Table of Contents

Preface Upstairs and Downstairs; Mapping and Psyche; Section 1. Intense States of Meaning 1. Visiting Heaven and Hell Adam's Visit to Hell; Brief Psychotic Episode?; Martin's Visit to Heaven; Through the Filmiest of Screens; The Psyche as a Sense Organ; An Overplus of Meaning; 2. Is There an Underlying Reality? Plato's Search for Truth; Plato's Cave; Ascent and Return; Plato's Archetypes; Enlightenment and Endarkenment Archetypal Crisis; 3. Jung's Archetypal Voyage Carl's Story; Jung's Crisis The Descent into the Unconscious; Philemon; Septem Sermones; Set Setting and Integration; So What Was the Matter with Jung? 4. Archetypal Crises Ruth's Story; Managing Turbulence; Charles and the Disappearing Dot; Seeking Shiva; 5. Archetypal Penetrance The Bio Psycho Social Archetypal (BPSA) Model of Psyche; Martial Risings; High Archetypal Penetrance (HAP) States; Luisa and the Dog Mess; Low Archetypal Penetrance (LAP) States; 6. Synchronicity Sally's Story; Encounter with the Numinous; Synchronicity; Last Day at the Royal London; 7. A Meaning Filled Mind Field Mind or Machine; David Bohm and the Implicate Order; Meaning and the Evolution of Consciousness; Transmissive Mind; Models and Beliefs Systems; 8. Transcendent Nature The Heath; Heavenly Gardens; Scafell Pike and the Dissolving Map; The Forest of Arden; Section 2. Self, Shadow and Us 9. Crisis - Danger and Opportunity. The Disillusioned Psychiatrist; Crisis and Suicidal Thought; Dan's Darkest Night; Working with the Mindset; Transference and Counter Transference; Delusional Mood; 10. Breaking Down or Breaking Through? Archetypal Crisis or Mental Illness? The Importance of Good Diagnosis; Fundamentalism; Kundalini; Bipolar Disorder; Spiritual Emergency; Mixed States - Marion's Story; 11. The Journey to the Self The Grail Within; Atman or Self; Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey; Jack and his Magic Beans; Milky White; The Fool; 12. Icarus and Narcissus Simon and the Madonna; Luke Meets his Mother Again; Max the Seeker; The Myth of Narcissus; Psychic Retreats; Residues of the Infantile; Ego Inflation; 13. Into the Darkness The Shadow; Gary on the Neurology Ward; Collective Shadow; Abused Children; The Problem of Evil; Hearing Voices; The Bad Trip; The Golden Boy; Nigredo States; Jumpers, Hangers and Stabbers; 14. The Numinous Feminine The Death of a Princess; Anorexia Nervosa; The Shadow of the Feminine; Anorexia and Sainthood; Ana Cool; The Anima; Rediscovering the Global Feminine; 15. Ego Death and the Midlife Crisis The Challenge of Mid Life; Stefan and the Sami; Ordinary Awakenings; The Archetypes of the Chakra System; Heart Opening; Egolescence; Transformation in O; 16. Pain and the Perinatal Police Officer Sandy and the Moment of Impact; Pain in the Brain; Enter Stanislav Grof; The Perinatal Layer of Psyche; Sandy Remoulded; The Tumultuous Struggle to be Born; The COEX; 17. Matters of Heart Lady NHS; Raymond's Last Rampage; Unkindness; Intelligent Kindness; The Saturn Archetype; Section 3. Working with the Numinous. 18. Encounter with Death Dying Mindfully; Children who Remember Previous Lives; The Ascent of the Dragonfly; Archetypes of Near Death; Philippa's Story; The Crystal Bowl; 19. Mindfulness and the Empathic Observer Meditation and the Chattering Mind; Mindfulness Practice; Mindfulness in the Emergency Room; Yoga and the House of Many Rooms; Darkness Retreat; Living Mindfully; 20. The Way of the Imagination Beyond the Personal Psyche; Stalingrad with Woolger; Cispersonal Psyche; Active Imagination; The Pink Spider; Shamanic Journeying; Monroe and Hemi-Sync; Confusion of Levels; 21. Psychedelics - Gateway to the Numinous Eleusinian Mysteries; Psychedelic - Archaidelic; Venus in a Tablet; Sacred Medicine; Therapy of Substance; Integration; Ayahuasca Retreat; 22. Breathing Esalen and the Transpersonal Movement; The Holotropic Breathwork Retreat; An Inner Healing Intelligence; Hysteria and Dissociative States; The Neptune Archetype; Pitfalls and Side Effects; Kansas Transformed;

About the Author

Dr Tim Read has degrees in neuroscience and in medicine and completed trainings in psychoanalytical and transpersonal psychotherapy. He is a consultant psychiatrist who worked for twenty years at the Royal London Hospital, UK.

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