Spiritual emergencies are moments of messy awakening, crises of ego dissolution and rebirth that are often misunderstood and unskillfully managed by materialist psychiatry. As more Westerners meditate and are drawn to psychedelics to foster their psycho-spiritual growth, mystical experiences are becoming more common-yet some of them will be disturbing and difficult. There is an urgent need for our culture to upgrade its understanding of what these experiences are like and what helps people through the turbulence.
Breaking Open is the first book in which people discuss their own spiritual emergencies and share what helped them through. The contributors are the experts of their own experience, and they share their wild journeys with courage, insight, and poetry. There are fascinating parallels in their experiences, suggesting minds in extremis go to similar places. These are beautiful postcards from the edge of human consciousness, testaments to the soul's natural resilience. These people have returned from their descent with valuable insights for our culture, as we go through a collective spiritual emergency, with old myths and structures breaking down, and new possibilities breaking open. What is there beyond our present egocentric model of reality? What tools can help us navigate the emergence?
Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION
Tim Read and Jules Evans
CHAPTER ONE
The ones who dream of tigers
Deborah Martin
CHAPTER TWO
The accidental guru
John Ablett
CHAPTER THREE
Chasing transcendence
Anna Beckmann
CHAPTER FOUR
Dissolving on the motorway
Louisa Tomlinson
CHAPTER FIVE
The in-between place
Jules Evans
CHAPTER SIX
The ball of light
Cornelia Cacu
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wrestling with angels
Stephen Fitzpatrick
CHAPTER EIGHT
The motherhood ear
Amy Pollard
CHAPTER NINE
The chaplain who thought he was Jesus
Satyin Taylor
CHAPTER TEN
The fire of becoming
Angela Cotter”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The boy who stank to high heaven
Rob Charles
CHAPTER TWELVE
From fear towards love
Dan Sherwen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The master
Mike Benthall
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The spiritual dimension of bipolar disorder
Sean Blackwell
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Tim Read and Jules Evans
BIOGRAPHIES AND FURTHER RESOURCES
INDEX
About the Author :
Jules Evans is an author, broadcaster, and academic philosopher. He is a research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London, where he researches the history and philosophy of flourishing. He also organizes the London Philosophy Club, the largest philosophy club in the world. He is the author of Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (2012) and The Art of Losing Control (2017). He blogs at www.philosophyforlife.org.
Tim Read is a medical doctor, psychiatrist, and psychotherapist based in London. He was Consultant Psychiatrist at the Royal London Hospital for twenty years, leading the Emergency Liaison Service and the Crisis Intervention Service. He has trained in psychoanalytic therapy (IGA) and in transpersonal therapy (GTT). He is a certified facilitator of Holotropic Breathwork and has a special interest in working with expanded states of consciousness. His book Walking Shadows: Archetype and Psyche in Crisis and Growth was published in 2015.
