Stanislav Grof's description

Stanislav Grof identifies the following as being typical of someone going through spiritual crisis. A person may:

• be bombarded with inner experiences
• have old beliefs and ways of being challenged
• find it difficult to cope with the demands of everyday life
• have difficulty distinguishing the inner visionary world from the external world of daily reality
• experience physical sensations of forceful energies through the body
• feel a strong urge to communicate their experiences
• sound out of touch with reality, disjointed or messianic

Each individual's experience is unique. Whilst it is possible to identify common themes and thus to categorise different kinds of spiritual crisis, characteristics of several of these may be present in any one experience. Grof identifies the following types:

• The shamanic crisis
• The awakening of kundalini (click here for a list of kundalini resources)
• Peak experiences
• Psychological renewal through return to the centre
• The crisis of psychic opening ŕ Past-life experiences
• Communications with spirit guides and 'channeling'
• Near-death experiences
• Experiences of close encounters with UFO's
• Possession states

See Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, edited by Stanislav & Christina Grof, Penguin Putnam 1989.