One could just as easily call these phenomena existential crisis of the psyche. Spiritual emergence is only one way of viewing and understanding this phenomena. When it comes to understanding the psyche it’s often helpful to use many different models. The psyche is also one with the body.
I had the feeling that I was in an over-compensated psychosis, and from the feeling I was not released until August 1, 1914. (see here for context)
Carl Jung
If you read The Red Book, it’s clear that what Jung was experiencing would have been labeled psychotic by any self-respecting psychiatrist today.
From Wikipedia, a definition:
Spiritual crisis (also called “spiritual emergency”) is a form of identity crisis where an individual experiences drastic changes to their meaning system (i.e., their unique purposes, goals, values, attitude and beliefs, identity, and focus) typically because of a spontaneous spiritual experience. A spiritual crisis may cause significant disruption in psychological, social and occupational functioning. Among the spiritual experiences thought to lead to episodes of spiritual crisis or spiritual emergency are psychiatric complications related to existential crisis, mystical experience, near-death experiences, Kundalini syndrome, paranormal experiences, religious ecstasy and meditation or other spiritual practices (Grof & Grof, 1989; Turner, Lukoff, Barnhouse, & Lu, 1995).
At the bottom of this post there is also links to websites of interest as well as books.
For a multitude of ideas about how to create a life filled with safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs visit the drop-down menus at the top of this page.
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