part0021

I N EXPLORING THE PROFOUND INFLUENCE of the birth process, Dr. Stanislav Grof talks about the four stages we all go through during the womb-to-world transition. He calls them BPMs or Basic Perinatal Matrices. Briefly, BPM-1 refers to the heavenly bliss of life in the womb where we feel safe and all our needs are met. BPM-2 occurs when heaven turns to hell as powerful forces begin crushing us, our environment becomes toxic, and there’s no hope of escape. BPM-3 is when a narrow passage appears and we fight to make the journey through it, and BPM-4 is physical birth from womb to world .

According to Dr. Grof and others, the birth process is the most powerful and formative event we ever experience. According to me, what we call life is actually gestation. The womb-to-world transition is stage-one of a complete two-stage human birth process, but the second stage, transition from juvenile-to-adult, is not recognized as part of the process because it has been erased from the human experience.

Let’s think about that for a minute: Our developmental spectrum runs the half-gamut from conception to childhood, leaving our adult development not just undiscovered but unsuspected. We presume to call ourselves bold pioneers of unexplored frontiers despite remaining totally ignorant of our own essential natures. We live and die as tiny acorns, never suspecting the mighty oaks that lurk within. If I’m wrong and humanity is currently at full development, then I’m just another ass-talker making outlandish claims, but if I’m right, then this is by far the most important observation in the history of mankind.

Grof’s stage-one birth matrices can also be applied to the belated stage-two rebirth process; the transition from the Segregated State of Human Childhood to the Integrated State of Human Adulthood. Instead of BPMs, Basic Perinatal Matrices, we can call the second-stage versions Belated Rebirth Matrices, or BRMs. The word belated distinguishes this process from the on-time version of stage-two transition that would occur around the age of sexual maturity if it ever did, but it never does. We can reserve the term Peripubertal Rebirth Matrices as a placeholder in case anything changes on that front, but it never will.

BRM-1 is about life in the herdwomb; having all your needs met and being reliant on the dominant, superior organism of which you’re a subservient, inferior part. BRM-2 begins, if ever, when the enfolding comfort, safety, and guidance of the herdwomb becomes a crushing, toxic hell with no hope of survival or escape. BRM-3 is the struggle through the rebirth canal of the black hole within, and BRM-4 is emergence into the Integrated State of Human Adult and the life of creative adventure that follows.

In short, the Belated Rebirth Matrices describe the one and only “spiritual” path. Any path that does not entail a death-rebirth transition into adulthood must necessarily result in remaining a halfborn, herdbound, eyes-closed, fear-based juvenile. Adulthood is not spiritual and it’s not about enlightenment. It’s not mystical or magical, it’s just what humans are supposed to become but somehow don’t. If anything, not achieving full and rightful development is the magical, mysterious thing, whereas adulthood is just our natural development.

The BRM-1 version of the womb is the enclosing, enveloping, nourishing herd: Heaven. Go to school, get a job, have a family, grow old and die. Enter stage left, hit your marks, speak your lines, exit stage right. The path is as well-worn and easily followed as a cattle chute in an abattoir. You never have to worry or think or doubt or be alone, you just have to abdicate self-sovereignty and subordinate your will to that of the herdbeast, and for your reward, you can coast from cradle to grave without worrying your pretty little head about self-determination or self-realization. In the herd as in the womb, you can’t see anything, you don’t understand anything, and you can’t make your own decisions except within the narrowest of confines, but that’s a small price to pay for such a tidy answer to the messy question of how to dispose of a life you never asked for in the first place.

Belated Rebirth Matrix-2 parallels the stage-one womb event in which the ecstasies of the amniotic universe become the agonies of a poisonous, crushing, inescapable torment: Hell. In BRM-2, human childhood and life in the herd become unbearable, but there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go. You are being crushed and poisoned and there’s nothing you can do about it. You are trapped in a hopeless, no-escape, imminent-death scenario and behold, the way is closed unto thee .

The journey to adulthood is not just another spiritual path, it’s the one that looks exactly like the one that got you here in the first place. Heaven. Hell. Death. Rebirth; that’s the only way forward. If you don’t like the sound of that, I don’t blame you; it sucks. It does make a strong case for meditation though; overlooking its ineffectiveness, it’s easy to see why peace-and-silence (honey) would attract more followers (flies) than hell-and-death (vinegar). It’s also easy to see why coming-of-age ceremonies are popular stand-ins for the actual process of transition, and why empty rites, false idols, and pseudo-sacraments have replaced authentic elements of the human experience.

To put all this in Joe vs the Volcano terms, Belated Rebirth Matrix-1 is Joe at the beginning of the movie where he’s still marching in lockstep with the herd; not happy, but not sufficiently unhappy to do anything about it. BRM-2 is initiated by a dire medical prognosis, but he’s trapped in his circumstances and time is running out, so he just sits around and waits to die. BRM-3 is the journey that begins when Samuel Graynamore knocks on Joe’s door and ends when Joe crosses the lip of the volcano. BRM-4 begins when Joe emerges into a new and superior state of being.

Without the intervention of demon/angel Samuel Graynamore, Joe would have spent the rest of his life with his exotic lamp and adventure books in his dungeonesque office. Graynamore is portrayed as an eccentric industrialist manipulating a poor schlub for his own greedy ends, but by his fruit shall we know him. It was Graynamore who had Dr. Ellison give Joe the false prognosis of a terminal “braincloud” that initiated Joe’s shift to BRM-2. It was Graynamore who then appeared in person and opened Joe’s way forward into and through BRM-3. Graynamore is the one who cut Joe’s bonds, set his journey in motion and delivered Joe to the brink of a new life; Joe himself was mostly just a passenger. Graynamore never achieved his stated goal, but he did set Joe free. Graynamore may appear as a conniving demon, but judging by the fruit of his actions, he is Joe’s liberating angel. That’s how this stuff really works. False saviors ensure our continued imprisonment, while true liberators – falling somewhere on the spectrum between Graynamore and O’Brien – appear as malefactors and monsters. The trick with angels and demons is knowing which is which, but there’s an easy way to tell the difference; the angels are the ones who are trying to kill you.

The transition from BRM-1 to BRM-2 never comes from desire, goodness, evolution or growth, or any of the placebos, palliatives, and soporifics the pushers in the spiritual marketplace promote. BRM-2 begins when the comfortable herd environment suddenly becomes so toxic and crushing that death is imminent and there’s nothing you can do and nowhere to run. This isn’t just fanciful metaphor or poetic allegory, just as it wasn’t fanciful or poetic when you went through it the first time; the original rude awakening. Don’t remember? You were living in the warm bliss of the amniotic universe as your first experience of life, but it turned very bad very fast and there was nothing you could do about it. This actually happened to you. Imagine being comfortably asleep in your warm, safe bed in your highrise apartment when an earthquake hits like a freight train crashing through your bedroom. Imagine your building collapses and you’re crushed beneath tons of rubble with only acrid black smoke to breathe and no hope of rescue or escape. Imagine that you’re just a baby when that happens. Now stop imagining. You really went through that horrific shit, and just because you don’t consciously remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or that it wasn’t the most profoundly influential event of your life .

Imagine a similar thing happening now. Imagine that your environment becomes so crushing and toxic that escape is impossible and death is imminent. One minute you’re managing to keep up with your surrounding herdmates, and the next minute you’re on the ground and there’s nothing you can do but curl up and wait to be trampled to death by the larger organism of which you’re no longer a part. That’s what you can expect in stage two of your birth process, and somewhere inside you know it because you’ve already been through it. You may not consciously remember it, but you’re hellbent on never going through it again.

BRM-3 is the struggle for survival, and the result is something of a mixed bag. It begins when a ray of light appears through all those stomping hooves revealing, if not a path to safety, at least a direction of travel. It looks like an impossible struggle, but at least now there’s action to be taken.

Ironically, the BRM-3 journey is not about survival but surrender; a long, slow crawl toward personal dissolution. Whatever you cling to during this process will be ripped away, whatever you hide will be found, whatever you extend will be cut off. It’s not that you sever attachments, but that you slice off the parts of yourself that are attached. If thine eye offendeth thee, you don’t sever your emotional attachment to it, you pluck it out and cast it from thee. As your ego- armor gets torn away, you become less attracted to the magnetic pull of the herd. The same forces that were crushing you are now expelling you.

Your journey continues until you reach the precipice where only one step remains; the last step of one life and the first step of another. It’s at this point that you die from childhood and are born into adulthood, just as you once died from the womb and were born into childhood. BRM-2 is an ending and BRM-4 is a beginning, but BRM-3 is where the actual journey takes place; where the real war is fought.

The further you travel from the heart of the herd, the colder and darker and lonelier it gets until you find yourself in a barren landscape devoid of human presence. You keep trudging along, one painful step at a time, when off in the distance you see the chimney smoke and warm, glow of a cabin. You knock on the door and are welcomed in by people who went their own way, just like you, who made it this far, just like you, driven by invisible forces, just like you. These are people who understand you and have answers for you, who will take you in and embrace you and tell you that you’ve finally arrived. You never dared to hope that such people actually existed, but now you’ve found them and you’re one of them and you can be with them forever. Your gratitude and relief are inexpressible. Imagine how difficult it is then to realize that this place of comfort and camaraderie is just another temptation where you are once again confronted with the choice of melting back into a womb-like environment, or summoning all the power of will you can muster and going back out into the dark, frigid wasteland to continue a journey in which you not only have no hope of success, but that you’re pretty sure is the stupidest thing anyone has ever done. That lonely trek into the barren wastelands of your dark interior is what the real spiritual journey looks like, and that’s why so few ever awaken in the dreamstate, much less from it. The difference between those who settle into cabin life and those who keep going is their source of motivation. Ego, vanity, and the desire for bliss can only get you so far; the real journey is powered by a molten core burning within. Every time you stop in one of those lovely cabins to sit by the warm fire and enjoy the company, you have to stand back up, strap back into the cold steel of suicidal resolve, and head back out into the dark, lonely night.