Comments on Grof's video

Continuing this post, He starts out saying the science cannot understand these altered states given its bias. Whereas Hinduism and Buddhism can. And yet there is a lot of science on the topic from those who not only experience these states but are adept in the eastern frame, like Thompson. I'm hoping Grof doesn't go off into just traditional eastern metaphysics here. But then he does.

He then goes into the Pre-trans fallacy, that reason threw out the baby of altered states as childish, whereas they can be transrational. The states of themselves are not be trans; that requires the interpretative stance. And a lot of that interpretation in eastern philosophy is itself stuck in dualistic metaphysics. Which ironically is the complaint with reason!

Around 13:00 the interviewer asks him if these experiences are just subjective or objectively real. I'd ask if these experiences are direct access to an objective, ultimate reality. Grof said they are 'ontologicially' real. Even to the point of a karmic, archetypal, historical, collective unconscious (15:20).

So metacognition, being aware of your thinking process, is one of the attributes of at least some forms of meditation: Watching the watcher. And yet this skill is already evident early in life according to neuroscientist Dehaene. Obviously it's in a very early stage of development but it can be experimentally verified.

Metacognition of the meditative type is also a constructed social affair, not a personal one that directly connects us to ultimate reality. Thompson:

"The apparently inward-looking mental capacities of metacognition and meta-awareness (both cognitive constituents of mindfulness) are internalized forms of social cognition, dependent on being able to share intentions, imitate others and share attention."

There is more relevant material in the FB IPS thread from whence I cited this.

Grof talks about dark archetypcal beings that one can experience in these states. He's asked: "And you believe you can actually make contact with those in altered states?" Grof: "Yes." (22:15)

Now when he starts talking about body memory of prenatal or perinatal experience, that makes some medical sense. But again he interprets it as some sort of transpersonal connection.

He then gets into Jung and synchronicity as if there is this direct, meaningful connection between the psyche and the world. Sure there is, but not in this metaphysical sense. 

I'm much more inclined toward Knox's work using embodied image schema for this connection instead of metaphysical archetypes. In "Developmental aspects of analytical psychology" Jean Knox shows that we must recontextualize Jung's notion of archetype into the more recent and accurate notion of image schema. The former is still caught in a metaphysical net of at best a priori mental constructs and at worst involutionary givens.

"This developmental model for archetypes requires us to re-categorize them, removing them from the realm of innate mental content and acknowledging them as early products of mental development" (27).

This also supports my notion that these early enactments of embodied, pre-reflective and unconscious development are what we use to contact those seemingly metaphysical, nondual "states" of unity consciousness.