Unfolding Self

Ralph Metzner, PhD, (1936-2019) was a world-renown pioneer in the study of consciousness and transformative experience. His work stretched the boundaries of traditional psychology by incorporating shamanic methods that transform consciousness and expand understanding of the human psyche. Metzner was involved in the study of transformations of consciousness since his time as a graduate student at Harvard University, where he worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects. Metzner co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience in the 1960s and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. Metzner earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and psychology from Oxford University and a PhD in clinical psychology from Harvard University.During the 1970s, Ralph spent 10 years in the intensive study and practice of Agni Yoga, a meditative system of working with light-fire life energies. In the early 1970s he wrote Maps of Consciousness, one of the earliest attempts at a comparative cartography of consciousness; and Know Your Type: Maps of Identity, a comparative survey of personality typologies, ancient and modern. In the 1980s and for a 10-year period, Metzner served as Academic Dean at the California Institute of Integral Studies where he taught courses on “Altered States of Consciousness” and “Developing Ecological Consciousness.” He later became a Professor Emeritus at CIIS. Metzner’s books include The Well of Remembrance, Green Psychology, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture, and two edited collections on the science and the phenomenology of ayahuasca and teonanácatl. He also wrote The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience, first published in the 1990s. A new printing of The Unfolding Self was published by Synergetic Press in 2022.

• The Unfolding SelfPreface viiiIntroduction: From Caterpillar to Butterfly 1Symbols and Metaphors of TransformationTheories of Human TransformationVariations on the Theme of Self-Transformation1. Awakening from the Dream of Reality 20Ordinary Awareness as DreamlikeDreaming, Sleeping, and Waking in Everyday LifeTransformation as an Awakening2. Uncovering the Veils of Illusion 36The World Perceived as MayaThe Transformation of VisionUnmasking the Self3. From Captivity to Liberation 54Body and Form as PrisonKnots, Ties, Nets, and Bonds in RelationshipsStrategies of Escape and Liberation4. Purification by Inner Fire 74Fire Deities and the Spirit of FireHell, Purgatory, and the Fire of PurificationKundalini and the Yoga of FireThe Mystical Fire of Union5. From Fragmentation to Wholeness 94Psychic Fragmentation in Ordinary Awareness and in MadnessShamanic Dismemberment: Osiris and DionysusAlchemical Separatio in Meditation and PsychotherapyApproaches to Wholeness6. Reconciling with the Inner Enemy 114On Integrating the ShadowAccepting the UnacceptableFrom Denial to AffirmationPurification and EliminationFrom Inner Warfare to Inner PeaceOn Facing One’s Demons7. On Dying and Being Reborn 136Conscious Death and Intentional “Dying”Nearness to Death as Transformative ExperienceThanatos and Psychic DeathAlchemical MortificatioThe New Birth and the Eternal Child8. From Darkness to Light 159Enlightenment of the Physical BodyThe Illumination of the MindThe Self as a Being of Light9. Integrating the Inner Wild Animal 177Remembering Our Evolutionary AncestryAnimals in Folklore, Mythology and ReligionTales of Animal Transformations10. Unfolding the Tree of Our Life 198The Tree as a Symbol of Self-UnfoldmentClimbing the Tree, Straightening the PillarThe World Tree and the Inverted TreeThe Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge11. Journey to the Place of Vision and Power 223The Myth of the WandererDeparture and Threshold CrossingDescent into the Depths“Flying” and the Upper RealmsJourneys into Nonordinary RealityReturning Home12. Returning to the Source 249Man as Stranger, Life as ExileThe Outgoing Path and the Returning PathThe Homeward JourneyNotes 269Bibliography 301Index 312