Reddit reviews Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis (New Consciousness Readers)

Sorry to hear what you went through. If you are in to reading Stanislav Grof could be something to look in to.

In his”biography” - when the impossible happens, he describes several incidents with his wife Christina. He/they call the incidents spiritual emergencies. Which seems to be other words for psychotic breaks, but with less stigma.
Some happen with psychedelics others out of the blue.

They have written this book, which may interest you:

https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Emergency-Personal-Transformation-Consciousness/dp/0874775388

Thank you for sharing!

You should read a couple of books on the concept of a spiritual emergency. Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis and Trials of the Visionary Mind

From what you wrote, you might be experiencing something called a "spiritual emergency". A good starting resource for it might be for example this book https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874775388/ or just search the internet.

Hoping this comment gets read.. for whomever has had this experience or similar, I strongly suggest reading Stan & Christina Grof's book "Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis", it has a lot of information pertinent to these kinds of experiences.

To find a therapist, I would suggest looking into the Spiritual Emergence Network, started by Christina Grof to help people find therapists who can recognize and competently work with spiritual emergenc(e/y) without pathologizing it.

The energies associated with kundalini awakening are indeed extremely intense, which is why it is recommended that people never attempt to undertake a kundalini yoga practice unless they are working with a master/extremely experienced kundalini guide. But, as this report shows, these energies can be awoken by psychedelics, by other practices, or even spontaneously. With kundalini yoga, the aim is not to awaken energies that will profoundly destabilize your life as can happen when it is awoken without the proper support, but rather to awaken it within a supportive context that can help one to navigate the experience skillfully.

/u/tralfaz66

Do you feel like it was a spiritual awakening? Your experiences sound very similar to kundalini awakening. I had a similar experience and found some solace in the books Spiritual Emergency and Kundalini by Gopi Krishna


I was able to come back but some days the veil seems too thin for my own good.

When I say "hallucinations," it's really just for lack of a better word. I can tell what is in the real world and what isn't. But what I was experiencing were like what other people describe in other places as "visions." I know what I'm seeing isn't the real world. It's really not the type of problem that people seem to think when I try to communicate it.

That being said, there is some history of mental illness in my family, (as in all families I suppose), but those with those illnesses have been successfully treating them with marijuana for quite some time now without anything like what I've experienced. One family member using this method has actually been diagnosed schizo-affective, and the herb makes it better, not worse.

I understand this evidence is anecdotal and that I'm not a doctor. I have people looking after me to make sure nothing gets out of hand, and am seeking a medical opinion, but I am reasonably confident that it won't turn up anything concrete.

I know this sounds like fucking insanity...but I think maybe this is what's happening to me? https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Emergency-Personal-Transformation-Consciousness/dp/0874775388



Variously, I have seen it put in these terms: http://theyogalunchbox.co.nz/what-is-a-kundalini-awakening-and-have-i-had-one/

In the second link, try to read through the strange Hindu language, it's really his report of the experience itself that I resonate with.(the stuff about the energy in the spine though doesn't mean anything to me, and I did not experience anything like that)

I don't know if Judaism has a word for this, but this is the closest thing I have found so far to describing what I've been experiencing over the last 5 days or so.

Any feedback from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

Edit* Although the links are to things that were probably outside of my worldview...and that makes me feel uncomfortable...the people in those links passed through this experience unmedicated and came out better on the other side.

Important! Please research Spiritual Emergency, it may be that you have been misdiagnosed as Bi-polar. See: Spiritual Emergency