Stanislav Grof

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.

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.

Unlike scientism, science in the true sense of the word is open to unbiased investigation of any existing phenomena.

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

There is an urgent need for a radical revision of our current concepts of the nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter and the brain.

I have to say I regretted giving up animated movies.

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

In the kind of world we have today, transformation of humanity might well be our only real hope for survival.

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.

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.

I believe it is essential for our planetary future to develop tools that can change the consciousness which has created the crisis that we are in.

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.

A number of cases have been reported in which a dying individual has a vision of a person about whose death he or she did not know.

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.

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

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.

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

The elimination of the fear of death transforms the individual's way of being in the world.

The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped.

The knowledge of the realm of death makes it possible for the shaman to move freely back and forth and mediate these journeys for other people.