Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. is a psychiatrist with more than fifty years experience researching the healing and transformative potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Joseph Campbell said about Dr. Grof:  “I know of no work that so well incorporates the findings of Freud, Jung and Rank, adding fresh insights, which the methods of those psychotherapists could never have achieved.”

Currently, Dr. Grof is Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, and teaches at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA

Here is what Dr. Grof described after an experience on LSD:  “What happened next was my consciousness catapulted out of my body.  I lost the research assistant, I lost the clinic, I lost Prague, I lost the planet.  I had the feeling that my consciousness had no boundaries anymore, and I had become the totality of existence….it became clear to me that consciousness is not a product of the neurophysiological processes in the brain, as I had been taught at the university, but something much higher, possibly superordinate to matter.  The idea that consciousness somehow mysteriously emerges from matter didn’t make sense to me anymore.  It was easier to imagine that consciousness could create the experience of the material universe by an infinitely complex orchestration.  I was suddenly in the realm of the Eastern philosophies, where consciousness is a primary attribute of existence and cannot be reduced to anything else.”

It is this statement that fascinates me, and confirms my own speculations and intuition, without ever having experimented with LSD, but validated by various forms of meditation and especially an energetic form called “Body Focusing” taught by Don Kollmar, formerly of New York City, and now of Amsterdam, Holland.

On Enrichment.com, please also read my interview with renowned physicist Dr. Amit Goswami, author of “Creative Evolution” - who says that Evolution is guided by Higher Consciousness (the Consciousness undoubtedly referred to by Dr. Grof).

Happy Thanksgiving.

“Gratitude” is the key theme of this distinctly American holiday.  A former client of mine, Sir John Templeton, the great financier and investor, believed that “gratitude” was one of the keys to his success.

Sir John also funded many projects through his Templeton Foundation.  The intention of these projects were to advance our understanding of spirituality through science.  In this project, a grant was given to Dr. Robert Emmons from the University of California at Davis, to better understand “gratitude.”  Dr. Emmons conducted eight years of intensive research on gratitude.  His research culminated in a best-selling book, “Thanks! How The New Science of Gratitude Can Make  You Happier.”  Here are his findings, courtesy of his website, GratitudePower.net.

The New Science of Gratitude

Author and researcher Dr. Robert Emmons has discovered what gives life meaning: Gratitude. Emmons found that people who view life as a gift and consciously acquire an “attitude of gratitude” will experience multiple advantages.

Gratitude improves emotional and physical health, and it can strengthen relationships and communities. Some strategies include keeping a gratitude journal, learning prayers of gratitude and using visual reminders.

“Without gratitude, life can be lonely, depressing and impoverished,” said Emmons. “Gratitude enriches human life. It elevates, energizes, inspires and transforms. People are moved, opened and humbled through expressions of gratitude.”

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is tough.

It is, according to Emmons, a “chosen attitude.” We must be willing to recognize and acknowledge that we are the recipients of an unearned benefit.

Emmons’ research indicates that gratitude is not merely a positive emotion; it also improves your health if cultivated. People must give up a “victim mentality” and overcome a sense of entitlement and deservedness.

As a result, he says, they will experience significant improvements in several areas of life including relationships, academics, energy level and even dealing with tragedy and crisis.

Research has also suggested that feelings of gratitude may be beneficial to subjective emotional well-being (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). For example, Watkins and colleagues (Watkins et al., 2003) had participants test a number of different gratitude exercises, such as thinking about a living person for whom they were grateful, writing about someone for whom they were grateful, and writing a letter to deliver to someone for whom they were grateful. Participants in the control condition were asked to describe their living room. Participant who engaged in a gratitude exercise showed increases in their experiences of positive emotion immediately after the exercise, and this effect was strongest for participants who were asked to think about a person for whom they were grateful. Participants who had grateful personalities to begin with showed the greatest benefit from these gratitude exercises. In people who are grateful in general, life events have little influence on experienced gratitude (McCullough, Tsang & Emmons, 2004).

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Highlights from the Research Project on Gratitude and ThankfulnessDimensions and Perspectives of GratitudeCo-Investigators: Robert A. Emmons, University of California, Davis

Synopsis. Gratitude is the “forgotten factor” in happiness research. We are engaged in a long-term research project designed to create and disseminate a large body of novel scientific data on the nature of gratitude, its causes, and its potential consequences for human health and well-being. Scientists are latecomers to the concept of gratitude. Religions and philosophies have long embraced gratitude as an indispensable manifestation of virtue, and an integral component of health, wholeness, and well-being. Through conducting highly focused, cutting-edge studies on the nature of gratitude, its causes, and its consequences, we hope to shed important scientific light on this important concept. This document is intended to provide a brief, introductory overview of the major findings to date of the research project. For further information, please contact either of the project investigators.

We are engaged in three main lines of inquiry at the present time: (1) developing methods to cultivate gratitude in daily life, (2) developing a measure to reliably assess individual differences in dispositional gratefulness and (3) designing experimental studies that enable us to distinguish the differential causes and consequences of gratitude and indebtedness.

This project is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation of Radnor, PA.

Gratitude Interventions and Psychological and Physical

Well-Being

In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

A related benefit was observed in the realm of personal goal attainment: Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.

A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others). There was no difference in levels of unpleasant emotions reported in the three groups.

Participants in the daily gratitude condition were more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or having offered emotional support to another, relative to the hassles or social comparison condition.

In a sample of adults with neuromuscular disease, a 21-day gratitude intervention resulted in greater amounts of high energy positive moods, a greater sense of feeling connected to others, more optimistic ratings of one’s life, and better sleep duration and sleep quality, relative to a control group.

Measuring the Grateful Disposition

Most people report being grateful (average rating of nearly 6 on a 7 point scale).

Well-Being: Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

Prosociality: People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathic and to take the perspective of others. They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et. al., 2002).

Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of wealthy persons; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.

[NOTE:   Also viewable at - http://www.enrichment.com/content/remedy-china-reversing-cancer-cell-growth]

There is a remedy from China that users report is putting their cancers into remission.

The remedy is called “Haelan 951” (pronounced “Heelan”). It has had a dearth of publicity to-date – yet it is extraordinary, and worth consideration. Haelan 951 is approved by the FDA as a food substance. It is undergoing clinical trials as a remedy for cancer and is not yet officially FDA approved as a medicine. For this reason, the company that imports the product into the USA cannot yet officially state that it is a cure or remedy for cancer. But wherever clinical trials are held, the findings are extremely positive.

Interviews with people who have taken Haelan 951 for cancer, shows that in many cases it works by boosting the immune system up to 700%, making it virtually impossible for cancer cells to grow or spread. After these interviews, I recommended to a family member with both chronic lymphatic leukemia and the diagnosis of an aggressive breast cancer tumor, that she take the Haelan. Having done so, she went into remission after a few months from both the CLL and breast cancer. Eight years later, she is still in remission.

Haelan 951 is a super nutritious, fermented soybean protein beverage that has shown remarkable results in the treatment of cancer. The bean is grown in China where it is also processed. It is imported in bottles by The Haelan Company in Washington State. The beverage contains large quantities of single cell proteins and their metabolites produced by a specially patented fermentation process. This process hydrolyzes many of the soybean proteins into amino acids and compounds that are rich in nitrogen and fermentation metabolites of the naturally occurring isoflavones such as genistein, protease inhibitors, saponins, phytosterols and inositol hexaphosphate compounds in soybeans.

The majority of those I interviewed reported they had gone into remission – and some of them reported that they did not do conventional treatment, but only the Haelan.

Colorado-based medical researcher Donna Sage, who conducted extensive interviews and research with patients and physicians on difficult cancer cases that had dramatic turnarounds after taking Haelan 951, wrote several articles for Well-Being Journal, including a well-documented piece in the January/February 1999 issue entitled, “Soy Nutrient That Reverses Cancer Cell Growth.” (http://www.haelanproducts.com/well%20being%20journal.htm). Prior to her research, Ms. Sage was a skeptic about the beneficial effects of Haelan. She now believes that Haelan is a potent and viable anti-cancer remedy.

More research can be found at the Haelan Products Company website: http://www.haelanproducts.com/research.htm

One clinical trial of note was a study supported in part by a grant from the National Cancer Institute, and conducted by the Divisions of Medical Oncology and Gynecologic Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. A 56 year-old woman with rapidly progressive platinum-resistant ovarian cancer experienced remission and entered into a phase of prolonged disease stabilization upon initiating self-directed treatment with Haelan 951, a commercially-available soy beverage.

The case report of the study states: “We present a case of a woman with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer who has had asymptomatic, stable disease for nine months on Haelan 951.” The study was first published on May 27, 2005

For serious cases, Haelan is taken initially for two or three months at a bottle (8 ounces a day) – perhaps more. Four ounces in the morning, four ounces at night before bed.

After the initial bottle or more a day, one goes on maintenance, usually an ounce in the morning and an ounce at night, indefinitely. The taste is not great though one gets used to it.

More information is available in several languages at www.Cancer-Disarmed.com