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ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS |
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by Charles Tart New York, 1969. [TC2] Tart, C.T. Introduction pp.1-6 [TC2 5] The difficulty with studying ASCs by simply experiencing them is that we run as much risk of systematizing our delusions as of discovering “truth.” When we complement personal experience with scientific method the risk of simply systematizing our delusions is considerably reduced. Deikman, A.J. Experimental Meditation, pp. 199-218 [TC2 202] Length of the [meditation] session was five minutes on the first day, ten minutes on the second, and 15 on the third and following days. Certain Ss wished to prolong the later sessions of meditation beyond 15 minutes and were allowed to do so. In those cases the sessions lasted from 22 to 33 minutes before S terminated them spontaneously. The 12 meditation sessions for each S were conducted over a period of three weeks. [TC2 202] The classical literature on meditation emphasizes that instructions themselves are not sufficient to orient a subject adequately in meditation nor to guide him as he progresses in his meditation. The "guru," or teacher, is regarded as absolutely essential for success in attaining enlightenment. In Western religions the need for such a teacher receives less emphasis, but it often appears that the mystic has had a strong apprentice relationship to his spiritual "instructor" or "advisor." Accordingly, this experiment was designed in the belief that E should not be removed from the situation. It was anticipated that unconscious aspects of S's relationship to E would play an important part in the meditation training and, possibly, in the effects observed. No attempt was made to analyze such factors, however. In the course of the meditation sessions E found it necessary to assume an active role, encouraging Ss to adopt the unfamiliar mode of thinking required and allaying anxiety arising from the experience of strange phenomena. This was done primarily by emphasizing the interesting nature of the phenomena, and by pointing out to Ss that they were capable of limiting the intensity and duration of the effects that occurred. [TC2 203] Eight unpaid Ss were employed in the experiment. Four performed meditation for twelve sessions and four performed brief meditation control procedures. Ss were normal adults in their thirties or forties, well educated and intelligent. Most had a professional involvement in some phase of psychiatry. They were personally known to E and were selected primarily on the basis of having time available to give to the experiments. None had made a study of the mystic experience, although each recognized that meditation was connected with mystic practice. [TC2 206] Pleasurable quality: All Ss agreed that the sessions were usually pleasurable, valuable and rewarding. Although one S "forgot" a testing appointment following a significant experience in the previous session, he returned and completed the series. All Ss achieved the 15 minutes or longer meditation period, even those who experienced some anxiety. When displeasure with the procedure occurred, it seemed to be due to (a) anxiety over the loss of controls required, (b) a feeling of failure to perform as expected. [TC2 209] ln summary, the group of four Ss, taken together, present a continuum ranging from subject A, who had the most intense personal experience and the least difficulties with the method, through subject D, who reported the fewest phenomena and had the greatest difficulty complying with the instructions. Subject D reported phenomena of lower intensity than the other Ss, required more sessions of practice and instruction before she noticed any effects, and did not report any striking individual phenomena. Common to all or most Ss were: (a) perceptual changes relating to the vase (darkening of hue, increased color saturation, loss of the third dimension, changes in size and shape, blurring or dissolving of outlines and movement of the vase itself); (b) development of a personal attachment to the vase; (c) modification of the state of consciousness; (d) increased ability to "keep out" distracting stimuli; and (e) a general feeling that the sessions were pleasurable and valuable. Phenomena which were apparently individual responses to the procedure were: (a) merging and perceptual internalization; (b) radiation with heat effect and sexual stimulation; (c) dedifferentiation of the landscape; and (d) transfiguration. [TC2 210] Ss' reports support the hypothesis that the procedure of contemplative meditation is a principal agent in producing the mystic experience. On the basis of the mystic literature, two classifications of mystic experience were distinguished: "sensate" experiences of strong emotion, vivid perception or heightened cognition, and "transcendent" experiences beyond the usual modes of affect, perception or cognition (Deikman, Chapter 2, this book). The reports of these Ss are analogs of the sensate mystic experience and, in the case of subject A, who continued further meditation sessions beyond the conclusion of the experiment itself, a possible preliminary phase to the transcendent state. Subject B's experience of the landscape in the seventh session ... is similar to descriptions of untrained sensate mystic experience. [TC2 210] The "luminescence" and "beauty" reported by subject B may be equivalent to "divine glory" as descriptive terms, and if subject B had been a mystic yearning to be touched by God, his vision of the landscape on that day probably would have seemed to him like a divine communion. [TC2 213] Hypnosis: The experimental procedure and setting suggest a similarity to hypnosis and raise the question of whether the phenomena are due to the same process. As discussed by Gill and Brenman (1959), three of the main features of hypnotic induction are: (a) extensive limitation is placed on S's sensory intake; (b) S's bodily activity is strictly limited; and (c) stimulation is provided of a particular and narrow kind. The first two features are found in the meditation procedure. With regard to the latter point, the music selections played on the background tapes, the simple meditative object, and the repeated instructions might all be viewed as such narrow stimulation. However, the prose and poetry selections were different for each session, were varied in type, and were often rich in meaning. A fourth point mentioned by Gill and Brenman, the attempt to alter the quality of the bodily [TC2 214] awareness of Ss, was not part of the meditation procedure. The absence of this feature is in accord with the absence in the meditative Ss of vivid spontaneous changes in body experience which Gill and Brenman believe are the most prominent phenomena of hypnotic induction. A striking similarity between hypnosis and the meditation experiment concerns the expectations of S. Gill and Brenman wrote, “During the course of the steps of any successful hypnotic induction process, the hypnotist progressively persuades the subject that he is gradually losing control of himself and that this control is being responsibly taken over by the hypnotist. Usually implied, though sometimes explicitly stated, is the promise to the subject that if he permits the hypnotist to bring about the deprivations and losses of power we have discussed, he will be rewarded by an unprecedented kind of experience; the precise nature of this experience is usually left ambiguous. Sometimes the implication is that new worlds will be opened to him, providing an emotional adventure of a sort he has never known” (Gill & Brenman, 1959, p. 10). All Ss in the present meditation experiment revealed by their comments a more or less vague expectation of this sort. Two of the meditation Ss used the term "hypnotic" to characterize some aspects of their concentration process. Clearly there are certain similarities in the physical setting, the expectations of S and the relationship to E in the two procedures. In spite of these similarities, the phenomena of meditation seem to represent a state of ego organization different from that associated with hypnosis. The intense affective phenomena often found in the phypnotic induction period did not occur in the meditative sessions. Except for feelings of surprise or fear at the occurrence of a new phenomenon, Ss' emotional intensity could be described as mild. Subject C did experience a combination of physical and mental excitement during the most vivid of the perceptual phenomena but even this does not seem comparable in quality to the more intense hypnotic phenomena "ranging from the relatively minor explosions of uncontrolled weeping to the enactment of waking nightmares on a level of symbolism and with a quantity of feeling very similar to that known to us only in dream-life; poetry, or fairy tales" (Gill & Brenman, 1959, p. 19), found sometimes in the induction period of hypnosis. The surrender of will power, which is the cardinal feature of the hypnotic state, is encountered in meditation only insofar as S renounces his normal intellectual activities -- he does not consciously feel that he is turning control over to E. As in hypnosis, this renunciation itself is undertaken voluntarily, but the meditation Ss seem always to have been aware that they were able to bring themselves back at any time that they wished, whereas in the hypnotic state fluctuations in the depth of hypnosis appear to take place involuntarily (Brenman, Gill & Knight, 1952). The basic difference between hypnosis and the classical mystic experience [TC2 215] is the difference in the experience itself. Hypnotic experiences do not appear to have the ineffable, profound, uplifting, highly valued quality of the mystic state and are not remembered as such. It may be argued that the difference is a function of suggestion. Orne has studied the nature of the hypnotic process and proposes that "the behavioral characteristics of hypnosis can be understood in terms of the subject's previous knowledge and the cues transmitted during the process of induction" (Orne, 1962b, p.1098). The hypothesis might be advanced that the phenomena of experimental meditation and of the mystic experience in general represent, as Orne suggests of hypnosis, "an historically developed artifact occurring along with a process, the essential behavioral manifestations of which are little known" (1962b, p.1098). Thus the difference between hypnosis and contemplative meditation might lie in the differing expectations of Ss and the "demand characteristics" of the two situations. Coe (1917, p. 253) has pointed out that the form and content of the mystic experience is usually congruent with the mystics' cultural and religious background; to put it simply, a Yogin will have a Nirvana experience, while a Roman Catholic will report communion with Christ. Such an hypothesis of demand characteristics, however, is not consistent with the fact that the highest mystic experiences are similar in their basic content despite wide differences in cultural backgrounds and expectations. These similarities are: (a) the feeling of incommunicability; (b) transcendence of sense modalities; (c) absence of specific content such as images or ideas; and (d) feeling of unity with the Ultimate. Lower forms of mystic experience do embody specific content related to each S's beliefs, and the absence of religious motifs from the accounts of Ss performing meditation as a psychological experiment indicates a definite role of S-expectation in determining the presence of or absence of the secondary features of mystic experiences. However, the phenomena common to all Ss do not permit such an explanation. Also, there are reasons for believing that the idiosyncratic phenomena, such as "merging," were neither a function of Ss' knowledge of the role of meditator, nor of the total demand characteristics imposed by the experimenter and the experimental design. To begin with, the occurrence of the phenomena of "merging," "radiation" and the like surprised both S and E. One S was sufficiently alarmed to end the phenomena by shifting her attention. On the other hand, the "deautomatization" effect was not noticed by subject B as being a special event, whereas it seemed of great significance to E. In addition, the two Ss (A and C) who took to the procedure with greatest facility and interest, developed markedly different effects. Finally the later experience of subject A, clearly a further development of "merging," appears to be a preliminary phase of the Unity phenomenon of the transcendent mystic experience. This S had no conscious knowledge of the mystic literature and her retrospective [TC2 216] account emphasized the strangeness, the unexpectedness and the startling quality of her experience. The considerations discussed above do not rule out the presence of unconscious expectations on the part of Ss, nor unconscious as well as explicit expectations of the part of E. For the reasons given, however, it seems that the phenomena cannot be adequately explained as due to suggestion, and a careful examination of the transcripts gives one the strong impression that a unique process is involved. [TC2 218] A most striking finding of the meditation experiment is the ease and rapidity with which the phenomena were produced. Comparable phenomena have required more or less elaborate procedures of sensory deprivation or the use of potent drugs. In this study a natural environment was employed and the process was performed by Ss themselves. In less than half an hour, phenomena occurred that in other contexts have been described as "depersonalization," "hallucination," "delusion" or "visual distortion," "intensification" and the like. Such rapid, intense effects point to a capacity, under minimal stress conditions, for alteration in the perception of the world and of the self far greater than what is customarily assumed to be the case for normal people. W. Kretschmer. Meditative Techniques in Psychotherapy, pp. 219-231 [TC2 219] The psychotherapist who wants to employ techniques of meditation must first be able to meditate himself. The book by the German psychiatrist, J. H. Schultz (Schultz, 1953, 1956; see Schultz and Luthe, 1959, for English translation) offers a step-by-step introduction to one technique of meditation. However, with meditation, as with psychotherapy, a study of the literature is seldom enough. A personal dedication is necessary. Without it, individual practice of meditation can be dangerous; especially the advanced stages of genuine meditation described by Schultz. In these advanced stages, after a general bodily relaxation has been achieved, symbolic fantasies are skillfully induced. Then colors and objects are visualized. One endeavors to experience a symbolic representation of ideas which are understood only abstractly, of one's feelings, of friends, and finally of higher moral questions, in a way which allows the psyche to make unconscious tendencies symbolically visible. Dreams are similar to meditation, except meditation gains the reaction of the unconscious by a systematic technique which is faster than depending on dreams. But the Schultz technique only serves to raise, with a special emphasis, the question, "What is the goal of meditation?" Schultz sees this question clearly, but that this question is basically a religious one, or at least [TC2 220] connected with religion, Schultz does not conclude. Therefore, he limits himself to the formulation of "basic existential values." This means the meditator is encouraged to strive toward a reasonable view of life orientated toward self-realization, psychic freedom and harmony, and a lively creativity. At best, one achieves a Nirvana-like phenomena of joy and release. Maybe Schultz conceals decisive experiences which go further; because of the basically unlimited possibilities of meditation, we can always await such an extension of his ideas. The technique developed by Carl Happich, the former Darmstadt internist, is meditation of the most systematic kind, and also of the widest human scope. It begins with physiology and ends in religion. Happich developed it out of his literary and practical knowledge of Oriental techniques. He combined their wisdom with the experience of modern depth psychology. He set forth his fundamental principles in two small works (Happich, 1932, 1939), and beyond these left only a small Introduction to meditation (Happich, 1948), which is concerned with religious symbolism. Unfortunately, he did not live to set forth his life experiences in a grand scientific frame. His importance lies, above all, in the practical techniques which he began to spread among theologians when physicians demonstrated no interest in them. Happich took the level of consciousness he called "symbolic consciousness," which seems to lie between consciousness and unconsciousness, as the point of departure for all creative production and, therefore, also for the healing process. On this level the "collective unconscious" can express itself through symbolism. It is in the activation of the possibilities of symbolic expression that Happich, as Schultz, sees [as] the point of departure for meditation and its therapeutic possibilities. How can we proceed practically? Assumed, as always, is the bodily solution which is attained systematically with the Schultz method or by more direct means. Happich placed great value in breathing as a graduated measure of the affective states which alters itself in the permissiveness of meditation. He encouraged, both before and during the therapeutic session, an increasing passivity of respiration. Most men can only achieve this through progressive breathing exercises. After some experience with physiological reactions to breathing exercises has been gained, the first psychological exercise, the so-called "Meadow Meditation," can be attempted. The meditator must repeat to himself the words of his meditation-master and imagine that he (the meditator) leaves the room, goes through the city, over the fields, to a meadow covered with fresh grass and flowers and looks upon the meadow with pleasure. Then, he psychically returns the same way to the room, opens his eyes, and relates what he has experienced. When this exercise can be done freely (which [TC2 221] usually requires a number of sittings) it is followed by the "Mountain Meditation." The meditator, as in the first meditation, goes into the country and then slowly climbs a mountain. He passes through a forest, and finally reaches a peak from which he can view a wide expanse. In the third step, the "Chapel Meditation" is explored. In it, the meditator passes through a grove and reaches a chapel which he enters and where he remains for a long time. Lastly, Happich has the meditator imagine himself sitting on a bench by an old fountain listening to the murmur of the water. What does all this mean? One who is familiar with dream symbolism knows immediately that the three central symbols (meadow, mountain, and chapel) to which the meditator is led have an "archetypal" significance even though, in everyday life, they are quite ordinary and in no way help to bring about an especially deep knowledge. However, when a certain depth of meditation is attained, such symbols lose their ordinary meaning and their symbolical value is slowly revealed. As the meditator returns to the meadow, he does not experience things as he would in the ordinary world. Rather the meadow provides a symbol of the hypnotic level of consciousness and stimulates the emotions on this level. The individual takes an ordinary situation as the means of experiencing the primordial content of the symbol of the meadow. The meadow presents youthful Mother Nature in her serene and beneficent aspect. In contrast a forest is also inhabited by demons. The meadow represents the blossoming of life which the meditator seeks. It also represents the world of the child. When one meditates on the symbol of the meadow, he regresses to his psychic origin in childhood. Once there, he does not uncover sexual dreams of his childhood as might be expected. Nor does he find a "stump," which can also be a meaningful symbol. Rather he returns to the positive, creative basis of his life. Every healthy man has in his psychic depths something corresponding to this meadow. He retains with him an active and creative "child." As the realm of this "child" is revealed through meditation on the symbol of the meadow, the meadow becomes a point of departure and crystallization for other symbols related to this psychic realm. These self-crystallized symbols are unmeditated expressions of the individual's adaptation to the realm of the "child" within his psyche. A healthy man will have a satisfying experience of a meadow in the flush of spring. He will populate the meadow with children or with the form of an agreeable woman. He will, perhaps, pick flowers and so on. In this way, the meditator discovers a symbolic representation of his psychic condition. The psychically ill find it impossible to visualize a fresh meadow and during meditation cannot find one. Or the meadow may be seen as wilted or [TC2 222] composed of a single stump. Or all sorts of disturbing, negative symbols may be scattered around. From such manifestations of illness, one gains a diagnosis which must then be translated into a therapy. Often, the meditation must be repeated many times until the crippling effects of the fundamental psychic problem are undone and the meditation can proceed normally. Analytic conversation with the psychotherapist normally aids the whole process. In climbing the mountain, the meditator will generally symbolize some obstacle in his way so that he must prove himself. Climbing in this psychic sphere always implies "sublimation," in the Jungian rather than the Freudian use of the term. The words transformation, spiritualization, or humanization might convey the idea better than the word "sublimation." In any case, the climbing is a symbol of a movement during which man demonstrates his capacity to develop toward the goal of psychic freedom, the peak of human being. The passage through the forest on the way up the mountain gives the meditator the opportunity to reconcile himself with the dark, fearful side of nature. With the symbol of the chapel, the meditator is led into the innermost rooms of his psyche where he faces the simple question of how he relates to the possibilities of psychic transformation within man. When the meditator is able to comprehend the symbolic significance of the chapel, he can learn to use it to uncover and face in himself the central problems of human life. The chapel also provides a stage on which the resolution of these central human problems can be symbolically revealed. It is Happich's idea that the "religious function" is the most intimate and not an invisible factor in human life. Further, he believed that man, if he will be really healthy and psychically free, sometime and somehow must face these questions. One cannot avoid the fact that the special efficacy of Happich's therapy was the result of his religious attitude. He developed a Christian meditation. That his system of meditation is based on sound psychological principles is confirmed by the work of the Jungian school. Dreams have been recorded where a mountain is seen in a landscape and on the mountain stands a church. Such symbolic pictures have been valued psychically as an indication of the end of the process of "individuation," as a symbol of the attainment of "spirituality." But in meditation one does not wait until the needed symbols are produced spontaneously, as during dream analysis. Rather, the meditator is forced to occupy himself with certain symbols selected by the therapist until he has explored the fullness of their meaning. Happich directed his meditators to a higher step which he called "Design (or Mandala, a Sanskrit word literally meaning circle, but more specifically an abstract design used especially in Tibetan Buddhism as a stimulus during meditation) Meditation." The design which is meditated upon is a [TC2 223] kind of condensation, an abstraction of many symbols which are united into a generalized form. In the course of meditation on these designs, the meaning of the inherent symbolism can become obvious. With Mandala Meditation, the goal is not production of extensive fantasy, but rather a lively meditation revolving around the central meaning of the design. Eventually, the meditator is directed to psychically identify himself with the symbol and to integrate the meaning of the symbol with his psychic life. Properly speaking, these designs are not used as a technique of therapy, but rather in furthering the highest development of personality. An example of what can be experienced through meditation on a design can be read in the opening of Geothe's Faust, where Faust beholds the design ofthe macrocosmos. A still more abstract form of meditation is "Word Meditation," directed toward unfolding the central human importance of a word or a saying. Meditation on designs and words are of the greatest importance in furthering religious development. Happich holds the healthy principle of the equality of rational and irrational activity during the course of meditation. On the other hand, one should not meditate on symbols or designs which stimulate dangerous negative emotions, as for example, a snake or a scorpion. The subject of meditation should be purified through thousands of years' experience of the wisest men, and be of proven value as is the case with many Egyptian, Hindu, and German symbols and also the holy symbols of the Greek church. The first requirement of such symbols is the impression of their positive transforming power, which can be regulated by man's psyche. R. Desoille, a Frenchman, described one of the newest and most original techniques (Desoille, 1945, 1947, 1950). His procedure is not meditation in the classical sense. The emphasis is shifted toward more conventional depth psychology. But it deserves discussion as a technique of actively relating to the unconscious. Desoille treats his patients in a state of limited consciousness, in which he suggests that symbols be plastically visualized and actively experienced. He directs his patients to psychically wander wherever they choose, availing themselves of any means, a kind of wandering into which most patients soon fall. They experience, for example, the climbing of a mountain or a tower, ascent into the clouds, etc. Especially important is the climbing, for reasons already discussed. In this wandering, all possible hindrances are eliminated. As in dreams, various symbolic forms are manifested from the "personal and collective unconscious"—in both auspicious and horrible aspects. Meeting "archetypal" symbols is considered especially effective. The patient relates his psychic experiences as he has them, and the turning [TC2 224] point of the method is the therapist's reaction to them. As he is informed in each moment of the psychological scene, the therapist suggests to the patient a symbolic means of changing his (the patient's) situation by climbing or descending. The therapist does not suggest the whole fantasy; rather, he gives only a direction and maintains control of the fantasy by offering helpful symbols which can serve as points of crystallization for the fantasy. The technique is a good one. In the climb, Desoille realizes and makes use of the human ability for creative sublimation. In the descent, the patient comes to know psychic productions from the sphere of man's instinctual nature. The patient is led to the psychological execution of what Goethe poetically described as the way "from heaven through the world to hell." In other words, he penetrates through the patient's whole psychic report and provides symbolic expressions of inherent libidinal tendencies which motivate men on various psychic levels. Decisive for Desoille is the experience of meeting the "archetypes" which lead man to the absolutes of existence and the last decision, a decision of absolute and vast importance. Desoille's valuation of the "collective unconscious" is more radical and consequential than Jung's; in this he (Desoille) holds that the meeting with the "collective unconscious" is a decisive and unavoidable presupposition of the therapeutic process. Desoille holds that when the
patient can relate himself to the "archetypes of the collective
unconscious," he can find in them the appropriate adjustment to the
problems of life. The patient must learn to control the "archetypes"
within himself, to be free from them, and thereby lose his fear of them.
He can then comprehend and resolve his personal conflicts within the
larger context of man's inherent problems. Thus, the patient experiences
his personal conflicts as having an impersonal and collective background.
The motivational (libidinal) conflict is not resolved by being transferred
upon the therapist, as in psychoanalysis; rather, the patient uncovers, in
himself, the basic roots of the conflict. The goal of the technique is to
direct the patient toward the fulfillment of his human potentialities
through the creative development of man's basic biological impulses into a
higher and harmonic order. With this idea, Desoille enters the realm of
ethics and religion. Religious sensitivity is, for Desoille, the highest
psychic state and the source of great activity. The technique is, in a unique way, both diagnostic and therapeutic and the seemingly irrational procedure is worthy of note. Penetration of the [TC2 225] psychic situation using reasonable conversation is given up. The therapeutic principle lies in the acceleration and furthering of effective development. It is a healing process which seeks the maximum transcendence of psychic limitations through symbolic ascensions and descensions. In this simple but most important principle, an earnest reminder can also be seen. Any therapist who would lead others to psychic heights and depths must, himself, be able to attain these heights and depths of the psyche. Contemporary psychotherapists will have to begin by training themselves to ascend and descend through their own psyche and thereby experience the manifold components within man and the driving forces behind human life. Who will accept Desoille's hypothesis and begin to look up and climb? Walter Frederking calls his psychotherapeutic technique "Deep relaxation and symbolism" (Frederking, 1948). Frederking's technique is unsystematic, which implies nothing about its value. Frederking also seeks freedom from dependence upon dreams by stimulating the unconscious to spontaneous productions of other kinds. To do this, he directs his patients in a progressive bodily relaxation during which they continue to describe their discoveries. One could also say he simply allows fantasy. The patient soon progresses from unclear visions to increasingly clearer productions of a kind of "symbolic strip thought." This symbolic thought, which has a significance similar to dream life, is allowed to flow by, scene by scene. The patient is both the playwright and the actors. He meets the contents of his "personal unconscious'' and, to a degree, the "collective unconscious" and is able to relate their contents directly and dramatically to his psychic problems. One could also say that the patient is directed to enter "hell" to conquer the fiendish demons. This meeting with generally unrecognized aspects of himself brings about a spontaneous healing through various transforming symbols. Frederking holds that "in dreams and symbols man is led through every sphere ofthe psyche, during which the forms of psychic force are able to resolve themselves without the use of other means and deep-going transformations are effected." Frederking also allows the therapy to be regulated by the autonomous healing force of the psyche. The technique is also irrational. Frederking knows, as all who work in these spheres know, that the therapist is in no way indifferent during the course of the therapy. It is true that he only occasionally interjects himself to clarify and point out the course of the healing. But the therapist knows that the patient can only experience the most favorably significant symbols at his own opportunity. Although the therapist remains essentially passive and does not interfere, the patient is still in the therapist's psychic field and may receive direction or formulation of impulses. [TC2 226] Friedrich Mauz has described another technique (Mauz, 1948). This technique is not meditation in the strictest sense, but it is related to it in many ways. With psychotics, the previously described methods are very dangerous and, therefore, rejected. Accordingly, the Mauz method is a severely restricted form of meditation in which the unconscious is most carefully tackled and channeled into productive performance. Manz does not mention preference for any technical preparation. The technique develops directly out of conversation considering the role of conditioned reflexes occurring daily at the same time. This conversation is almost a monologue in which the therapist depicts the patient in plastic and sympathy-evoking representative pictures from childhood; the experience of a procession, Christmas celebration in the family, a children's song, etc. The depiction must have, for the patient, an appropriate and intuitive power as a "solvent picture." It should unlock and enliven the suppressed emotions of the psychotic so that later a real conversation can develop. Manz aims, as does meditation in other respects, at the emotional level of the patient. Basically, he also leads the patient to the Happich childhood meadow, the creative ground of the psyche. But rather than wait for the patient to produce, Manz impregnates the meadow with symbols he knows will awaken positive feelings and meanings within the patient, such as the "security" of childhood with its guiltless pleasures. Through such feelings and symbols, the psychotic can again connect with the world around him. The creative power which flows from these feelings and symbols aids in closing the breach in the patient's personality. It is noteworthy how Manz describes important fundamental principles of meditation which he apparently discovered completely intuitively in genuine human behavior. The symbolic scene is the effector of the therapy, but only if it is experienced as real and actual; that is, as in meditation. "The picture must be personal and impersonal at the same time." It leads into the "sphere" of impersonal knowledge and reality." "All that is loud, obtrusive, and harsh must be avoided." The decisive experiences of the past present themselves in the stillness. We must "identify ourselves with the psychotic opposites." "The therapist mixes himself into a common solution with the patient and allows his own comfort to wait." One could say that the therapist must meditate on the patient. He must allow himself to be caught by the patient as the patient is caught by formulations of their psychic power. This is the mystical unity between the therapist and the sick. One must "not only analyze the illness," but also "know the possible health.'' The therapist must have before him a conception of the completely harmonic man and seek where he can find it again to develop it. [TC2 227] What happens here is biologically and ethically one. "The emotion of security," says Mauz, "is both vegetative and psychic." With this idea Mauz grasps the whole anthropological aspect of therapy. Decisive for Manz before all else, is "the simple human relationship." It appears most significant to the writer that a professional scientist like Mauz comes through his experience with meditation with the conclusion that "humanness" is the highest principle of therapy, an idea which is still far from scientific medicine today. Now to gather together the viewpoints which characterize and are combined in the various techniques. All involve the active provocation of the unconscious, as the writer wishes to call it, in which the therapist chiefly has the function of a "birth helper." The patient is directed to place himself in relation to his unconscious, and thus make its creative possibilities available in the healing process. In contrast with the conscious, passive attitude employed in analytical methods of treatment, one takes an active, conscious, and oriented part in the healing process when using meditative techniques. Also in contrast with analytical methods, the meditative technique strives for a goal-directed, but individually adapted, formulation of man's nature in which a picture of the transformed man stands in the background. In this respect, Frederking is a relative exception. In contrast with the analytical-psychological techniques, the basic exercises of meditation are not only applicable to healthy men, but are very useful. There is a value in the analysis of abnormality. Emphasis on the analytical is usually emphasis on our psychic past. During meditation, there is more dependence on the tendency toward health in the psyche. The orientation is synthetic rather than analytic. Meditation helps the patient to an expanded consciousness and impersonal experience and knowledge. Meditation has an advantage in that it allows the transition to religious problems to consummate itself in a completely natural way. The course of therapy is shorter with meditation because one is not dependent upon the mood of dreams and comes more quickly, both diagnostically and therapeutically, to the psychic conflict. Finally, with meditation, the patient does not ordinarily transfer his problem onto the therapist and, therefore, the resolution of transference is usually unnecessary. Opposed to the great range and efficiency of meditation is only one severe limitation. Meditation is limited by the subjectivity of both the therapist and the patient. Not without purpose are all the described experiences ascribed to a creator which none of the important schools has equaled. Unfortunately, each successful therapist forms his own school. Desoille and Mauz certainly demonstrate most unusual intuitions and artistic ability. Not every patient is equally able to fruitfully experience [TC2 228] the deeper levels of the psyche. Decisive is the problem of the psychic field of force described by Heyer, which is valid for all techniques which explore the deeper levels of the psyche. If the patient would resolve his intimate psychic problems, he must bring the symbols which expose them, either in dreams or in meditation, into higher levels of consciousness. Stimulation of the deeper levels of the unconscious is the art of psychotherapy, which really can be described only by the unscientific term "exorcism." Exorcism is not only the result of a learnable technique, but is rather the result of the whole personal influence of the therapist on the patient. Therefore, with all these techniques, competent therapists are required. With one therapist, the patient may experience only the most banal contents of his unconscious; and with another, the patient may have a decisive experience of psychic depths. Thus, the psychotherapist must have a sense of vocation as well as a technique. A sense of vocation is the consequence of natural gifts and skill. Such skill is not learned as a craft nor as a medical training, but rather through personal skill as it develops in the relationship between master and disciple. Great psychotherapy is unique and cannot be copied any more than a work of art. It is because the work of a master cannot be copied that one can learn from him. Meditation has a good chance of eventually becoming one of the leading therapeutic techniques. [really???] All the newer systems with which the writer is familiar look for a development in this direction. But whether or not this development takes place depends completely on a deep-going reformulation of psychotherapeutic training and the practice of psychotherapy. It is of the greatest importance whether psychotherapy continues to be sought in the direction of meditation. We can only hope that psychotherapy will continue to develop into a genuine technique which can aid men in their goal of developing their highest psychic potentialities. Shor, R. Hypnosis and the concept of the generalized reality-orientation. pp. 233-250 [TC2 243] Hypnosis is a complex of two fundamental processes. The first is the construction of a special, temporary orientation to a small range of preoccupations and the second is the relative fading of the generalized reality-orientation into nonfunctional awareness. [TC2 244] Hypnosis ... is not unique in manifesting these two processes. Unlike related conditions, however, hypnosis has the character of occurring within a special kind of interpersonal situation where the task at hand (the special orientation) is to produce certain expected phenomena and act like a hypnotic subject. When the task at hand is instead a personal preoccupation in a small range of interests, the resultant complex is not labeled hypnosis but rather absent-mindedness, or daydreaming, or intense meditation. [TC2 246] When the generalized reality-orientation fades (a) various mental contents excluded before can now flow more freely into phenomenal awareness, and (b) primary-process modes of thought may flow into the background of awareness to orient experiences. ...as the usual reality-orientation fades, its derivative distinctions between wishes, self, other, imagination and reality fade with it, as do many inhibitions, conscious fears and defenses, and primary-process material and primary-process modes of thought can flow more easily into awareness, and if they do, a new kind of orientation is created which shares some of the qualities of the dream. Thus, trance states can be in much greater communication with an individual’s unconscious functioning than in the usual waking [TC2 247] state, and it is not surprising that non-conscious strivings may be more easily implemented. [TC2 247] To the extent that the usual reality-orientation fades from the background of awareness, the greater the possibility that other experiences will occur which could not have fit into the usual reality-orientation, the greater the possibility that new, special orientations may be constructed at profound levels without recourse to the logic, knowledge, and critical functions of the usual reality-orientation, and the greater the possibility that primitive, syncretic contents and modes of thought will come into awareness. [TC2 248] ...distinction between trance and hypnosis [and meditation]. Trance is the superordinate concept used to refer to states of mind characterized by the relative unawareness and nonfunctioning of the. Hypnosis is a special form of trance developed in Western civilization, achieved via motivated role-taking, and characterized by the production of a special, new orientation to a range of preoccupations. [If I rephrase it like: “Meditation (and sannyas) is a special form of trance developed in Eastern civilization, achieved via motivated role-taking, and characterized by the production of a special, new orientation to a range of preoccupations,” it sounds almost like becoming a sadhu! Sadhuism as a permanent hypnotic state.] [TC2 253] Trance depth is the extent to which the usual generalized reality-orientation has faded into nonfunctional awareness. Trance, so defined, is not a strange mystic occurrence happening only in hypnosis, religious ecstacies, and such esoterica. Trance becomes seen as a daily, commonplace occurrence, a somewhat larger way of conceptualizing “selective attention,” and as familiar as the chaotic oblivion of the mind during sleep. [TC2 254] Depth of archaic involvement is (a) the extent to which during the hypnosis archaic object relationships are formed onto the person of the hypnotist; (b) the extent to which a special hypnotic “transference” relationship is formed onto the person of the hypnotist; (c) the extent to which the core of the subject’s personality is involved in the hypnotic processes. [TC2 254] [transference, etc. is]...unconscious fixation of the libido on the person of the hypnotizer by means of the masochistic component of the sexual instinct; nostalgic reversion to that phase of life when passive-receptive mastery represented the primary means of coping with the outside world; an appeal to that universal core which longs for wholesale abdication, unconditional obedience; security through participation in the limitless powers of the all-powerful parent; the evocation of archaic, infantile wish-fantasies regarding the parent-like “magic” omnipotence of the hypnotist. Autogenic Training: Method, Research, and Application in Medicine Luthe, Wolfgang. [TC2 309-319] [TC2 309] Autogenic training is a psychophysiologic form of psychotherapy which the patient carries out himself by using passive concentration upon certain combinations of psychophysiologically adapted stimuli. In contrast to the other methods of psychotherapy, autogenic training approaches and involves mental and bodily functions simultaneously. Passive concentration on Autogenic Standard Formulas can be so tailored that a normalizing influence upon various bodily and mental functions will result. From a neurophysiologic point of view there is clinical and experimental evidence indicating that certain changes of corticodiencephalic interrelations are the functional core around which autogenic training revolves (Schultz & Luthe, 1959). About 40 years ago the founder of the method, J. H. Schultz, psychiatrist and neurologist in Berlin, wrote the first publications about clinical and experimental observations of what he called "autogenic organ exercises" (1926a,b). In 1932, the first edition of Autogenic Training became available (Schultz, 1932). Since then, 10 German editions have appeared, translations into Spanish (1954), Norwegian (1956), and French (1958), [TC2 310] as well as a recent American edition (1959). During the last three decades autogenic training has become widely known in Europe and today it is regarded as a valuable standard therapy in various fields of medicine. It has also been integrated into the training programs of many universities (Schultz & Luthe,1959;Durand de Bousingen, (1962a),1962; Luthe,1962a; Muller-Hegemann,&Kohler,1961 ;Muller-Hegemann&Kohler-Hoppe,1962). The steady increase of interest in autogenic training is reflected by the progressively increasing number of publications of a clinical and experimental nature (Luthe, in Stokvis, Ed., 1960). During each of the last three years more than 100 articles on the subject were published in medical journals and books. It is interesting, however, that only about I per cent of a total of about 1,000 publications were written by English speaking authors (Schultz & Luthe, 1959). Background Of The Method The beginning of autogenic training stems from research on sleep and hypnosis carried out in the Berlin Institute of the renowned brain physiologist Oskar Vogt during the years 1890 to 1900. Vogt observed that intelligent patients who had undergone a series of hypnotic sessions under his guidance were able to put themselves for a self-determined period of time into a state which appeared to be very similar to a hypnotic state. His patients reported that these "autohypnotic" exercises had a remarkable recuperative effect (Schultz & Luthe, 1959, 1961). At the time he observed that these short-term mental exercises, when practiced a few times during the day, reduced stressor effects like fatigue and tension. Other disturbing manifestations, as, for example, headaches, could be avoided and the impression was gained that one's over-all efficiency could be enhanced. On the basis of these observations Vogt considered such self-directed mental exercises to be of definite clinical value. He called them "prophylactic rest-autohypnoses" (Prophylaktische Ruhe-Autohypnosen). Stimulated by Vogt's work (Schultz,1951)J. H. Schultz became interested in exploring the potentialities of autosuggestions. His aim was to find a psychotherapeutic approach which would reduce or eliminate the unfavorable implications of contemporary hypnotherapy, such as the passivity of the patient and his dependency on the therapist. During subsequent years, while investigating the question of hallucinations in normal persons, Schultz collected data which appeared to link up with Vogt's prophylactic mental exercises (1932). Many of Schultz's hypnotized subjects reported to have experienced, almost invariably, two types of sensations: a feeling of heaviness in the extremities often involving the whole body and frequently associated with a feeling of agreeable warmth. [TC2 311] Schultz concluded that the psychophysiologic phenomena related to the experience of heaviness and warmth were essential factors in bringing about the changes from the normal to a hypnotic state. The next question was whether a person could induce a psychophysiologic state similar to a hypnotic state by merely thinking of heaviness and warmth in the limbs. The systematic pursuit of this question was the actual beginning of autogenic training. Under certain technical circumstances and by the use of passive concentration on verbal formulas implying heaviness and warmth in the extremities, Schultz's subjects were able to induce such a state, which appeared to be similar to a hypnotic state. The self-directed nature of the approach had a number of clinical advantages over the conventional techniques of hypnosis, among them, the active role and the responsibility of the patient in applying the treatment and the elimination of dependence on the hypnotist.
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