Buddhist training centers. Since my stay in this region is both dangerous and illegal, I look for accommodation with a local farmer, ensure that my environment is completely darkened and begin my first dark therapy experience: seven weeks in complete solitude with yoga, meditation, and a daily debrief with a lama.

Nothing dramatic happens in the first few days. I sleep or doze alternately; thoughts race through my head. I live through entrenched thought patterns. At other times, I am ‘gone’ for a time; feeling protected one moment, then suddenly very alone. The next moment I am bored, dreamlike thoughts floating by. I perceive symbolic, threedimensional, hyper-real images or film-like projections on the walls. I experience deep states of self-knowing and, in the background, there is a simultaneous, imperceptible process of an inner emptying underway. I am becoming more purified; only beingness, eternal Now; beingness focused on a single point, a kind of energy pulsating, feeling alternately hot and cold.

The central process in the dark is characterized by an increase in clarity of consciousness. In general, my consciousness tends to be obscured and burdened with mental activities. During this emptying, there is a simultaneous sharpening in experiencing the soul’s processes taking place. In Tibet, it is said that the clarity of consciousness is enhanced seven-fold in the dark.

Darkness for me causes emptiness: that is, the absence of thoughts and feelings. In the more advanced stages, this expresses itself as the experience of en-light-enment: hence, light and emptiness are essentially two words for the same thing.

In this state, I experience the world as true, beautiful, and good. My body goes to sleep but my spirit stays awake. As a result, clarity develops, in both the waking and the dreaming state. The clarity from the waking state carries over into the dreaming state; the dream becomes something like a daydream. I experience my dreams with greater clarity.

Soon, beings that originate in my imagination begin to appear and can initially only be seen with closed eyes, but increasingly, they can also be clearly seen with open eyes.

They flap like clothes and shape-shift quickly into other types of beings and scenes. Soon, stabilization in the flow of images ensues and I am able to hold on to an internal image for a longer time.

Repeatedly, I experience flashes of beingness; recognize the meaning and essence of all beingness. I learn that a being is only able to live if it manages to capture an unconscious snapshot of the pure state of beingness every few seconds. In everyday human life, states of beingness have been reduced to short flashes of being that surface imperceptibly between two individual moments. In the same way that we require deep sleep states for our brains to recover, we are equally in need of experiencing flashes of beingness in order to recover from the chronic battles of everyday existence.

Later on, this pure beingness-state tears, as though through a curtain, and for a few seconds, I experience the indescribable, primordial nature of the world. After this happens, all knowledge and wisdom of the human world are annihilated and appear merely as in a vague dream.

After a period in the darkness, I get a sense of being able to see. Initially, it looks like the nebulous illumination akin to the light of dawn. There is an occasional bluish hue of light emerging. My perception has become refined and can now appreciate pure energy, which is distinct from the clear inner light of the spirit. The latter started to appear after about four weeks, after my losing all concepts of things, and after no longer experiencing myself as an individual I, except on rare occasions. This light is everything; everything is this light - it is within me and everywhere around me.

When I step out into daylight after forty-nine days, I experience the sunlight as the spiritual light; nature exposes the entire world, in the shape of every leaf and rock, as a miniature cosmos. A world in which every thing is everything. After a few days, I take my bundle and look into the eyes of my lama, the eternal wanderer through the Himalayas, before we wordlessly continue on our individual paths. We have never met again. What has remained? Well, the nature of Spirit has stayed within me!

Many years later, and after two further retreats in darkness in Kinnauer (Northern India) and Tibet, a journalist asked me if he would be able to undergo a dark therapy under my supervision. I told him that the retreats in darkness were no therapy and that, also, I had no space in my house for him. As he was a friend, I set up a room for him anyway and so the first dark therapy retreat effectively began. Later, I gave up my work as a psychotherapist, bought a larger house and began to take in people to do dark therapy retreats. This was how Saskia John found her way to me: the woman presenting, in the form of this book, her account of the extensive experiences she had in the course of her dark retreats.

Saskia has been here several times and her last stay goes back several years. She narrated her impressions while in darkness during her retreat and we recorded all that she said on to tape. This material which flowed out of her in a constant daily stream, and which we had debriefings about every evening, sheds a light on a new psychology, at least in the sense that it allows some insights into some hitherto little-explored territories of our souls. It has taken Saskia a certain amount of time to prepare her experiences for publication but now the oeuvre is out. Anyone wishing to open up any hidden back doors to their spirit will find, in these very personal experiences, a golden thread through the labyrinth that is their soul.

For a long time, Saskia experienced a good dose of embarrassment at the notion of revealing some of her more intimate soul states, but at the end of the day, the truth is simply true – and all darkness ultimately leads towards the light, whichever way.

Holger Kalweit

January 2011

Introduction

Iwas born in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany), in the year that they built the Berlin Wall. Both my parents were war children, and both were teachers. I grew up surrounded by walls that defined a world of materialism, obedience, atheism and an atmosphere of ‘do as you are told.’

My path was always predetermined, and I pursued the anticipated stages diligently, one after the other, as was expected of me: completing secondary school, an apprenticeship, qualifying for university entrance, enrolling for tertiary studies, getting married, having children, carrying on my profession. Up until the time that the Wall came down, I worked as a veterinarian, and as far as I was concerned, my world was an ordered one. I never questioned that world.

The year the wall came down did not just have a profoundly transformative effect on Germany and on the world, it also became the year that marked a major turning point in my personal life, as I began to turn my gaze towards my inner life. Little did I know at that time how greatly my life would eventually become transformed in the years to come.

As you can see, the theme of the ‘wall’ has accompanied me since the time of my birth - perhaps it is for this reason that I have invested so much energy in allowing any walls within myself to also fall, as well as expanding my internal boundaries at the same time.

All my aspirations focus on the inner values of life: towards prosperity on an inner level, individual sovereignty, compassion and unconditional love. I experience a profound longing for freedom and awakening; an impulse that has at times urged me to explore some things in life that others may choose not to.

Throughout many years, I have been exploring the inner universe of my soul, through experiences such as meditation, Tai Chi Quan, traveling, personal development workshops, therapy sessions and two retreats in darkness, and have ended up with a treasure trove of my own experiential knowledge.

In my own explorations, I have found confirmation for many of the wisdoms imparted by different elders, as well as those that I have come across in the corresponding literature. In the process, I have put to rest any serious doubts regarding the realness of my experiences and ultimately, have found my personal truth.

This exploration of the psychical landscape continues to involve deep-level learning, accompanied by processes of letting go, of inner growth and an expansion of consciousness that have been ongoing for a long time. They are part of a cleansing process on an inner level that, for me, has been at times an extremely difficult and painful one. It has involved the surrender of my former comfort zones and required me to trust in something that was completely unknown to me.

In the process of these explorations, I have received deep insights into the psychical universe, into the way the human psyche functions: the interrelated nature between spirit, soul and the physical body and its effects on physical health. This in turn has opened up new possibilities for me from a healing practitioner’s perspective, as I am able to see things with greater clarity and within a larger context.

For now, let me go back to the year when my life turned yet again in a different direction - the year of the millennial turn. In the summer of 2000, I met Gabriele Fröhlich for the first time; an encounter that has often struck me as a case of pre-ordained destiny. The inner work that I undertook with her help so captured me that an intense working relationship developed, that continues to this day. I learned about her model for The Intelligent Heart and its application for my own inner processes, and have been applying it in my therapeutic work with the clients in my practice for some time now.

It became evident to me that the deep-level growth and transformational processes that I had experienced for myself were no exception, but were experienced in similar ways by individuals who were committed to their own inner process for an extended period. While already engaged in my inner work with Gabriele, I also experienced the family constellation concept for the first time, through another teacher. I found my early experiences with that approach, as well as those gained throughout my later training in Systemic-Phenomenological Family Constellation work with Bert and Sophie Hellinger, to be wonderfully enhancing of my work with Gabriele.

In the course of my inner growth process, I came across an article on Dark Therapy in a professional journal published in 2002, which immediately captured my imagination, and which I was unable to get out of my mind.

I was curious, not knowing what this might entail, and at the same time, the article instilled some fear in me: the thought of spending an extended period in absolute darkness in complete solitude! Hence, it took me almost a year before I worked up the courage to contact Holger Kalweit, the author of the article, and ask him for an appointment.

In the summer of 2003, I went into my first dark retreat adventure, for a period of twelve days. During that time, I recorded the narration of all my experiences to a Dictaphone, in order to process them for myself in an in-depth way later.

At one point during that phase, I went into a deep crisis and at one of Holger’s visits, I just handed him the Dictaphone, in order to alert him to what was going on inside me.

He recognized the value of the recordings and encouraged me to publish my experiences in a book. Initially, I was very enthusiastic about the idea and started transcribing the recorded texts from the cassettes immediately following the dark retreat. While transcribing the text, I often found myself entering into further deep inner processes and gaining valuable insights about myself. I added them to the corresponding transcript sections in italics as I went along.

This process took a total of two years. During that time, I decided to undergo a second dark retreat, this time for a twenty-five-day period. I assumed that I would just be able to follow on from the experiences that I had left off with at the end of my previous dark retreat and to expand on them in a more in-depth process. I did not even consider the possibility that things might turn out in a completely different way.

Following the completion of my second dark retreat, I again embarked on the transcription of the many newly recorded cassettes. This took me approximately one year, and in the course of this, I experienced a similar in-depth inner process to the one following my first retreat. I again added to the manuscript, in italics, my new observations and insights about myself.

While still busily attending to that task, I was repeatedly plagued by fear at the prospect of publishing my experiences, including all my corresponding thoughts and feelings. I felt like I was about to bare myself and expose myself nakedly to the world with my whole being. Besides, so many incidents were associated with a considerable amount of pain, and these I had no desire to share with the world.

I braved the fears and the pain and eventually dissolved them throughout many individual sessions. After another three years, with some interruptions, and another three revisions of both manuscripts, I finally considered them ready for publication.

During the dark retreats, I used Gabriele’s Intelligent Heart model as a frame of reference for the integration of my experiences. Thus, in the summer of 2008, I naturally asked Gabriele for her feedback on both manuscripts, to ensure that I had been applying her model in the correct way concerning any interpretations and explanations of my experiences and dreams. Her feedback motivated me to go through my experiences yet again and to add, from my current perspective, other experiences and insights that followed on from the earlier ones.

In the course of many emails, conversations and individual sessions, an intense exchange ensued between us, surrounding many themes that were difficult for me to deal with, and as a result, I entered into a new round of my inner growth process.

In parallel to these developments, I met Thomas Hübl, another spiritual teacher, in spring 2008, and enrolled in his 3-year Timeless-Wisdom-Training (TWT) program. The work with Thomas blended seamlessly into my ongoing inner work and further helped to support my entire process in a wonderful way. Part of the second-year course requirement was to carry out a project around something that was close to our heart and would serve as a positive contribution to the world at the same time. I decided on the book project as a way of fulfilling this course requirement, being quite aware that the project time frame would force me to keep working on its completion at a steady pace. By now, I was also more internally ready to see the material published without cringing with feelings of fear and shame at the mere thought of it.

In its current form, the book is comprised of three parts:

In the first part, Gabriele Fröhlich presents her model on The Intelligent Heart as the frame of reference for the psychodynamic evaluation of my dark retreat experiences. In this section, she also points to the book’s transparent interface between its psychodynamic and transpersonal elements, in their relevance to a Western cultural context.

The second and third parts consist of the transcripts of the recordings from my two retreat experiences in complete darkness, of twelve and twenty-four days, respectively. The transcripts presented here are largely in their original form, except for some passages that I chose to remove, that were either inaudible or otherwise unintelligible, as well as several passages containing information of a highly personal nature, such as those pertaining to my marriage at that time.

Any references to timing in that section are always estimated ones only and relate to my perceptions at the time in question. I chose to maintain a style of narration in I form, over a more impersonal style, in order to better convey the directly experiential nature of the reported events.

The accounts comprise both my confrontation with the dark unconscious realm (the ‘shadow’ aspects in C. G. Jung’s terminology), as well as any experiences of a more transpersonal nature. I have also included my comments from that time, highlighting my efforts to integrate the experiences in a healthy way.

The accounts include repetitions, as some issues turned out to be frequently recurring themes throughout my process. This recurrence of certain themes would continue until pertinent aspects of them, that had remained suppressed throughout my life, found their way to the surface layer of my consciousness. Over time, my perception of them gradually altered, until they eventually disentangled, dissolved and finally integrated.

The section dealing with the experiential accounts also includes any retrospectively added recognitions, insights and psychodynamic evaluations from an updated perspective. These additions were the results of my repeated reworking of the scripts in the course of several years on one hand, as well as my close cooperation with Gabriele on the other. For greater transparency, the additions are indicated in italics, with the dates on which they were added. In this way, the long version reader can learn about the more in-depth psychodynamic background to these experiences at the same time.

I would like to think of this book as a contribution to facilitating positive change in a world in which hectic lifestyles, stress, material pursuits and actions, as well as the notion of exercising power over others, are the dominant characteristics. A world in which, in my view, the inner world of our psycho-spiritual truths and of real human values are given far too little attention. We mirror the denial of our authentic Self in the reckless and loveless conduct towards ourselves, others, the Earth and the Cosmos. This has generated a state of tension, both within each human being as well as on a larger scale, expressing itself unmistakably in the form of war-torn lands and natural catastrophes on a global scale.

This is a very personal book. In it, I am exposing many intimate details about my life, and in so doing, I am essentially offering insights into my entire being. For the reader’s benefit, I have left every detail and theme in this book in the exact way in which they unfolded for me personally, thereby highlighting the difficulties on this path of self-recognition as I have experienced them in the process.

In publishing this book, it is my hope and deep desire that the information imparted here may assist those people who are already well on their path of sincere self-exploration. I would like to offer them some inspirations and opportunities for recognizing some of the involved dangers and the risks of being led astray.

Others may benefit from my experiences through feeling inspired towards finding the courage and the impulse to embark on their own path into the depths of their personal universe and inner truth, towards healing and such qualities as empathy, compassion, unconditional love and wisdom.

If this book benefits, in some way, even a small number of individuals in a (spiritual) crisis or an internal process of self-recognition and transformation, it will have been worth the exposure of my inner core and the effort and cost involved in bringing this book to publication - apart from also having been hugely beneficial in my own growth process.

I have a word of caution for those readers whom this book may inspire to explore and apply the Intelligent Heart model in their own life, in a similar way as depicted by the examples in the book. Gaining the ability to apply the model in such a matter of fact way throughout my two dark retreats took me years of prior practice under guidance and constant feedback from Gabriele. I had already acquired a good understanding and working knowledge of the model, as well as being very experienced in recognizing the energies within myself and assigning them to the respective positions within the model.

In my experience, it does require guidance and assistance, at least during the early stages of familiarizing oneself with this concept. Some guidance may be essential in order to achieve a lively and viable flow of communication between the Adult state and one’s Inner Child, as well as learning to distinguish between the different energetic qualities of the Pig Parent, Adapted Persona, Inner Child and Nurturing Parent states.

While the corresponding energy flows are described in detail throughout this book, for clarity and ease of replication, they cannot replace any required medical assistance or advice and, naturally, no responsibility can be taken for the reader’s process; the responsibility lies entirely with you in this respect.

If this book evokes any deep feelings within you, it may be appropriate to check with yourself whether it seems a good time for you to be reading it or if continuing reading is the right thing for you to do at that time. Remember, you always have the choice; it is up to you to decide responsibly.

I sincerely hope that reading this book will provide you with much suspense, many insights and perhaps even some deep-level experiences of your own - or just a lot of fun!

Saskia John

March 2011

N.B. The terms referring to the model of The Intelligent Heart throughout the experiential account are explained in detail on pages 22 - 24.

Chapter 1

A Psychodynamic Model: The Intelligent Heart

A Psychological Model for the Integration of
Transpersonal Experiences by Gabriele Fröhlich, MD.

When I embarked on my Rebirthing training – a breathing technique for the exploration of transpersonal experience – for three months, full-time, many years ago, I soon became aware of how useful my earlier training in a cognitively oriented form of psychotherapy proved to be, in view of what was ahead of me.

The area of transpersonal psychology deals with those aspects of a person’s range of experience that transcend the realm of individual consciousness towards the archetypal, as well as any perceivable higher spiritual planes, and it is considered a more accessible approach to spiritual experience than that offered through the older esoteric traditions.

Before embarking on this experience, I was clear that the objective of this training was the surrender to the transpersonal aspect of whatever came up: the images, experiences and processes that would not be amenable to any rational analysis as such. The objective was not about finding solutions to everyday problems, exploring any childhood traumas for their own sake or interpreting the exploits from any free association processes.

The ‘stuff’ would surface of its own accord, as would also its resolution on the experiential level, in many cases. What was needed here was essentially an accompanying observer position that would ensure that no identification with the experiences – or resulting overwhelm – might complicate things.

The concept of such an observer position is, of course, an integral part of any meditation discipline and, in this sense; it does not present a new idea. What I became increasingly aware of in the course of my Rebirthing training – and any other experiential personal development explorations with a strong experiential component – was that this crucial capacity to observe the experience is the result of a series of internal integration processes; a function that has to be acquired rather than being automatically available in most people.

In the case of an emotionally challenging life situation or of being in the middle of an intense, acute exploratory process of an emotionally charged experience, (the kind that tends to be an integral part of any transpersonal training situation), the task of maintaining an observer stance can prove to be a difficult one.

The act of observing is, in itself, a subjective process, as it is relative to the person’s state of internal balance at the time. Intrapsychically speaking, the act of observing is dependent on the emotional charge inherent in whatever is being observed. Even without practice, the average person would be likely to perceive a scene such as raindrops falling onto colorful autumn leaves with a sense of inner calmness. The same person would also likely be able to report on that scene in a coherent and repeatable way.

In the scenario of a major car accident, the observer’s capacity to report the unfolding events with any degree of objectivity is likely to be vastly reduced. The fact that different testimonials of events with a high emotional impact tend to diverge considerably, is evidence that these experiences are perceived and internally processed in a subjective way, in relation to the experienced emotional charge of the observer. In extreme situations, a complete memory block vis-à-vis the observed incident can develop – an unconscious protective mechanism – whereby a witnessed traumatic event will seemingly be ‘remembered’ as not having taken place.

Less dramatic expressions of this phenomenon are commonplace throughout life; experiences that are perceived as merely unpleasant from an adult’s perspective can be experienced as an existential threat in early childhood, and through this same mechanism, they can remain suppressed within some deep recess of the person’s subconscious mind for a lifetime.

Understanding our perceptions and experiences requires an open communication flow between the different energetic aspects within us, each of which has a slightly different perception of the same experienced situation.

The quality of our communication with others depends on the quality of the communication between these ‘personas’ within us. In order to provide an overview over our most important personas, their functions and the dynamics that determine our internal (intrapersonal) communication, I developed the Intelligent Heart model.

Readers who are already familiar with Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis will recognize some terms and similarities in the adjacent schematic.

The purpose of the Intelligent Heart model closely relates to the popular concept of Emotional Intelligence. The term Emotional Intelligence has become so familiar in everyday life, that most people would have some awareness of its meaning. Daniel Goleman first presented it in his 1990 bestseller by this name, and he introduced its abbreviation ‘EQ’ (as in Emotional Intelligence Quotient) as an analogy to the better-known IQ. The EQ encompasses the ability for compassion, empathy, altruism, self-confidence; the capacity for rational decision making in all life situations and for being able to react appropriately to emotional impulses.

The Intelligent Heart model aims to demonstrate the energy flows involved in emotionally intelligent intra (within us) and interpersonal (those taking place between ourselves and others) communication processes.

The following box describes the different personas, their functions and some of the dynamics between them.

Universal Love: Spiritual source energy. The personal experience of inner connectedness with a higher spiritual source, in the context of a religious belief system, or completely independent of it. The spiritual realm that encompasses all life experiences in a greater, karmic context of all that is, thus enabling a change in perspective on our individual experiences.

Rational Adult (RA): The capacity for logical thinking, reality check; rational decision-making; cooperation with others because it ‘makes sense’, because the available resources are there for everyone’s benefit; because together we can achieve better results.

The Adapted Persona (AP): The person’s adaptation to their real or perceived reality, as an emotional survival mechanism. Internalized victim positions: Can’t you see that I have a wooden leg? Conditioned responses to internalized negative parental messages: I could never do this; I’m not smart enough; I need to be rescued; I need to rescue others; when I sacrifice myself, I will be well liked; when I stay cute (childlike), I will not be held responsible for my actions. The rationalization of traumatic experiences or our role in them. Post-traumatic survival mechanisms can impair our realistic appraisal of a situation

Nurturing Parent (NP): ‘Mother and Father energy channel.’ Internalized positive parental messages (positive introjects), including those from other positive source figures (teachers, aunts, grandparents, neighbors); nurturing self and others like a parent, based on a reality check from RA; putting myself in someone else’s shoes as well as recognizing my own needs.

Pig Parent (PP): Internalized negative parental messages (negative introjects) – these may never have been verbalized in the past; persecutory, fear-based attitudes: “You will never find a husband,” “You’re not pretty enough,” “You’re just a girl,” “You’re just like your Dad,” “Men are all the same.” In addition, culturally informed prejudices and negative attitudes towards people from other ethnicities; in-group / out-group thinking: “I have to be in to belong.” The perceived need to assert power over others.

The Inner Child (IC): Authentic self. The natural, essential Being within every person (independent of the individual’s age); intuition, hunches, flashes of insight and of authentic feelings such as joy, fear, sadness, anger, or surprise. The IC is creative, life affirming towards self and others. It recognizes the difference between love and hate; it is about the exploration of new experiences and of childlike curiosity, the fascination with what life has to offer. It embraces diversity (in people) and prefers its own exploration rather than following others’ thoughts and perceptions.

The right hand and left hand represent the brain hemispheres in their neurological functions.

The right hand corresponds to the left hemisphere, which fulfills, in simplified terms, the structured analytical thought processes.

The left hand is in charge of right hemispheric functioning, which represents the more imagery-oriented, musical and artistic part of the brain. It also corresponds to the brain centers for higher consciousness and spiritual experiences (but not their corresponding mental concepts).

A practical exercise: Slowly bringing together the palms of both hands in front of your face, with the awareness that the right hand represents the Adult aspects (in right-handed individuals) and the left hand the Inner Child aspects within yourself, is beneficial for your Inner Child. It reinforces the formation of healthy neuron pathways in the brain, particularly if you imagine yourself connected with the spiritual source energy (Universal Love) at the same time.

The Intelligent Heart schematic incorporates elements from other useful models for mapping intra and interpersonal communication processes. As mentioned, it includes elements that are similar to those found in Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis with its Parent, Adult and Child Ego-States. The schematic also depicts the underlying energy flows, similar to the way they are mapped in certain NLP-related (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) teachings, with slight variations. Perhaps the most important element that distinguishes the IH schematic from previously existing communication models is its inclusion of the spiritual connection as an integral energetic element in all communication dynamics. This is based on solid research data that demonstrate the psychological and neurophysiological effects resulting from a spiritual perspective in life. For some examples of how to apply the IH Model in a variety of situations, as well as some more in-depth background information on its neurophysiological and functional implications, please go to:

http://www.global-develop.com/intel2.3.hhtml.

In her comments and psychodynamic reflections on her dark retreat experiences, Saskia John consistently refers to the IH model as her frame of reference and in this way provides examples for its application in the context of experiences of a transpersonal nature.

When describing some of her early childhood experiences, she refers to some classic psychodynamic examples depicting her inner battle with parental introjects (internalized messages), and provides clear examples of their way of functioning with the assistance of the IH model.

Working with the IH model in a psychotherapeutic and mediation context, as well as in situations involving severely traumatized individuals, has provided me with a multitude of valuable insights into the way in which a person can be impaired psychodynamically because of their intensely negative experiences. I also arrived at a better understanding about the intrapsychic mechanisms that are at play here. The difficulties that can result for the affected individual can be difficult to appreciate from a layperson’s perspective. The reactions traumatized people experience can result in serious self-doubts, or their religious beliefs may result in perceptions such as ‘God having failed them.’

However, if the person is firmly rooted in a spiritual tradition, it can also be easier for them to see their experience as merely an element in a much greater context. Their personal experience will often be put into perspective by a sense that there is an overarching, guiding principle, or the hope may be instilled in them that there may be a way out of their suffering and the possibility of a better future ahead.

At times, the IH model also appears to have a corrective effect in this context: when the individual gains an understanding of the intrinsic psychodynamic and neurophysiological ways in which the brain processes trauma, the person may be less likely to question himself or herself. The link between the experiences and the person’s interpretations of them becomes clearer, and through a better understanding of the involved psychodynamic processes, the person can begin to experience the associated feelings and sensations outside of any distorting interpretations.

The IH model lends itself to the processing of transpersonal experiences in a very similar way and via the same mechanisms. As in the case of any impactful life experience, transpersonal experiences, too, carry the inherent risk of evoking (unconscious) interpretations that are really based on transferential dynamics originating from childhood imprints.

The IH schematic can be useful in distinguishing between historical emotional memory contents and recently experienced, impactful events, thereby avoiding confusion regarding the level and nature of an experience. This can take on even greater relevance in some extreme cases where an overwhelmingly powerful experience may trigger a psychotically distorted perception and associated sensations of the individual’s experience.

The necessary internal structures that enable a person to develop a reasonable degree of emotional autonomy have to be acquired in early childhood. According to Peter Breggin, a person may struggle with issues of personal autonomy (in respect to Western cultural expectations of personal autonomy) for the rest of his or her life in some cases, when their essential needs have not been met in early infancy.

Transpersonal experiences are therefore subject to being erroneously interpreted because of the projections from past fears that may be the result of traumatic childhood experiences; in addition, they may also be perceived through the lens of archetypal and specific deep structural, cultural imprints. Collectivist societies are often characterized by their openness to the spiritual realm, since other dimensional realities are often an integral part of the spiritual / shamanic / religious and cultural imprints of such societies. These types of cultural imprints and practices often include complex ancestor relationships, shamanic rituals, fetishist structures and witch-hunts, as well as the use of psychotropic substances, such as Ayahuasca, for consciousness expansion purposes (a practice that has also been increasingly adopted by Western esoteric circles in recent years). Hence, transpersonal experiences can have a very different meaning for individuals with very distinct and specific cultural imprints, compared to that of a Western-socialized person in their individuation process.

The term individuation is indeed defined as the inner process an individual has to undergo on the way to achieving their independence from the psychology of their collective. This individual emancipatory process, in turn, is a prerequisite for an individual’s ability to be the observer of their transpersonal experiences, and it is, at the same time, a preventative measure against becoming psychologically overwhelmed by these experiences.

In view of these observations, the experience of an exploratory process in complete darkness could be a very frightening one indeed for the members of many collectivist societies, depending on their culturally determined cosmology and their perceptions of the world. While transpersonal experiences may constitute an integral aspect of life in their culture, these are likely to be highly ritualized and typically delegated to the competence of a designated shaman. Hence, they are not likely to be sought out by curious individuals for any personal excursions into the realm of the transpersonal.

In a Western context, in contrast, the exploration of the transpersonal is motivated by a desire to both experience and observe the nature of certain multidimensional aspects that are not easily amenable to the human spirit. For a person from a Western cultural background, processing such experiences on an inner level is not (exclusively) possible through relying on shamanic initiation rites or rituals for appeasing potentially uninvited entities. What is required is a reference system that is capable of preventing the complete usurpation of the experiencer’s consciousness along with the associated risk of that person becoming emotionally dysfunctional in everyday life.

In this sense, the kind of exploratory transpersonal journey that Saskia John describes in this book requires a reasonably advanced state of individuation, uninfluenced by any rigid societal norms and value judgments on the part of the experiencer.

There also exist certain transitional, quasi-shamanic, spontaneously emerging phenomena in a Western consciousness context, in the most unexpected of situations. The shamanic rituals of various cultures often include journeys of the soul into faraway experiential worlds, to communicate with the spirits of the living and the dead, for example, in an attempt to bring back healing knowledge into everyday reality. Rituals involving rhythmic drumming, that can have a highly stimulating effect on the temporal lobes of the brain and associated sections of the limbic system, often accompany these events.

Dana Zohar gives an astonishing account of a situation that one of her patients with epilepsy experienced, in analogy to such shamanistically evoked occurrences. She quotes the patient as saying: “Doctor, suddenly it was all crystal-clear … There is an ultimate truth that lies completely beyond the reach of ordinary minds, which are too immersed in the hustle and bustle of daily life to notice the beauty and grandeur of it all.”

Such experiences have been described in situations where an increased electrical activity in the temporal lobes of the brain has been triggered. Occasionally, such states can be evoked through specific patho-physiological conditions of the brain, apart from the described shamanic contexts. They can also be triggered spontaneously, in the absence of any neuropathology, in the context of the kind of spiritually evocative modalities that have recently become more mainstream in the West, such as, for example, in the Western-adjusted version of dark therapy and rebirthing.

In the course of my transpersonal training experience and practice, I had come to the conclusion that dealing with one’s unconscious emotional issues was a prerequisite for delving into deep-level transpersonal experiences, and that failing to do so can put one’s emotional integrity at risk. Through witnessing that negative feeling states can indeed be transformed, our capacity to be the observer of our feeling states becomes reinforced at the same time. This in turn enables us to be the experiencer, and simultaneously, the observer, of whatever transpires on the transpersonal level. As a result, an opening towards a new, hitherto unknown realm of experience becomes possible and our capacity to expand our consciousness becomes enhanced.

In this sense, Saskia John’s account of her dark retreat experience is much more than merely a narrative account of what was happening for her on a personal level. Her descriptions also serve as important examples for the way in which experiences that are way outside our consensus reality nevertheless can be integrated intrapsychically on the level of the individual.

Saskia has a perceptive ability and sensitivity to subtle energetic changes in her environment, as well as to physical sensations, which is well above average. This enables her to both perceive as well as describe the subtle nuances within the physiological and energetic processes involving her transformative adventure, thus presenting us with a vivid and colorful storyline, inviting the reader to follow vicariously her experiences, almost to the degree of feeling personally present, as they are unfolding.

This assists in opening up the reader’s imagination to a world of experience, which, for some individuals, may meet with an unexpected level of resonance and may even help train their own perceptive faculties in the process.

I hope that this experiential narrative and account of psychical integration will encourage those readers who have discovered their own interest in this genre of experience to explore their own version of transpersonal adventure; it may also provide them with many valuable insights towards adequately preparing themselves for such an endeavor on an inner level.

In The Invitation, Oriah Mountain Dreamer captures the interface between our individual emotional realities and the inner pathway to the shamanic underworld realms that exist beyond the laws of normal human existence.

‘I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive…… I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain…… I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own. …… I want to know if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human…… I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.’ (By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming, from the book The Invitation, published by HarperONE, San Francisco, 1999.)

Gabriele Fröhlich is a medical doctor, transpersonal psychotherapist, coach and international conflict-mediator. Her focus is on the exploration of paranormal and interdimensional phenomena, regarding their inherent risks and opportunities for humanity in the current state of cosmic evolution. She is currently working on a book about these themes and is the author of several academic articles on applied Emotional Intelligence.

Her website is: http://www.global-develop.com/