The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience

PRAISE FOR THE UNFOLDING SELF

"The Unfolding Self is a classic in the field of psychedelic experiences and personal growth. It was published the same year MAPS was founded and has become increasingly relevant over time."

— Rick Doblin, PhD, Founder and Executive Director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

"Drawing on decades of study and practice, Ralph Metzner explores powerful metaphors for transformation and awakening. The Unfolding Self is a timeless and essential volume for the libraries of modern day mystics and everyday seekers alike!"

— Tara Brach, PhD, Author of Trusting the Gold

"Poring over The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience a quarter century after it first appeared, I am thrilled to find in its pages more relevance and significance than ever. Given the unprecedented challenges confronting humanity at this historical moment, we owe a debt of gratitude for the choice to republish this book and put it freshly in our hands. Ralph Metzner has an unparalleled capacity to evoke the wonders of human consciousness when it is nourished, trusted, and unleashed."

— Joanna Macy, Author of World As Lover, World As Self

Welcome to the mind of Ralph Metzner: scholarly, curious, informed by personal exploration of many different states of human consciousness and a desire to meaningfully integrate their contents into everyday existence.

— William A. Richards, PhD, Author of Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences

"Transformational experiences are as unique as they are profound, yet each portrays universal truths of human nature. In The Unfolding Self, Ralph Metzner uses a tapestry of myth, allegory, and historical context to fathom this neglected aspect of human behavior—one that is vital to science’s understanding of humanity and where it might be heading."

— Stanley Krippner, PhD, Affiliated Distinguished Faculty, California Institute of Integral Studies; Co-editor, Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence

"In The Unfolding Self, Ralph Metzer brings together discoveries shared between himself and his colleagues—some of the great pioneers of mystical transformation of our times—and extensive research into psychological and spiritual traditions throughout the world. This book remains one of his major masterpieces and a gift to humanity."

— Mariana Caplan, MFT, PhD, author of Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path

Ralph Metzner’s finely-woven narrative is as relevant today as it was decades ago—a tribute and beacon illuminating the search for something deep and substantive that permeates the fabric of daily life.

— Glenn Hartelius, PhD, co-author of The Ketamine Papers: Science, Therapy, and Transformation

"The Unfolding Self is required reading for those interested in transformation—for themselves or for their work with others. If you are anything like me, this book will be one of those on your shelf that is dog-eared, highlighted, and underlined. I’m thrilled to replace my well-worn copy with this new edition—more relevant today than ever."

— Cassandra Vieten, PhD, Director of Research, Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, University of California, and co-author of Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life

In this book, Metzner introduces the reader to the signposts marking the journey of evolutionary growth, charted in story, scripture, psychology, and poetry by a multitude of ages and peoples. The extraordinary range of his engaged scholarship and active practice has allowed him to navigate a cartography of psychospiritual transformation through which a life in the foothills can be transformed by what has been seen at the summit.

— Mariavittoria Mangini, PhD, FNP

"The Unfolding Self is a bridge between the awakening of consciousness in California during the 1960s and the timeless awakening—the sacred legacy of planet earth—that has been waiting since the beginning of time."

— Manuel Almendro, clinical psychologist and Director of Oxigeme, Center for a Psychology of Consciousness

THE

UNFOLDING

SELF

Varieties of Transformative Experience

RALPH METZNER

Foreword by Diane Haug

SYNERGETIC PRESS

SANTA FE • LONDON

Copyright © 2022 by Ralph Metzner

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.

Published by Synergetic Press | 1 Blue Bird Ct. Santa Fe, NM 87508

& 24 Old Gloucester St. London, WCIN 3AL, England

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022902258

ISBN 9780907791959 (paperback)

ISBN 9780907791966 (ebook)

Cover design by Amanda Müller

Book design by Brad Greene

Managing Editor: Amanda Müller

Project Editor: Noelle Armstrong

Printed in the USA

I dedicate this book to my son Ari Krishna Metzner, who was born in 1966 and died in an accident in 1974, and whose joyous and exuberant spirit graced my life;

and to Angeles Arrien,

Basque seeress and wise woman,

creative teacher,

inspirer of visions,

long great friend of many lifetimes.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Prefaces

Introduction: From Caterpillar to Butterfly

Symbols and Metaphors of Transformation

Theories of Human Transformation

Variations on the Theme of Self-Transformation

1 Awakening from the Dream of Reality

Ordinary Awareness as Dreamlike

Dreaming, Sleeping, and Waking in Everyday Life

Transformation as an Awakening

2 Uncovering the Veils of Illusion

The World Perceived as Maya

The Transformation of Vision

Unmasking the Self

3 From Captivity to Liberation

Body and Form as Prison

Knots, Ties, Nets, and Bonds in Relationships

Strategies of Escape and Liberation

4 Purification by Inner Fire

Fire Deities and the Spirit of Fire

Hell, Purgatory, and the Fire of Purification

Kundalini and the Yoga of Fire

The Mystical Fire of Union

5 From Fragmentation to Wholeness

Psychic Fragmentation in Ordinary Awareness and in Madness

Shamanic Dismemberment: Osiris and Dionysus

Alchemical Separatio in Meditation and Psychotherapy

Approaches to Wholeness

6 Reconciling with the Inner Enemy

On Integrating the Shadow

Accepting the Unacceptable

From Denial to Affirmation

Purification and Elimination

From Inner Warfare to Inner Peace

On Facing One’s Demons

7 On Dying and Being Reborn

Conscious Death and Intentional Dying

Nearness to Death as Transformative Experience

Thanatos and Psychic Death

Alchemical Mortificatio

The New Birth and the Eternal Child

8 From Darkness to Light

Enlightenment of the Physical Body

The Illumination of the Mind

The Self as a Being of Light

9 Integrating the Inner Wild Animal

Remembering Our Evolutionary Ancestry

Animals in Folklore, Mythology, and Religion

Tales of Animal Transformations

10 Unfolding the Tree of Our Life

The Tree as a Symbol of Self-Unfoldment

Climbing the Tree, Straightening the Pillar

The World Tree and the Inverted Tree

The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge

11 Journey to the Place of Vision and Power

The Myth of the Wanderer

Departure and Threshold Crossing

Descent into the Depths

Flying and the Upper Realms

Journeys into Nonordinary Reality

Returning Home

12 Returning to the Source

Man as Stranger, Life as Exile

The Outgoing Path and the Returning Path

The Homeward Journey

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

FOREWORD

Ralph Metzner died peacefully at home in his own bed on March 14, 2019. As friends gathered just hours after he made his transition, there was a sense that he left his body on an outbreath as light as a feather. His face remained soft and relaxed; his hands rested gently on his chest in a position that could only be described as a mudra. A Good Death.

I had watched Ralph, my teacher, guide, friend, colleague, and co-conspirator, move consciously toward that transition over the last two decades of his life. For those of us who had the good fortune to gather with Ralph in the spirit of deep inner exploration, we all had repeated opportunities to practice the art of letting go. His teaching and guided divinations were rich with metaphor, symbol, myth, archetype, poetry, and storytelling. The Ralph I knew best was not only a scholar but the creator of sacred space, the alchemist-magician, the shaman, and bard.

Two or three years before Ralph died, we had a personal conversation about how he might craft his own death. He could feel it coming. His guided divinations in group settings were much more focused on the end of life. For those of us who knew him well, it felt like a time of personal preparation—a rehearsal. From his wife Cathy’s reporting, at the end of Ralph’s life his worldly business was complete, his intention was clear, and the veil between the worlds very thin.

Ralph Metzner created a respectful, soulful bridge to archaic, time-honored, cross-cultural practices for visioning and healing. In journeying with him, our lives were enriched.

When I learned that Synergetic Press had plans to re-publish Ralph’s classic, The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience, I was delighted (and I sense that he is too!). I consider Ralph’s books absolutely essential reading for those interested in the healing potential of expanded or extra-ordinary states of consciousness.

I am so grateful for the decades of exploring the inner landscape together—of remembering where we came from and where we are headed. I offer a deep bow of appreciation for time spent together in the great Spirit Canoe.

Diane Haug

Glorieta, New Mexico

PREFACE to the 2010 edition

Twelve years had elapsed since the publication of The Unfolding Self, when the print-run and resources were finally exhausted and the rights reverted to me. I’m grateful to Byron Belitsos, founder and president of Origin Press, for the superb production of that 1997 edition, and for keeping it in print that long.

The market of book publishing, like all other parts of the economy, has gone through wrenching upheavals in recent years, due to the advent of the new digital technologies. I’m deeply appreciative of Alden Bevington, of Pioneer Imprints, for shepherding this book into the world of digital print-on-demand and distribution.

My interest in the themes of psycho-spiritual transformation has remained. For several years before my retirement from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2006, I taught courses using The Unfolding Self as a syllabus and outline. I was always delighted at seeing how the readings seemed to trigger new understandings of life-changing experiences that my students remembered.

Whereas The Unfolding Self is focused on personal transformation, my 1999 book Green Psychology deals with the transformations of collective consciousness, particularly in the tense and dissociative relationship between human culture and the Earth. Subsequently, I put together two edited collections of essays on the science and phenomenology of ayahuasca and the psilocybe mushrooms. A combination of public science knowledge (botany, mycology, ethnology) and subjective experience knowledge seems to me to be the appropriate format for the exploration and communication of these areas. In The Unfolding Self, psychedelic experiences (and other states of expanded consciousness) are one of the source-pools of observation and insight. The processes and metaphors described in The Unfolding Self continue to be a fruitful source of inspiration for personal growth and creativity. It is my wish and hope that this new edition may serve that purpose as well in the reader.

Ralph Metzner

Sonoma, California

2010

PREFACE to the 1997 edition

It is said that human transformation was the only miracle the Buddha recognized as such. This book describes the variegated experiences of psychospiritual transformation in terms of certain key metaphors. I believe these descriptions can prove useful to those who are in a transformational phase in their lives and are searching for signposts and markers on the way. Further, these metaphoric markers may themselves stimulate and catalyze the inner transformations they describe. My experience in writing this book was itself transformative, as each of the metaphors I was writing about triggered corresponding inner experiences.

I first began to realize several years ago that whereas there are literally hundreds of specific methods of bringing about psychospiritual transformation (yogic and psychotherapeutic methods in particular), only about a dozen or so key metaphors describing the process itself seem to occur over and over in the world’s literature. I presented this idea for the first time at the annual conference of the International Transpersonal Association in Boston in 1979 and wrote an article entitled Ten Classical Metaphors of Self-Transformation for the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology in 1980. I wanted to demonstrate that with some variations in language and emphasis, the essential human process of evolutionary growth is described in similar terms in all major cultures and sacred traditions the world over.

By elucidating the underlying metaphoric structures—which have been variously referred to as archetypes, deep structures, or primor-dial images—we are uncovering something of humanity’s common language. The language of symbols is this common language. It is the language we still use and understand—in dreams, in poetry and art, in the visions and voices that tell us of the sacred and the mystery.

To bring out this universal language, the book draws on the writings of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, comparative mythology, literature and poetry, the writings of philosophers and teachers in the esoteric, shamanic, yogic, and hermetic traditions, and the formulations of modern depth psychotherapy, anthropology, and transpersonal psychology. In reaching beyond psychology, the field in which I was formally trained, in order to illustrate and understand the patterns and metaphors of transformation, I have probably made mistakes and omissions. I beg the indulgence of scholars and experts in these areas and would appreciate having any errors corrected.

The experience of self-transformation apparently has similar basic features, regardless of historical period or cultural background. Thus, personal accounts of such experiences, drawn from published anthologies and from my own files of patients, clients, and students, are also cited as examples. They often reveal the same metaphoric deep structures as are found in the ancient texts. Based on this admittedly nonstatistical research, I feel confident in saying that very many transformation experiences do in fact occur as the metaphors in this book suggest. A number of the experiential accounts given are my own, and the aptness of the metaphors has been validated by me personally, as well as through the testimony of many individuals known to me.

Two disclaimers and their associated assumptions are appropriate here. First, this book does not deal with social or collective transformation, although this is a vast and complex question of burning interest to many. I am convinced that individual or personal transformation is an essential aspect of—perhaps even a prerequisite to—changes at the familial, organizational, societal, and global levels. However, I do not believe, as many in the transpersonal and New Age movement appear to believe, that one should focus only on self-transformation, one’s personal spiritual practice, expecting changes in the collective consciousness to somehow take place automatically. This seems to me like an avoidance of responsibility.

I believe that positive transformation in groups, organizations, societies, and on the whole planet is a direct function of the number of individuals who are consciously attempting to evolve and transform themselves. It appears natural for individuals, after having liberated their own minds to some degree, to want to share their insights and learnings with others and to apply them in social, economic, and political relationships.

The second self-imposed limitation of this work is that it does not delineate linear developmental models showing sequential stages of evolution. This is not to say that development does not proceed in stages—only that agreement on mapping these stages seems quite elusive. Much of the literature on evolutionary stages seems to me to be overly abstract, highly subjective, and sometimes indicative of a kind of premature conceptual crystallization. Subtle judgments of spiritual superiority seem to slip too easily into discussions of levels and stages.

Perhaps it is a matter of personality type or cognitive style. I prefer a pluralistic model of the transformation experience, with emphasis on the fluid processes of change in their manifold variety and individual uniqueness. Others lean to a more uniform model, with emphasis on hierarchical structures, with levels and stages clearly defined and outlined. Each approach certainly has its value.

There are many people whom I wish to acknowledge for their benign and inspiring influence on this work, as well as their friendship. They include the late Alan Watts, Huston Smith, Stanislav and Christina Grof, the late Arthur Young, Frank Barr, Andrew Weil, June Singer, Elaine Pagels, the late Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), Michael Harner, the late Ronald Laing, the late Rolf von Eckartsberg, Paul Lee, Jill Purce, Susan Boulet, Rowena Pattee Kryder, Charles Tart, Stanley Krippner, John Lilly, Rupert Sheldrake, the late Lama Govinda, Terence McKenna, Frances Vaughan, Roger Walsh, Michael Murphy, the late Willis Harman, Will Schutz, Frank Barron, Claudio Naranjo, the late Russell Paul Schofield (my teacher of Agni Yoga), Angeles Arrien, the late Marija Gimbutas, Shyam Bhatnagar, Ann Armstrong, James and Dorothy Fadiman, Bob and Laraine Boyll, Padma Catell, Gunther Weil, Cecil Burney, the late Jack Downing, the late Leo Zeff, Michael Flanagin, Dominie Cappadonna, Richard Baker-Roshi, and Seymour and Sylvia Boorstein. In addition, there are many others—teachers, colleagues, and students at the California Institute of Integral Studies—from whom I have learned a great deal, and who have allowed me to cite their experiences.

This book is a completely revised, expanded, and illustrated version of Opening to Inner Light: The Transformation of Human Nature and Consciousness, published in 1986 by Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. Although we had our disagreements, I want to express my appreciation to Jeremy Tarcher, who is a publisher with vision and a man with a generous heart. I am very grateful to Simon Warwick- Smith and to Byron Belitsos of Origin Press for agreeing to bring this work out again twelve years after its original publication. I am also grateful to Julie Donovan, Production Manager at Origin Press, for her meticulous attention to detail in the preparation and production of this book. This new edition has been completely updated, and two new chapters have been added: one on resolving the conflict between good and evil, and the other on the integration of human and animal consciousness.

In the years since the publication of Opening to Inner Light I have continued to work with these metaphors of transformation—in my classes, workshops, and individual psychotherapy practice. They continue to evoke and catalyze new levels of meaning, lending support to the notion that these are deep archetypal structures of thought with universal applicability.

In my next work I explored the shamanistic, animistic mythology of the pre-Christian Nordic-Germanic peoples. This was published as The Well of Remembrance: Rediscovering the Earth Wisdom Mythology of Northern Europe (Shambhala Publications, 1994). Some of the transformation themes explored in the present volume, particularly the myths of Odin, the shaman-god, and his self-imposed ordeal of hanging on the World Tree, are discussed in much greater depth in that work.

I would like to thank several readers of Opening to Inner Light who took the time and trouble to give me valuable feedback: Joseph Campbell, who read the book in the last year of his life and wrote to express his appreciation; Elaine Pagels, who corrected some errors and extended some points in my discussion of Gnostic texts; Vernice Solimar, who used the book in her classes on religious philosophy at John F. Kennedy University and California Institute of Integral Studies; and Alan Nordstrom, professor of English at Rollins College in Florida, who used the text in a seminar on Shakespeare, analyzing the transformation metaphors found in some of the Bard’s major plays.

Ralph Metzner

Sonoma, California

1997

INTRODUCTION: From Caterpillar to Butterfly

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,

the rest of the world calls a butterfly.

— RICHARD BACH

Our experience confirms what the elders and wise ones of all times have said—that we live in a state of constant change. Modern science tells us the world consists of patterns of unceasing transformation of energy and matter. We observe these changes in ourselves and others: the changes of physical growth, the learning of bodily skills, emotional development, the acquisition of knowledge, becoming ill, becoming healed. We grow up … we grow old … but we always grow. Our lives unfold in multiple interweavings of cycles of change at many levels, punctuated by discontinuous transitions. We see certain of these basic transitions—marriage and divorce, illness and accidents, births and deaths—as life-changing events.

In addition to such changes, which are natural and ordinary in the sense that they are an accepted part of life, there exists in human experience another kind of transformation, a radical restructuring of the entire psyche that has been variously referred to as mystical experience, ecstasy, cosmic consciousness, oceanic feeling, oneness, transcendence, union with God, nirvana, satori, liberation, peak experience, and by other names. Such experiences may occur in some people without their recognizing much of what is really happening and just how extraordinary this process is.

We have evidence that the prevalence of this kind of experience may be greatly underestimated. Andrew Greeley and William McCready reported in the New York Times on a survey they conducted with a sample of fifteen hundred normal, middle-class Americans.¹ Forty percent of the respondents answered affirmatively to the question Have you ever had the feeling of being very close to a powerful spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself? This finding prompted the researchers to title their article Are We a Nation of Mystics? People who have these kinds of experiences may not know what they are or how to talk about them, but they agree that the experience is powerful, sometimes devastating, and invariably life transforming.

Many thoughtful observers believe that our time is one of accelerated social and individual transformation. Fundamental world-views, paradigms of reality, conceptions of human nature are being questioned and challenged.² There are even suggestions from some observers that humanity as a whole species is undergoing a collective transformation. We have no precedent in our experience for this kind of evolutionary change. We are being challenged to examine our understanding of evolution itself.³

And that is not all. Albert Einstein remarked, The atomic bomb has changed everything except our way of thinking. In a world teetering on the brink of nuclear holocaust, economic collapse, and ecological catastrophe, we are being challenged to examine ourselves. We feel we have to ask ourselves, What are we after all, to have arrived at such an insanely dangerous impasse? It seems to me that two important conclusions are emerging with increasing certainty: (1) that the evolutionary transformation of society and of humanity must take place first in the individual, and (2) that the transformation of the individual requires a turning inward, toward self—not in narcissistic self-absorption but in aware self-confrontation.

What can we say, in psychological terms, about this kind of profound transformation in which so many find themselves involved with varying degrees of urgency and intensity? I agree with those who speak of this transformation in terms of consciousness. Consciousness—defined as the context, or field, in which thoughts, feelings, perceptions, sensations, images, impulses, intentions, and the like exist and occur—is transformed when any of the following occur: changes in thinking, worldview, beliefs, feelings, motives, impulses, and values, as well as altered perceptions, such as heightened seeing (clairvoyance) and sensing (clairsentience).

A further characteristic of this transformation of consciousness is the altered perception of time and space. When time seems to pass at a different rate and when the space around us seems different and unfamiliar, we might experience a giddy or fearful recognition that we are in a process of change with an unpredictable outcome. We might get a feeling that reality is somehow changing, but we can’t necessarily tell whether it is around us or inside us.

When our sense of who we are, our self-concept, changes, we speak of personal, or self-, transformation. This kind of experience changes the way we feel about the world—our emotional attitude of basic trust or mistrust, faith or doubt, acceptance or rejection— and the way we feel about ourselves, our self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-love.

Whatever our definition of personality or self may be, it is clear that as self-concepts, self-feelings, and self-images change, the personality changes, too. We feel and sense ourselves to be different persons. Without entering at this point into the debates over whether the ego should be subdued (as in many spiritual traditions) or strengthened (as in Western psychotherapy), we can agree, I believe, that the ego or its function, role, and place is changed.

This book explores the possible meanings of human self-transformation. Other expressions signifying this realm of human experience also focus on the self-concept. Self-actualization, a term used in humanistic and existential psychology, implies a bringing into actuality of something that has been a latent potentiality. The term self-realization suggests a making real, or a seeing as real, something that has been only a dream or a vague intuition. Similarly, Jung’s term individuation refers on the one hand to developing individual consciousness, as distinct from mass consciousness, and on the other hand to becoming un-divided, or whole.

Although self-concept and self-image play a pivotal role in most accounts of psychospiritual transformation, this is not always the case. Buddhist psychology, which does not recognize the existence of any self or ego, explains the transformation simply as an altered mode of functioning of the five complex aggregates of consciousness (skandhas). These aggregates or patterns of consciousness—intention, perception, feeling/valuing, form awareness, comprehension—together constitute what we think of as personality, according to Buddhist teachings. In the process of psychospiritual transformation, their functions and aims are radically changed.⁴

Two other aspects of individual identity, or selfhood, may be affected in the kind of core transformation we have been discussing: behavior and appearance. Whether a person’s actual behavior changes as a result of a deep transformative experience is an open question; obviously, it depends on the individual’s prior behavior. We know of extreme cases, such as that of Saul, who became Paul and changed from an enemy to a defender of the Christian faith. Criminals have been known to become saints. Others may, after a transcendent vision, simply find themselves confirmed in their life path and their spiritual practice, with no outwardly observable change in behavior. After enlightenment, the Zen masters said, you may just go back to cutting wood and drawing water.

Bodily appearance also may or may not be altered when consciousness and self are transformed. The traditions of yoga, alchemy, and shamanism contain numerous examples of psychophysical transformation. In illness and healing recovery, physical form and appearance may change drastically. Anyone who has undergone the spontaneous remission of a tumor has brought about a kind of alchemical transformation of the physical elements of the body. Michael Murphy and his associates have accumulated a large body of documentation and evidence of unusual psychophysical changes occurring in sports and other situations involving extreme physical challenge.⁵

Attempts at describing the process of transformation of consciousness and personality in abstract psychological language are comparatively recent. In prior periods—in the religious and mystical literature of East and West, in the traditions of shamanism, alchemy, and yoga, and in the allegorical language of mythology—symbols and metaphors were used to convey essential information and guidelines for those who found themselves plunged into a transformative crisis or pursuing a disciplined path of development. People often find it helpful to turn to the old texts and stories for guidance and insight into the process they are undergoing. Historical accounts and images from other cultures often evoke a kind of echo or resonance in us. Maybe this is a recognition of our common humanity. Some may feel that they are experiencing traces of another life.

Through the work of Freud, Jung, and the other psychologists and students of comparative mythology and religion, it has become apparent that myths still function as they did in the eras before psychological theories were invented: many myths seem to articulate deep, archetypal patterns of growth and transformation. While Freud proposed that all men live out the Oedipus myth, modern psychologists agree that there are many different myths that men and women have found themselves living, without realizing it. From the discovery of such deep, mythic undercurrents in one’s life, and the revelation of unsuspected levels of meaning, comes support for healing and the self-reflection that leads to understanding.

Symbols and Metaphors of Transformation

In virtually all the traditional systems of human transformation, symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, myths, and allegories play a central role. This is true of the modern transpersonal psychological approaches as well as the traditional religious, mystical, and esoteric ways. In shamanism, for example, the altered state of consciousness, or trance, that the shaman healer undergoes is symbolized as a journey or a flight through the air; and modern explorers of consciousness, whether using psychedelic drugs or not, have spontaneously adopted the metaphoric language of the trip or of being high. Similarly, alchemy uses the description of chemical processes going on in a retort as metaphors for energetic processes going on in the psychophysical (body-mind) system of the practitioner. Psychotherapists, especially those of a Jungian persuasion, frequently hear dreams with alchemical symbolism from their patients who are in the midst of a transformation process. We need only recall the images of the chakras as lotus flowers that unfold or the kundalini as a serpent that rises to realize how extensive is the use of analogy and symbolism in the yogic traditions.

We can usefully compare the central transformative metaphors used by three of the pioneers of modern depth psychology, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, and C. G. Jung. For Freud, the unconscious was a deep and dangerous unknown, like the ocean; and psychoanalysis—making the unconscious conscious—was like reclaiming land from the sea, as practiced in Holland. In Reich’s theory, repressed unconscious factors have become congealed into a kind of invisible armor, impacted into the tissues of the body, especially the musculature; bioenergetic therapy aims at the melting, or dissolving, of this armor. In Jung’s view, the unconscious, both personal and collective, is like the night sky, an unknown infinity studded with myriads of tiny sparks of light that can become sources of illumination, insight, and creativity for the person in the process of individuation.⁶

Consciousness itself has been thought of in terms of two analogies. One is as a kind of space, context, or field, as in Buddhist notions of emptiness or in such expressions as state of consciousness. The other analogy is that of a river, as in the expressions stream of consciousness and stream of thought. We have, then, a topographical metaphor and a historical one, which correspond to the two main dimensions of our experience of reality—space and time.

In mythology and literature, which may be regarded as the repositories of psychological teachings before there was a separate discipline of psychology (that is, prior to the late nineteenth century), we find two widely used analogies for the human life cycle: the cycle of the day and that of the year. In the diurnal analogy, we think of birth and youth as the sunrise and morning, adulthood as midday, maturity as the afternoon, and aging as the evening of our days. In the seasonal metaphor, we speak of the springtime of our youth, the summer of full adult power and expression, the autumnal maturity of our capacities through midlife, and the winter of our discontent, of aging and dying.

As these examples make clear, the use of metaphor and symbolism spreads far beyond the realm of literature and the arts. It appears to be such a pervasive characteristic of human language that it may even be regarded as a built-in feature of all human thinking. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in their seminal book entitled Metaphors We Live By, have made just this point.⁷ Adducing evidence from linguistics and philosophy, they show how our ordinary conceptual system—which governs how we think, how we talk, and how we act, both consciously and unconsciously—is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. For example, an unconsciously held, or implicit, metaphor in our culture is the idea that money is liquid, as expressed by such phrases as cash flow or liquid assets.

Lakoff and Johnson argue that the implicit metaphors of ordinary language surely have an experiential basis. There is, among others, an interesting group of metaphors they call orientational, which are based on our experience of the up/down dimension of space. We relate this dimension to feelings of happiness (my spirits rose, I feel down), consciousness (waking up, falling asleep), health and life (he’s at the peak of health, he dropped dead), control and power (the height of power, being under control), status (high society), time (upcoming events) and moral and other kinds of evaluation (high-quality work, high-mindedness, low character, the depths of depravity). Some of these metaphors we shall encounter again as we discuss the process of consciousness transformation. Most models of psychospiritual development, for instance, use metaphors of an upward progression—raising one’s level of consciousness, bringing an unconscious complex up into awareness, climbing to the top of the holy, or mystical, mountain, ascending the ladder of evolution or perfection, and many more.

A useful distinction can be drawn between symbol and metaphor. A symbol is more likely to be an object or thing, whereas a metaphor usually stands for a process that extends through time. Thus, the tree is a symbol of the human being, standing vertically between heaven and earth, linking the upper world of Spirit and the lower world of nature. On the other hand, the growth of the tree from seed to flowering maturity is a metaphor for the growth of the individual, the unfolding of a human life from seedconception to full creative expression. The path, or road, is a symbol of development of consciousness; traveling on the road is a metaphor for the process of expanding the horizons of awareness.

The word symbol comes from the Greek roots sym (together) and ballein (to throw). Thus, a symbol is a throwing together, a linkage, connecting two disparate elements in our psyche. The word metaphor comes from the Greek roots meta (beyond) and pherein (to carry). Thus, it is a carrying beyond, a transferring of meaning from one domain into another. Analogy comes from the Greek analogos (proportionate), which in turn is based on ana (according to) and legein (to collect and to speak). Thus, by analogy we can gather (understand) and speak of a similarity in proportion. A clock is a good example of an analog device: it shows the same proportions and relationships as the passage of the sun in relationship to the horizon.

In the writings of the mystics we find detailed and comprehensive descriptions of experiences of transformation, couched in the metaphors and symbols of the particular religion that the mystic adhered to. Transcending the boundaries of culture and religion in their visions and their writings, mystics are pioneers of evolution, reporting back to the rest of humanity on what lies ahead for all of us. As Evelyn Underhill writes in her masterful book Mysticism, The mystic cannot wholly do without symbol and image, inadequate to his vision though they must always be: for his experience must be expressed if it is to be communicated, and its actuality is inexpressible except in some hint or parallel which will stimulate the dormant intuition of the reader.⁸ The Jesus of the New Testament used parables constantly, as we know. The phrase the Kingdom of heaven is like …, which runs like a golden thread through the gospel narrative, can be seen as the story of a transformation of consciousness from human to divine, from personal to transpersonal.

Likewise, myths, legends, and folktales are important sources of transformational metaphors and symbols. They often contain metaphoric accounts of transformative experiences. They are like the stories told by explorers to would-be future voyagers, describing in symbolic form major features of the interior landscapes traversed by the consciousness voyager. Sometimes in a cautionary mode, sometimes in an