Spiritual Emergency

If you have a spiritual emergency -- a mental or physical health problem caused by meditation or spiritual experiences -- you can get help from the sites listed at the bottom of this page.

Spiritual experience can feel like bliss, but it can also feel like hell. It can cause hallucinations, seizures, pain, panic attacks, mania, severe depression -- all the symptoms of physical and mental illness.

When people suffer this way, they may feel like they're going crazy, and their doctors may agree. But the authors of this book think that in many cases, such a diagnosis is mistaken. They urge the adoption of a new category of clinical diagnosis, "spiritual emergency."

This book contains fourteen papers, many of them excellent, by doctors and other experts on the following types of spiritual crises:

1. The shamanic crisis.
2. Awakening of kundalini.
3. Episodes of unitive consciousness ("peak experiences").
4. Psychological renewal through return to the center.
5. The crisis of psychic opening.
6. Past-life experiences.
7. Communications with spirit guides and "channeling."
8. Near-death experiences.
9. Experiences of close encounters with UFOs.
10. Possession states.

Shared Transformations
A forum for people with ongoing kundalini activity. It offers help for distressing kundalini symptoms and has superb lists of books and links.

Spiritual Emergence Network
Support and resources for individuals experiencing difficulties with their spiritual growth. Trained graduate students in the School of Professional Psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies respond to each caller providing assistance and educational information regarding spiritual emergence. They can also make referrals to licensed mental health professionals in the caller's area.

This page was published on January 23, 2000.