Explore the concept of spiritual emergency, its dual nature of crisis and opportunity, how it differs from psychosis, and its potential for healing and transformation with proper guidance.
The spiritual history of humanity has many instances of what we would call spiritual emergencies where people were actually in crisis, and they used some methods to open a lot of the psyche in a fast way. For example, in the history of shamanism, the career of most shamans begins with a very powerful spontaneous episodes of a holotropic state with a journey into the underworld. We can see spiritual emergencies in the history of great yogis such as Ramakrishna, who went through periods when the spiritual experiences were so powerful that he couldn't really take care of himself. Muktananda in his book biography (The Play of Consciousness) talks about how he went through very stormy episodes that certainly would be in the west diagnosed as a psychotic break. We find it in the great religions as experiences of the founders who initiated the religions. Jesus had a powerful experience when he was 40 days in the desert during the visitation of the devil who was trying to tempt him. The term "spiritual emergency" is created by Grof. The recognition of the dual nature of spiritual emergency—danger and opportunity—
has important theoretical and practical consequences. If properly understood and treated as difficult stages in a natural developmental process, spiritual emergencies can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, deep positive changes of the personality, and the solution of many problems in life (Grof & Grof, 1989).
Although all psychological disturbances may have spiritual aspects to them, they are not necessarily all spiritual emergencies. There is no doubt that challenging, destructive, refractory mental states exist, the expression of which creates harm, rather than healing, for the person and society at large. The concept of 'spiritual emergency' does not deny the seriousness of a psychotic condition in which the psyche fragments and when sometimes violent and self-destructive aspects are manifested. Instead, this concept is intended to encourage discernment amongst mental health professionals in determining whether or not there are clues to possible personal growth from the non-ordinary experience being witnessed. Differentiating between a pathological psychotic illness or altered state of consciousness (ASC) and one which resembles a mystical state, holding potential for healthy adaptation, growth and healing, requires knowledge of the qualitative aspects of the spectrum of altered states of consciousness.
I believe spiritual emergencies can be powerful experiences that can lead to transformation, in my case, with the help of a spiritual guide. I have benefitted a lot from a spiritual teacher who knows the transpersonal territory, an aspect of the psyche that psychiatrists are not formally educated about. I would not prefer to go to a psychiatrist at that time because, as Wain (2005) wrote of "spiritual emergence(y)" as a "transformational process" that "can include powerful experiences likely to be pathologised by mainstream psychiatry" (p. 43). The critical point here is that science needs to be able to differentiate better between psychotic conditions and spiritual emergencies going forward.
References
Grof, C., & Grof, S. (1992). The Stormy Search for the Self: A Guide to Personal Growth Through Transformational Crisis. Jeremy P. Tarcher.
Viggiano, D. B., & Krippner, S. (2010). The Grofs’ model of spiritual emergency in retrospect. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 29(1), 118-127.
Wain, A. (2005). Myth, archetype and the neutral mask. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 24, 37-47.
Grof, S., & Grof, C. (2017). Spiritual emergency: The understanding and treatment of transpersonal crises. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 36(2), 30–43.
Crowley, N. (2006). Psychosis or spiritual emergence? Consideration of the transpersonal perspective within psychiatry.
