Spiritual Emergence/Emergency

Spiritual emergence is a natural opening and awakening that many people experience as a result of coming to terms with the difficulties of life, through an established faith tradition, as a result of systematic spiritual practices or through unexpected peak experiences.  Spiritual emergences gently allow one to experience and embrace their natural connection to the transcendent domain, forever changing their limiting self concepts into a more integrative, awakened self.  
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Spiritual emergence and spiritual emergency are on a continuum of experience.  When the process of spiritual change becomes rapid and dramatic this normal process may become a crisis or a spiritual emergency.  Powerful feelings, images, inner experiences and physical sensations and energies may emerge that are overwhelming and challenging to daily functioning.  When properly supported and integrated, spiritual crises can lead to deeper levels of awareness and connection to the Divine.

​According to Christina and Stanislav Grof, M.D., "One of the most important implications... is the realization that many of the conditions, which are currently diagnosed as psychotic and indiscriminately treated by suppressive medication, are actually difficult stages of a radical personality transformation and of spiritual opening. If they are correctly understood and supported, these psychospiritual crises can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, remarkable psychological transformation, and consciousness evolution" (Grof & Grof, 1989, 1990).

What is Spiritual Emergence?

"Spiritual emergence is the process of personal awakening into a level of perceiving and functioning, which is beyond normal ego functioning.  At its peak, spiritual emergence is the experience of the ultimate unity of all things, a mystical experience, a merging with the Divine which transcends verbal description. Among the positive effects of this process are increased creativity, feelings of peace and an expanded sense of compassion" (Bragdon, 1988, p.10).

What is Spiritual Emergency?

“Spiritual emergency can be defined as critical and experientially difficult stages of a profound psychological transformation that involves one’s entire being.  They take the form of non ordinary states of consciousness [enhanced states of awareness] and involve intense emotions, visions and other sensory changes, and unusual thoughts, as well as various physical manifestations. These episodes often revolve around spiritual themes; they include sequences of psychological death and rebirth, [experiences that transcend spatial/temporal boundaries], feelings of oneness with the universe, encounters with various mythological beings and other similar motifs.” (Grof & Grof, 1989, 1990).