A Primal Perspective on Spirituality

Abstract

Contrary to Janov's assertion that spiritual experience is derivative of primal pain, there is evidence that primaller's are encountering transpersonal phenomena at a deeper level of the primal process. I rely on my experiences and those of other long-term primallers, along with the evidence of meditation and LSD research and the current spiritual literature, in proposing an alternative explanation of the relationship between catharsis and spiritual process in which they are seen as complementary, not opposed, processes. At a certain level of the spiritual process "primal-type" experiences often occur, no matter how interpreted. A primal-type therapy, therefore, can be an invaluable, perhaps indispensible, aid in higher consciousness. Primal therapy reduces the symbolic clutter and cerebral "noise" that characteristically obscure the perception of spiritual realities. It thereby enables spiritual access that would be unavailable to some people conceived into less than ideal life situations. Beyond the primal-type levels of the spiritual process, deeper levels are encountered that do not give indications of containing elements of repressed pain or need, and that can be accurately termed transpersonal. Therefore, primal therapy and meditation represent an identity of ends and an antithesis of means. Both catharsis and meditation are techniques to help us to "be" where we are "at" and thereby to be more fully in a "process" that transcends techniques. For "when we are 'on track' the process takes over, leading us onward to more encompassing realms, regardless of how we get 'on track."'