The Human Encounter With Death

by Stanislav Grof

Stanislav Grof, M.D., and Joan Halifax, Ph.D., have a unique authority and competence in the interpretation of the human encounter with death. Theirs is an extraordinary range of experience, in clinical research with psychedelic substances, in cross-cultural and medical anthropology, and in the analysis of Oriental and archaic literatures. Their pioneering work with psychedelics administered to individuals dying of cancer opened domains of experience that proved to be nearly identical to those already mapped in the "Books of the Dead", those mystical visionary accounts of the posthumous journeys of the soul. The Grof/Halifax book and these ancient resources both show the imminent experience of death as a continuation of what had been the hidden aspect of the experience of life.
—Joseph Campbell

The authors have assisted persons dying of cancer in transcending the anxiety and anger around their personal fate. Using psychedelics, they have guided the patients to death-rebirth experiences that resemble transformation rites practiced in a variety of cultures. Physician and medical anthropologist join here in recreating an old art—the art of dying. —June Singer

The Human Encounter With Death is the latest of many recent publications in the newly evolving field of thanatology. It is, however, a quite different kind of book—one that be- longs in every library of anyone who seriously tries to understand the phenomenon we call death.
—from the Foreword by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Death, Nonfiction, Spirituality

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Stanislav Grof is known for his early studies of LSD and its effects on the psyche—the field of psychedelic psychotherapy. Building on his observations while conducting LSD research and on Otto Rank's theory of birth trauma, Grof constructed a theoretical framework for pre- and perinatal psychology and transpersonal psychology in which LSD trips and other powerfully emotional experiences were mapped onto one's early fetal and neonatal experiences. Over time, this theory developed into an in-depth "cartography" of the deep human psyche.

Following the legal suppression of LSD use in the late 1960s, Grof went on to discover that many of these states of mind could be explored without drugs by using certain breathing techniques in a supportive environment. He continues this work today under the title "Holotropic Breathwork".

Grof received his M.D. from Charles University in Prague in 1957, and then completed his Ph.D. in Medicine at the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences in 1965, training as a Freudian psychoanalyst at this time. In 1967, he was invited as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, United States, and went on to become Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center where he worked with Walter Pahnke and Bill Richards among others. In 1973, Dr. Grof was invited to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and lived there until 1987 as a scholar-in-residence, developing his ideas.

Being the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (founded in 1977), he went on to become distinguished adjunct faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a position he remains in today.

Grof was featured in the film Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a 2006 documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world.

Reviews

[Jack Reifenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating application of psychedelic research to thanatology. this book is four decades old so there's certainly outdated info, but this is a great companion read to How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.

I'm eager to see what the hopkins center comes up with as this type of research returns and hopefully we can make the most of it.

[Kevin McAvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that explains what happens to your conscience after you body takes the last breath.
Not everyone is ready for this journey. Well written and a useful bibliography .
If more people read this the world would be a better place.

[Jamal Sahraoui · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book opens one's eyes to the fact that death is a rich experience that has been so ignored and not given due attention. This death experience can be accessed through LSD, an experience that might alters completely our perception of reality, ourselves, and the cosmos, and lead to meaningful and enhanced life that moves beyond the limitations of ego and body. A very well read book.

[Jean Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to believe this book was written in the 1970’s when death was still a whispered word. I found much to inspire and intrigue me in my Death and Dying study.
Grof was husband to Joan Halifax, this book’s coauthor, who continue her work in death phenomena and how I found this seminal work.

[Lyudmila Blonova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Срочно в трип

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to pick a star-rating because it was good and informative, just now what I thought it was going to be

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Сама тематика безусловно интересна, собран и предоставлен великолепный материал.
Принципиальное отрицание вызывают только ряд выводов, о причинах и первичном в психоделических переживаниях, вызываемые подобной терапией. Очень неприятно, когда элементарная логика и научный подход теряется в подобных исследованиях и литературе, их освещающих.