When The Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities

Book reviews:

Reviewer no. 1

Though this book was not what I was expecting (I thought it was about paranormal experiences, in general), I found it difficult to put down, although it took 3 days for me to read it all.

Grof explains his theories and observations about non-ordinary states of consciousness, with many personal experiences, and his experiences with research. Much of this book focuses on what he learned as a psychologist treating patients with psychedelics (LSD and other drugs). It is all quite fascinating and makes for an enthralling read.

While I won't go into great detail and spoil it for anyone, I will say, that as a student of the paranormal, and Fortean phenomena in general, this book makes a good addition to my bookshelf as Grof's observations about consciousness and reality tie in well with what I've been reading in other books.

Review no. 2

Space is not the final frontier

Sorry Captain Kirk.

Space is limited to the known universe which, vast as it is, pales in comparison to the unknown universes that exist just behind the shadows of our consciousness.

Like millions, I too have enjoyed the fabulous imaginary worlds, incredible futures and technological wizardry that bubble up from the minds of great science fiction writers.

Then I began to read about a part of each of us that we know relatively little about: our consciousness. What we know about consciousness comes from the very limited vantage point of our waking state, and a bit more from our dreams. This experience fools us into believing that this reality is all there is.

Western Science reinforces this idea since it is grounded in a philosophical worldview spread by a distinctly un-spiritual Christian mindset that sees true mystical experiences as the domain of only saints and psychotics.

But in 1943, a Swiss chemist named Albert Hofmann gave to the world a molecule that could allow anyone to experience conscious states far beyond our survival-mode highly-filtered reality.

This molecule, of course, was LSD and before the United States government rushed to judgement and declared all psychedelic substances as wholly unbeneficial for human research, amazing results were being published in the literature about the effectiveness of psychedelics in psychotherapy, in drug and alcohol addiction, in easing the fear of death in terminal patients and in non medical areas as creativity, problem solving and other intellectual and artistic endeavors.

One of the original researchers in the area of psychedelics was psychiatrist Stanislav Grof who added enormously to our knowledge of the mind and expanded greatly on both Freud and Jung in their understanding of how the mind works.

Realizing that much of what was being discovered regarding the psychedelic states of consciousness had been explored for thousands of years in Eastern philosophies as well as indigenous shamanism, he developed his Holotropic Breathwork technique to achieve these same states of consciousness after psychedelics were banned around the world in 1970.

His astounding findings over the past fifty years using both psychedelics and Holotropic Breathwork is the subject of this book and for me goes far beyond the imaginary worlds of science fiction into realms of reality that offer glimpses of not only our consciousness before and after our material deaths, but even the ability to experience the consciousness of any material entity; organic or inorganic.

Dr. Grof's work has given Western man something those in the East have known for millennia; that this span of time we call "our life" is simply a tiny momentary escape from the unlimited pool of consciousness that makes up the ALL of a Creative Consciousness.

The only downside to reading this book is that I fear I can never read science fiction again without feeling that no matter how creative and exciting the book is, it can't begin to compare with what exists just beyond the limits of our physical universe through our own consciousness.