| Draft, partial, subject to revision |
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I find myself thinking that Grof's BPMs need rethinking. For one thing, their nomenclature is far from euphonious: 'Basic' appears to be superfluous; 'Matrix', while having a clever mathematical ring to it and being also a favorite among the New-Agers, also seems to be a word without a mission. 'Perinatal', while apt enough (tho' a bit long) implies a choice of one level of what is clearly a layered structure. There appears to be a homology between the process of physical birth and the process of separation and individuation as depicted in the Heroic and Creation myths; choosing the physical process as the core layer is appealing from an empiricist/materialist perspective, and aspects of the BPMs seem concretely physical in origin. Still, the question can legitimately be asked: which is the mystery and which the manifestation?
While there is no empirical support for the proposition that the birth process is a manifestation and instantiation of a transcendent, superordinate subtle phenomenon, (which many authors would nonetheless assert as dogma), we are concerned in this context with consciousness, and physical phenomena are of interest only insofar as they affect it; therefore an intuitive, transparent and more euphonious terminology that related more directly to the progress from Original Embedment to Regeneration in Spirit would be useful. Also, while acronyms are fine and wonderful things and seem appropriate in the military and technological worlds, they are a bit clunky and mechanical for our present purposes.
Also, I think Grof's taxonomy may be dubious. While he seems to have captured the essence of BPM II and III (they are sort of hard to miss, in a way), BMP I and IV strike me as less well-defined and convincing. He places the Final Battle and Ultimate Defeat in IV, when I would think it either the final stage of III, or perhaps it is in III.5. The applicability of such a quantal model can be questioned; I think it is appropriate, but may need a finer grain.
The legitimacy of BPM I and IV can be questioned on the grounds that I is before the beginning, the timeless state of Original Embedment, and IV is after the end. If we are concerning ouselves with the process of differentiation, we are concerned with the onset of Disembedment/Separation and the progress to the Egoic Stage, where the nonegoic is repressed and the mental-ego is stable. This seems to be the process reflected in both physical birth and in the Heroic and Creation myths. The process of reintegration leading to the Transegoic Stage does not seem to be a smooth continuation of this, but more like a recapitulation; the latency and middle-mental-egoic periods look very much like an interlude rather than a real part of this action. It could be said that BPM I preceeds the process we are interested in, and IV commences an interlude that preceeds another; indeed, the symmetry of I and IV lead me to question their separation, since the differentiation and reintegration processes seem to have a circular or spiral quality.
Also, BPM II and III are clearly active elements in observed psychology: I am not convinced that I and IV are. It could be argued that they may be less visible because they characterize normal, well-adjusted people. They might be characteristic of the latency/mental-egoic periods when nonegoic potentials are quiescent. It does seem to me that most ordinary people exposed to nonegoic potentials will experience BPM II and III motifs.
The transformative process seems to be at least partly characterised by a progress from stability thru an unstable period marked by BPM II and then BPM III leading to a new stabilility. BPM I and IV seem to describe the periods of stability when active transformation is not occurring, and I suggest that BPM IV describes the beginning of such a peaceful period and BMP I describes the body of it. The direction of this process seems to be invariant, whether it concerns the individuation of the ego from Original Embedment in the nonegoic or the later reintegration of the ego with the nonegoic. Despite the apparent reversal of direction in the latter case, the same motion from stability thru BPM II and then III borderline states to a higher stability seems to occur. Perhaps the reverse motion, from BPM III to BPM II, occurs in those cases when reintegration fails and becomes regression, degeneration and devolution to psychosis.
I as yet have no alternative formulation to offer, but do feel that such may be called for.