Dear Neighbors:
This morning a friend sent me an article titled, "A Grofian BPM Perspective on Our COVID-19 Situation," by Northern Illinois University Professor Emeritus Thomas Roberts.
As my long-time listeners will recall, Stanislav Grof was a pioneer of transpersonal psychology who dedicated much of his career to studying unconscious memories – including the birthing process, which infants experience as their first traumatic event. As a citizen of Czechoslovakia under the former Soviet Union, Grof administered over 3,000 doses of LSD legally in a clinical context to peel back the "onion layers" of his patients' consciousness.
Roberts uses Grof's framework of the "Basic Perinatal Matrices" to draw an extended analogy between the stages of being born and the stages we have gone through since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. He speculates:
"I wonder whether the armed groups that have taken over state capitals and the open demonstrations are overtly, partly, and unconsciously being energized by the violent struggle of BPM III [the third, climactic phase of being born]."
Roberts then goes on to hope that the fourth and final phase may be imminent. The fourth phase occurs after the difficult struggle to push through the birth canal gives way to the celebratory rush of freedom and being born.
You can read Roberts' full article here, and tune in LIVE, this Tuesday at 9am PACIFIC, for an encore broadcast of my show from several years ago featuring Dr. Stanislav Grof, who will turn 90 on July 1. With this context at hand, I will be interviewing Roberts soon on his fascinating and insightful article.
Please forward this email, share via the links below, or post the "listen-live" link to alert your friends and neighbors to this live broadcast.
Wishing you excellent health,
Richard Louis Miller, M.A., Ph.D.
Host, Mind Body Health & Politics
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