A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

According to materialistic science, any memory requires a material substrate, such as the neuronal network in the brain or the DNA molecules of the genes.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Aldous Huxley actually used LSD to ease his transition at the time of his death.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Ancient eschatological texts are actually maps of the inner territories of the psyche that seem to transcend race and culture and originate in the collective unconscious.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

As long as I had easy access to psychedelics at the government-sponsored research project, most of my energy went into psychedelic sessions.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

At a time when unbridled greed, malignant aggression, and existence of weapons of mass destruction threatens the survival of humanity, we should seriously consider any avenue that offers some hope.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Coming to terms with the fear of death is conducive to healing, positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Consciousness after death demonstrates the possibility of consciousness operating independently of the body.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Dying before dying has two important consequences: It liberates the individual from the fear of death and influences the actual experience of dying at the time of biological demise.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death - the only certainty that life holds for us - must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Freud said that we are born as a tabula rasa. This is a model that simply is too superficial and inadequate.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

I have taken part in ceremonies with North American and Mexican shamans, as well as Brazilian ceremonies.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

I have to say I regretted giving up animated movies.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

I read Freud's Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis in basically one sitting. I decided to enroll in medical school. It was almost like a conversion experience.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

I spent much of my later childhood and adolescence very, very involved and interested in art, and particularly in animated movies.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

I volunteered for an LSD session. It was such a powerful opening of my own unconscious that I became more interested in psychedelics than in psychoanalysis.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

If consciousness can function independently of the body during one's lifetime, it could be able to do the same after death.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Individuals approaching death often experience encounters with their dead relatives, who seem to welcome them to the next world. These deathbed visions are authentic and convincing; they are often followed by a state of euphoria and seem to ease the transition.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

It became much more complicated politically to work with psychedelics because of the unsupervised experimentation with psychedelics, particularly among young people.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

It is possible to see the intermediate state between lives as being in a way more important than incarnate existence.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

It is possible to spend one's entire lifetime without ever experiencing the mystical realms or even without being aware of their existence.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Many instances exist of small children who seem to remember and describe their previous life in another body, another place, and with other people. These memories emerge usually shortly after these children begin to talk.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

My first LSD session in 1956. Since then my life has never been the same.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Research challenges the materialistic understanding of death, according to which biological death represents the final end of existence and of all conscious activity.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

The beliefs concerning reincarnation have great ethical impact on human life and our relationship to the world.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

The elimination of the fear of death transforms the individual's way of being in the world.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

The function of the brain is to reduce all the available information and lock us into a limited experience of the world. LSD frees us from this restriction and opens us to a much larger experience.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

The human psyche shows that each individual is an extension of all of existence.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

The materialistic paradigm of Western science has been a major obstacle for any objective evaluation of the data describing the events occurring at the time of death.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

The new formula in physics describes humans as paradoxical beings who have two complementary aspects: They can show properties of Newtonian objects and also infinite fields of consciousness.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

The psyche of the individual is commensurate with the totality of creative energy. This requires a most radical revision of Western psychology.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

There are people who can start having very powerful experiences without taking psychedelics. It can happen against their will. This is a universal phenomenon.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

There is a similarity between the LSD effects and the experiences associated with the process of dying.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Traditional academic science describes human beings as highly developed animals and biological thinking machines. We appear to be Newtonian objects made of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organs.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Walt Disney was my great hero.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced.
- Stanislav Grof Quote

Whether or not LSD research and therapy will return to society, the discoveries that psychedelics made possible have revolutionary implications for our understanding of the psyche, human nature, and the nature of reality.
- Stanislav Grof Quote