The experiences of many people show that from time to time it is possible to have spontaneous insights into expanded consciousness, and that it is a completely natural ability of each of us. However, these insights come only “when they want to.” That means suitable circumstances must arise. They most often occur during a stay in nature. Longer stays in nature automatically tune a person to everything around them, so we naturally enter into a much more expanded consciousness than what we experience in everyday city life. I have the impression that our Western culture so widely “worships” the masculine, rational-analytical consciousness of everyday life, that it necessarily needs the alienated and unnatural environment of our modern cities to sustain itself and function properly. This may also be one of the reasons why our civilization, based on this very narrow type of consciousness, destroys nature so much. Perhaps we subconsciously perceive it as alien to ourselves.
We have certainly all experienced the feeling of awe and “opening up wide” on a hill, at a lookout point over the landscape. If we go to high mountains, the effect is even stronger – further increased by lower air pressure, which automatically makes us breathe holotropically. But a similar feeling of “dissolving into the distance” can also be experienced on the seashore. People usually talk about how being in the mountains or by the sea “clears their head,” or about “cleansing the soul.” In other words, they describe experiences similar to those after meditation, a trip, or holotropic breathing.
In the past, people probably experienced these states commonly during religious ceremonies. These most likely aimed to induce altered states of consciousness. Unfortunately, in our modern world, these ceremonies no longer have such power. They now resemble more of a “cargo cult.” However, according to available information, religious ceremonies were probably much more ecstatic in the distant past, enhanced by music and perhaps even entheogens, and had a significant impact on the consciousness of their participants. We can still see statues or paintings of saints in ecstasy in many churches today.
Similarly, pregnancy is a completely different state of consciousness. Sensitive women report that they can feel the “soul of the child” from the very beginning of pregnancy, and in the last months before birth, their experience of shared consciousness with the child is particularly strong. They perceive themselves as a “dual entity” with the child, and this state apparently persists even for several months after birth. Experienced midwives also note that the child perceives itself as part of the mother’s consciousness and being, so separation from the mother is particularly difficult during this phase of their life. Needless to say, materialistic science typically rejects all of these experiences outright because „they are impossible“.
Mothers also experience a very strong state of expanded consciousness during childbirth – if they can give birth naturally without unnecessary medical intervention and in a natural position. Women who were fortunate enough to experience a natural birth without interference describe very deep insights into expanded consciousness, or experiences of encountering a radiant white light. Even fathers who were present during such a natural birth speak of it as a very powerful experience of altered states of consciousness, and some even shared the experience of encountering the light with their wives.
One acquaintance of mine also said that such spontaneous insights sometimes come to her in really difficult moments of life. She experienced them mainly during a serious illness of her son. She would enter into an expanded state of consciousness for a short time and it was very liberating for her. Another natural way to enter into an expanded state of consciousness is through sexuality, but that is a very broad topic and I have already addressed it extensively in the first book.
