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Before my own experiences with plant medicine, I held a very narrow idea of what shamanism was. I thought it referred exclusively to South American curanderos — mysterious figures from distant jungles working with ayahuasca and other master plants. I had no idea that the term shaman  actually describes anyone who voluntarily enters altered states of consciousness to heal, guide, or serve their community. It is a cross-cultural phenomenon found in spiritual traditions across t

In discussions about consciousness and spirituality, one question continues to surface: Do we need psychedelics to experience mystical or exceptional human states, or can these mo ments arise naturally? As someone studying transpersonal psychology and immersed in the world of consciousness studies, I find this question both fascinating and challenging. The nature of mystical experiences makes them nearly impossible to quantify. Neuroscientists can observe what happens in the

This blog explores one of the three core strands of transpersonal psychology, emphasizing how integration is vital for personal growth and making the audience feel their role in advancing understanding.   “Transpersonal psychology is concerned with the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness” (Lajoie & Shapiro, 1992, P. 91). In this field, self-expansiveness

In the world of spiritual development, we often speak about awakening as something luminous — a moment of clarity, peace, insight, or divine connection. What we speak about far less is the other side of awakening: the collapse, the confusion, the overwhelming intensity that can arrive when the psyche tries to transform faster than the ego can integrate. Stanislav Grof, one of the pioneers of transpersonal psychology, gave this experience a name: spiritual emergency . A spirit