Abstract

Western science is reluctant to separate psychological processes and spiritual experiences from the container of the physical body.  Because of this ontological bias, speaking in terms of subtle bodies and subtle energy seems too esoteric to be seriously considered by scientists.  In this paper I invite readers to suspend that bias.  

This paper looks at the ontological and intervention issues involved in viewing spiritual emergency in relation to subtle energy, and in using English Flower Essences or Native American Flower Essences as part of a balancing strategy.

Subtle Energy, Flower Essence Therapy, and Spiritual Emergency

Introduction

It is tempting to write an advocacy paper, to passionately espouse a particular view of the merits of belief in subtle energy, or to promote the efficacy of flower essence remedies in cases of spiritual emergency.  I shall, however, strive to resist that temptation, and to look instead at the critical issue of the ontology of pluralism in spiritual emergency, and the alternative supportive treatment of flower essence therapy.  Before discussing these issues, it is necessary to establish which ontological approach I am taking.

The phenomenon of spiritual emergency has gained attention as a topic of human science research with the rise of the field of transpersonal psychology.  Assagioli (1978/1989), Hendlin (1985), Lukoff (1985, 1996), Bragdon (1987, 1990), Perry (1989), Grof and Grof (1989), Watson (1994), and Lukoff, Lu, and Turner (1995, 1998), among others have contributed to expanding the understanding of what psychology calls psychotic episodes by establishing the idea of spiritual emergency as an alternative to the conventional biomedical explanation of psychopathology.  

The work of Grof and Grof established a list of the "important varieties of spiritual emergency" which include:  shamanic crisis, kundalini awakening, unitive consciousness experiences, psychospiritual renewal, psychic opening crisis, recall of past-life experiences, communications with disembodied spirits and channeling, near-death experiences, close encounters with extraterrestrial beings or UFOs, and possession by discarnate entities (p. 13).  For the purposes of this paper, I suggest that all of these forms of spiritual emergency have one common ontology. They all assume a unidimensional body as either the singular field in which the crisis phenomenon is played out, or as the recipient of forces external to that unidimensional body.  By considering a different ontology---that of subtle bodies and subtle energy---I do not mean to exclude the explanations listed above, but rather to offer one more possibility.

Pluralistic Ontology: 

Foundation for Subtle Bodies and Subtle Energy

          In Shorto's (1999) discussion of the responses of James, Freud, and Jung to the mysterious aspects of human experience, he points out that James' last work offered a view of reality as pluralistic (p. 31), which foreshadowed the infusion of the Eastern philosophies of non-dual reality into Western thinking that have remarkable resonance with the quantum physics of Bohm and Sheldrake---a point to which I shall return later in this paper.   Shorto also notes that "Jung believed that the mind and body---and the individual and the world---are connected in ways science does not imagine, but which the mystical traditions of all religions insist on" (p. 43).  Unfortunately for the development of the science of psychology, it was Freud's materialistic, biomedical view that matched the tenor of the times, and gave shape to psychology's ontology in a way that some are still working to revise. 

Jung, however, was not the only psychological scientist of prominence to question Freud's ontology early on.  Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli was originally trained in the Freudian mold, but departed from it to develop an approach to psychotherapy called Psychosynthesis, which encourages and integrates spiritual awakenings.  Assagioli was a leading figure in the early conceptualization of spiritual emergency, or what he termed "crises of spiritual awakening" (Grof and Grof, p. 31).  According to Grof and Grof, Assagioli's unique model of personality promotes a view of the self that "consists of many dynamic substructures that have a relatively separate existence and alternate in their governing influence on the psyche..."(p. 29).   This dynamism could be viewed as subtle energy, while the substructures bear some resemblance to the idea of subtle bodies. 

          Perhaps the most courageous Western-trained person to argue for a view of pluralistic reality was Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925), who developed an entire philosophy of spiritual science known as Anthroposophy.  Influenced by the Theosophical movement of the late nineteenth century, Steiner simplified Hindu and other Eastern mystical understandings of the pluralistic anatomy of the human being into a four-fold structure that starts with the physical body but goes beyond it to comprehend three other structures which are known as subtle bodies.  Steiner's schema labels these as the etheric body, the astral body and the spiritual body (Bott, 1984/1996). 

Interestingly, the contemporary clinical philosophy of naturopathic medicine also holds a concept of pluralistic ontology, wherein are found the mental body, the emotional body, and the spiritual body, in addition to the physical (E. Jones, personal communication, October, 1998).  Although Bott disavows that Steiner's etheric forces are another term for the vital force concept at the heart of naturopathic medicine  (p. 8), Kaminski and Katz (1986/1996), co-directors of the research and application oriented Flower Essence Society, understand the etheric body to be "the life sheath", or the subtle (meaning in this context unconfirmed or unmeasurable by current technologies) energy of "the vital forces of Nature" (p. 16).

          In trying to grasp non-dual reality concepts with a dualistically entrained mind,  Western writers tend to visualize the subtle bodies as concentric layers or fields surrounding the physical body, with the etheric body being the closest to the skin, followed by the astral and the spiritual bodies.  This may or may not be accurate, and it may not matter---it may be only the linear, materialistic bias that needs to have such concentric certainty.  The pluralistic ontology allows for more than one explanation to have truth at the same time.   What is important for this discussion is to acknowledge subtle bodies at minimum as a metaphor.

Quantum physics speaks of interpenetrating and interacting fields of energy (Bohm, 1980), and it may be this metaphor that is more salient to the phenomenon of spiritual emergency.  Sheldrake, with Fox in Natural Grace (1996), writes that the idea of fields and energy are now considered more basic to physics than the mechanistic concept of matter (p. 23).  "Fields...are invisible organizing principles," (p. 22) Sheldrake explains in language more comfortable to the skeptical Western mind than the esoteric language of subtle bodies. 

Wolinsky (1993), founder of a new approach to the study of the psyche called Quantum Psychology, explains that "the word quantum comes form the word quanta, meaning energy packet....each experience is like a packet of energy" (p. 46). Medical doctor and acupuncturist William Loeliger (date not given) uses the term "human energy fields", when speaking of the subtle bodies, and writes that:

Physical illnesses are generally detectable in one or all of the energetic fields. Because the etheric body acts as an "energy template" for the physical body, illness can often be detected before it manifests in the physical body or in its very early stages (source online, no page numbers given).

Fred Alan Wolf (1986) proposes that "Illness...results from a disharmony produced when parallel universes sing out of tune because they fail to listen to each other" (p. 262), which brings in another important aspect of this discussion, the concept of resonance.  Wolf also says that:

 The body...is perhaps viewed best as a confluence of agreement brought forward by a resonance of parallel processes, each process taking place in a parallel world.  What we call reality, in effect, is made up of the infinities of processes, each taking place in separate and noninteracting worlds (p. 259).

Gerber (1988) writes in Vibrational Medicine about dissonant processes known in energetic medicine as miasms.  "Miasms are energetic tendencies which predispose an individual toward manifesting particular illnesses....Hahnemann, the father of modern homeopathy, felt that miasms were the root causes of all chronic diseases and a contributing factor to many acute illnesses"   (p. 260).  Gerber, using a more complex schema of subtle bodies than Steiner, further explains that:

Miasms are stored in the subtle bodies, especially the etheric, emotional, mental and to a lesser extent, astral bodies....Miasms may lie dormant in the subtle bodies and aura for long periods of time.  They are organized in the subtle bodies, and gradually, through biomagnetic fields about the physical body, miasms penetrate the molecular level, then the cellular level (individual cells), and finally the physical body... (from Gurudas, Flower Essences and Vibrational Healing, p. 41, presented in Gerber, p. 261)).

Lukoff (1996) parallels Gerber in pointing out "...an alternative perspective of psychosis as potentially 'breakthrough rather than breakdown,' as R.D. Laing stated it" (p. 272).  This perspective begs the question: what is breaking through what, to what?  Laing, as well as Lukoff, might suggest that it is spiritual insight or archetypal patterns that are breaking through some layer of unconsciousness into awareness.  I believe that another way to conceptualize this perspective is to say that it is the subtle energy of spiritual forces breaking through the boundaries of the spiritual body to be integrated into the astral body; that is, into the thinking and emotion experience of the individual.  When this breakthrough energy is too powerful for easy integration, some of its force spills over to affect the etheric, and potentially the physical, body.

Though by no means an exhaustive review of the threads of pluralistic ontology that are woven into the foundation of contemporary American psychology and alternative medicine, this sampling is enough on which to base an additional way to think about the phenomenon of spiritual emergency.  With this background, then, I propose that spiritual emergency can be seen as the interpenetration of disharmonious subtle energies into non-originating subtle bodies, creating dissonance in those subtle bodies. I reframe Gerber's miasms as chaotic dissonance/unresonance wherein experience has little or no alignment with the breakthrough spiritual energy.  It is this chaotic dissonance that we see and call spiritual emergency, or psychosis.

Spiritual Emergency and Flower Essence Remedies

For purposes of this discussion, I shall hold the following meanings for a four-fold system of subtle bodies:  1) the physical body---the material collection of cells, bone, tissue, blood, skin, etc.; 2) the etheric body---the vitalizing energy that sustains life; 3) the astral body---the cognitive, emotional, and perceptual processes and memories; and 4) the spiritual body---the teleologic and intuitive energetic fields that are the ineffable human spirit. The understanding of spiritual emergency I shall use to guide the remainder of this paper is that mental, emotional, and behavioral phenomena of imbalanced subtle energy intrusion that cannot be integrated in its presenting dynamic by the affected subtle bodies or holon of the experient of the disturbance. 

Key to this way of looking at spiritual emergency is the idea that subtle energies---whether they be archetypal patterns, karmic forces, or any of the other forms of spiritual emergency given in Grof and Grof---have the ability to imbalance the relational homeostasis of an experient's subtle bodies.  How this happens more precisely is beyond the scope of this paper, but this understanding leads to the idea that intervention strategies that work at the level of the subtle bodies are an appropriate response.  Given that context for the phenomena of spiritual emergency, I shall now address the intervention of flower essence remedies.

Shorto brings his book to a close with some tantalizing thoughts that are relevant to our discussion here.  "If you come to see all reality as one," he writes, "then religion and psychology merge....Psychological problems become spiritual problems, and are susceptible to spiritual solutions" (p. 233).  I propose that flower essence remedies serve to support those spiritual solutions, and are well suited as an adjunctive therapy for crises of spiritual awakening.  According to Kaminski (1998), " Flower essence therapy is part of a whole spectrum of modalities that view the human being and physical matter as networks of complex energy fields that interface with each other (p. 8). 

Although English physician Edward Bach (1886-1936) is credited as the father of flower essence therapeutics, the underlying science draws from Steiner, Goethe, and even the alchemy of Paracelsus and the ancient Hermetic traditions (Kaminski and Katz, 2000). "Flower essence therapy is, in fact, the revitalization of many alchemical methods, both in plant preparation and in the healing process" [as Bach followed in the footsteps of Paracelsus] (Kaminski, p. 27).  The alchemical principle summarized here--- as above so below, as without so within, as the universe so the soul--- guides the preparation and application of flower essence remedies. 

In other words, the spiritual qualities of various flowers can serve to assist an individual's vital force in harmonizing with its experience.  Kaminski writes that "Flower essences work according to the principle of resonance.  The specific structure and shape of life-force conveyed by each flower essence resonates with and amplifies particular qualities within the human soul" (p. 41).  As an intervention response for spiritual emergency, the correct essence strengthens the soul's own qualities, allowing experients to "be in" their experience without being overwhelmed by it.

Bach's research developed 39 essence remedies; contemporary research by the Flower Essence Society and others have added another 104 from native North American plants (Kaminski  and Katz, 1986/1996, pp. 404-405).  Of those, 23 are listed in the Flower Essence Repertory (Kaminski  and Katz, 1986/1996, p. 170) under the category of emergency, and 29 are listed under spiritual emergency (p. 262).  Other categories in the Repertory that may assist certain individuals in various phases of spiritual emergency include: addiction, aggressiveness, anger, anxiety, catharsis, channeling, depression and despair, destructiveness, devitalization, disorientation, erratic behavior, escapism (hallucinations), fanaticism, fear, gloom, hostility, hysteria, insomnia, martyrdom,  paranoia, psychism, shadow consciousness, and transformation.

Gerber helps us understand the benefit of flower essences:

Flower essences (and other vibrational remedies) provide one method of impacting upon the miasmatic tendencies toward illness.....Their mechanism of action in the case of miasms is not to directly purify the subtle bodies but to integrate with the higher chakras of the body, and thus allow the consciousness of the individual to move to a level where these energies may be discharged from the bioenergetic system (p. 264).

In her Sourcebook for Helping People in Spiritual Emergency (1987), Bragdon says that

"Grounding, centering or stimulating catharsis...are commonly needed during the first encounter" [with spiritual emergency] (p. 87).  Flower essences assist in these processes, without dampening the psychospiritual experience in progress.  Rather than dulling inner awareness like anti-psychotic pharmaceuticals, flower essences stimulate calm and clarity, help clear obstacles to balance such as fear or emotional withdraw, and decrease cognitive disorientation and confusion so that the emergence experience can be discerned and articulated (see appendix).  The experient is enabled to be in the experience of emergence, to face the fears as they arise without being overwhelmed into panic or self-destruction.  The benefit for companions to the experient, be they therapists or housemates, is that the experient is better able to articulate perceptions so that such companions can assist in navigating through the unfamiliar territory of dramatic awakenings. 

Critical Issue in Flower Essence Use

          The central critical issue regarding flower essences is to understanding that they belong to the paradigm of energetic medicine.  As such they work from the principles of quantum physics, and resonance, as I have indicated.  They are not designed to be used to suppress disturbing symptoms, which is the desired drug action arising from the paradigm of conventional pharma-allopathy.  To elucidate:

Energetic medicine is that which works with the vibrational resonance of a patient, using the vibrational frequency of a plant or mineral substance, the vibrational energy of an affective state, and in some cases, the vibrational signature of a pathogen present in the history of the patient or the patient's genetic inheritance.  Homeopathy and Flower Essence Remedies are considered energetic medicines because they work at the level of vibrational resonance....Rather than directly impacting any biochemical interaction or mechanism, energetic medicine works on human energy fields to influence patterns in thought, affect, and physical dis-ease (Curry, 2000, p. 29).

Just as Reiki, massage therapy, and some forms of meditation and prayer are also considered energetic medicine, so too would be the companioning strategy of Perry (1998), wherein the qualities of healing presence and relationship are the medicine.

While a complete explanation of how to prepare and use flower essences cannot be undertaken here, the point to make is that their use requires a different way of thinking about the nature of dramatic behavior, and the ontology of spiritual emergency.  Rather than focusing on something to be eliminated, the therapeutic focus is on what spiritual or emotional qualities to enhance in order to help experients interpret, synthesize, and integrate their crisis experience.

Summary

          In this paper I have drawn attention to an alternative view of the underlying ontology for spiritual emergency that comes from quantum physics as well as ancient spiritual science.  It has been my contention that to approach psychospiritual crises from this view provides the clinician a wider range of options for interpretation and intervention.  The critical issue involved is to recognize that the ontology of non-dual reality requires that the disturbances in the subtle bodies be effectively treated by interventions involving subtle energies, rather than by the overpowering pharmaceuticals and other conventional treatments that serve to suppress those subtle energies.

References

Assagioli, R. (1978/1989). Self-realization and psychological disturbances. In Grof, S., and Grof, C.  (Eds.) Spiritual emergency:  When personal transformation becomes a crisis , pp. 27-48, (1989).  Los Angeles:  Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.  Originally published in Synthesis magazine, no. 3-4, pp. 148-171, 1978.

Bohm, D. (1980) Wholeness and the implicate order. Boston:  Routledge & K. Paul.

Bott, V. (1984/1996).  Spiritual science and the art of healing:  Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical medicine.  Rochester, VT:  Healing Arts Press.

Bragdon, E. (1987).  A sourcebook for helping people in spiritual emergency.  Los Altos, CA:  Lightening Up Press.

Bragdon, E. (1990)  The call of spiritual emergency: From personal crisis to personal transformation. San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc.

Curry, D. (2000).  Healing suffering, part one:  A picture of shame.  Unpublished manuscript presented as an independent study project, Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco.

Fox., M., & Sheldrake, R. (1996).  Natural grace:  Dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science.  New York:  Image Books/DoubleDay.

Gerber, R. (1988).  Vibrational medicine:  New choices for healing ourselves.  Santa Fe, NM:  Bear & Co.

Grof, S., & Grof, C. (1989)  Spiritual Emergency:  Understanding evolutionary crisis.  In Grof, S., and Grof, C.  (Eds.) Spiritual emergency:  When personal transformation becomes a crisis, pp 1-26. (1989).  Los Angeles:  Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Hendlin, S.J. (1985).  The spiritual emergency patient:  Concept and example.  Psychotherapy Patient.  Spr., Vol 1 (3):  79-88.

Kaminski, P. (1998).  Flowers that heal: How to use flower essences.  Dublin, Ireland:  Newleaf/Gill & MacMillan Ltd.

Kaminski, P., & Katz, R. (2000).  The soul language of nature:  Botanical plant families of flower essences.  Tenth annual ISSSEEM conference workshop.  Nevada City, CA:  Flower Essence Society.

Kaminski, P., and Katz, R. (1986/1996)  Flower essence repertory.  Nevada City, CA.:  Flower Essence Society.        

Loeliger, W. (no date given) Energy medicine.  Available online at: http://www.subtle-energy.com/EM.html

Lukoff, D. (1985).  The diagnosis of mystical experiences with psychotic features.  Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Vol 17 (2):  155-181.

Lukoff, D. (1996).  Transpersonal psychotherapy with psychotic disorders and spiritual emergencies with psychotic features. In Scotton, B.W.; Chinen, A.B.; and Battista, J.R. (Eds.), Textbook of transpersonal psychiatry and psychology, pp. 271-281.  New York:  BasicBooks.

Lukoff, D.; Lu, F.G.; and Turner, R. (1995).  Cultural considerations in the assessment and treatment of religious and spiritual problems.  Psychiatric Clinics of North America.  Sep; Vol 18 (3):  467-485.

Lukoff, d.; Lu, f.; and Turner, R.  (1998)  From spiritual emergency to spiritual problem:  The transpersonal roots of the new DSM-IV category.  Journal of Humanistic Psychology.  Spr, Vol 38 (2):  21-50.

Perry, J.W. (1989).  Spiritual emergence and renewal. In Grof, S., and Grof, C.  (Eds.) Spiritual emergency:  When personal transformation becomes a crisis , pp 63-75, (1989).  Los Angeles:  Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Perry, J.W. (1998).  Trials of the visionary mind:  Spiritual emergency and the renewal process.  New York:  SUNY Press.

Shorto, R. (1999).  Saints and madmen:  Psychiatry opens its doors to religion.  New York:  Henry Holt and Co.

Watson, K.W. (1994).  Spiritual  emergency: Concepts and implications for psychotherapy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Spring; Vol 34 (2): 22-45.

Wolf, F.A. (1986).  The body quantum:  The new physics of body, mind, and health.  New York:  MacMillian Publishing Co.

Wolinsky, S. (1993).  Quantum consciousness:  The guide to experiencing quantum psychology.  Norfolk, CT:  Bramble Books.

Appendix: 

Flower Essences Helpful for Spiritual Emergency

A number of English and North American Flower Essences are appropriate for persons undergoing an acute episode of spiritual emergency.  These infusions work by the principle of vibrational resonance, similar to homeopathic remedies.  According to Kaminski and Katz, (1986/1996), "...the specific structure and shape of the life forces conveyed by each flower essence resonate with, and awaken, particular qualities within the human soul" (p. 3). Rather than treating the symptoms, as in allopathy, flower essences should be used to treat the whole picture of a patient's life in order to restore balance.  For this reason, an essence that may be effective for one person in spiritual crisis may be different from the effective essence for another person in an acute spiritual emergency.  Some of the more commonly used flower essences for spiritual emergency are listed below. Reference:  Kaminski, P., and Katz, R. (1986/1996)  Flower essence repertory.  Nevada City, CA.:  Flower Essence Society.

sFive-Flower Formula, also known as Rescue Remedy

for immediate calming and centering

sPurple Monkeyflower

for extreme fear or hysteria of psychic origin

sCherry Plum (one of the essences in Five Flower Formula)

for out of control, hysterical, suicidal or destructive behavior due to extreme stress

sAngelica

for protection and guidance from the spiritual realms, especially if psychic centers have been opened too quickly

sAspen

          for fear of the unknown when crossing a spiritual threshold

sGarlic

          for psychic infestation of entities that prey on the life force

sMountain Pennyroyal

          for invasion or being taken over by other entities, psychic toxicity

sYarrow

          for protection due to overly porous auric field