Tissues are torn, blood vessels severed, blood spilled, much fluid is lost; the heart races and the blood pressure soars. There is moaning, crying, and screaming. A severe injury? No, only a relatively normal human birth. The description sounds pathological because the symptoms were not understood in relation to the outcome: a new human being.
In a darkened room a man sits alone. His body is swept by muscular spasms. Indescribable sensations and sharp pains run from his feet up his legs and over his back and neck. His skull feels as it will burst. Inside his head he hears roaring sounds and high‐pitched whistling. Then suddenly a sunburst floods his inner being. His hands burn. He feels his body tearing within. Then he laughs and is overcome with bliss. A psychotic episode? No, this is a psychophysiological transformation, a rebirth process as natural as physical birth. It seems pathological only because the symptoms are not understood in relation to the outcome: an enlightened human being.
When allowed to progress to completion this process culminates in deep psychological balance, strength, and maturity. Its initial stages, however, often share the violence, helplessness, and imbalance that attend the start of human infancy.
For thousands of years, from the ancient Vedas onward, this process has been described. Until recently, it was confined distant cultures, esoteric traditions, and a few isolated individuals. Accounts of it have usually been highly personal and often permeated with vague mysticism and strange mythology. As a result, the accounts were not taken seriously and no systematic comparison of the reports from different traditions was possible. Also, many of these traditions claimed divine revelation and absolute truth. Consequently professionals have remained confused, skeptical and suspicious.
Lately, two factors have changed this situation radically. First, there has been a marked increase in the number of people undergoing intense spiritual experiences within our own culture. Second, the influence of Western science has resulted in a new emphasis on describing the objective aspects this process in other societies as well as our own.
Consequently, it is now possible to compare the experiences of different traditions by a uniform set of standards and to apply those same standards making first‐hand clinical observations.
We find a marked uniformity in the descriptions of this process from widely disparate traditions. From the recorded experiences of Christian mystics, Sufi Masters, and yoga adepts, it is obvious that the basic essentials of the experience are the same. A study of these accounts, when enough detail is recorded, reveals symptom patterns and types of sensations that are similar to those found in our cases.
These common aspects have physiological components, and that activation of a single physiological mechanism is at the root of the wide diversity of phenomena we see. If these assumptions are correct, the idea of spiritual rebirth or enlightenment can no
longer be considered a confusing jumble of superstitions, religious dogmas, and wild rumors. Spiritual rebirth has become, instead, a well‐defined entity. We may now ask, what is this process? To what state does it lead? Do these people really develop psychic powers?
How does it differ from normality, on the one hand, and from psychosis on the other? Is it merely another one of the altered states of consciousness that many researchers are now exploring, or is it something more?
It is not simply an altered state of consciousness, but an ongoing process, lasting from several months to many years, during which the person passes in and out of different states of consciousness. The process falls outside the categories of both normal and psychotic, because a person undergoing the transformation has experiences far removed from normal, usually without becoming so disorganized as to be
considered psychotic. Nor is the process simply one of becoming psychic, because persons who have not undergone the transformation may be psychic, while others who have completed it may not be.
The transformation may lead to many special abilities, but it is not intrinsically tied to them. A great Yogi who has control over his heart action may not have his kundalini active, while one with an active kundalini may have no such abilities.
For the person undergoing the transformation, the significance of the enlightened state may be highly personal and subjective. Our aim, however, is to describe the process itself in terms of what can be observed.
A process, most usefully viewed as the "rise of the kundalini" is a reality, is much to be desired, and can be described as an evolutionary process taking place in the human nervous system.
A new center‐presently dormant in the average man and woman‐ has to be activated and a more powerful stream of psychic energy must rise into head from the base of the spine to enable human consciousness to transcend normal limits. This is the final phase of the present evolutionary impulse in man. The cerebrospinal system of man has to undergo a radical change, enabling consciousness to transcend the normal limits. This is the final phase of present evolutionary impulse in man. The cerebrospinal system of man has to undergo a radical change, enabling consciousness to attain a dimension which transcends the limits of the highest intellect. Here reason yields to intuition Revelation appears to guide the steps of humankind. ..
The living substance which, in an altered form, is responsible for causing this aesthetic revolution in the brain is entirely beyond our scrutiny and will remain so for a long time to come. We shall begin our presentation by discussing the special significance of the rebirth process today and the problem of objectivity in the description of spiritual states. Then we shall present the kundalini concept from yoga tradition as the classical rebirth model most widely applicable, and most easily amenable, to physiological interpretation. But certain differences between the classical kundalini concept will lead us to propose a variation, the physio‐kundalini model, to account for our observations.
We consider how our findings relate to the classical yogic description of kundalini action. Then, in our discussion of diagnosis, we show that it is possible to recognize the physio‐kundalini process and distinguish it from psychosis, even when these two conditions have temporarily merged in a particular individual. This distinction will help make it possible for clinicians to avoid the mistakes that have often been made in the past.
People undergoing the rebirth process often need special help. We shall consider what forms of help are advisable, and which are not. Finally, we shall suggest an approach for coping with the problems and opportunities generated by the rebirth phenomenon in society as a whole.
Study in this area is timely‐indeed it is urgent. The new preoccupation with spiritual and occult practices, especially among the young, holds both great promise and great danger. It is essential that we quickly arrive at a deeper understanding of this field.