The evolutionary crisis involves rapid personal development in the form of expedited consciousness growth. Usually termed a spiritual emergence, the sudden acceleration can quickly progress from emergence into a spiritual emergency. A spiritual emergence refers to a relatively slow process of personal awakening into stages transcending normal ego functioning. This expansion entails greater emotional, psychological, and psychosomatic health; a relaxing of rigidities leading to a greater freedom of choice and being; and a recognition and connection on deeper levels with the cosmos at small and large. The experience derives its name from the gained awareness of the spiritual dimensions of existence and life, on the biographical and universal levels. This process can occur dramatically quick giving rise to disorientation and instability as the spiritual unfolding reaches new plateaus and areas of awareness. A large shift in world view and crumbling of cognitive frameworks can lead to a strange and foreign experience of groundlessness and novelty as new revelations about the nature of self and reality are accommodated. This rapidity is the spiritual emergency. The crisis sufferer enters an experientially difficult stage of psychological transformation including troublesome functioning in everyday life, non-ordinary states of consciousness, psychospiritual symptoms with physical manifestation, and more. This exploration of the evolutionary crisis as a spiritual emergency will include times of occurrence, symptoms, outcomes, and some offered coping methods.
There are times when a spiritual emergence is most likely to occur. The first of six is a period of life popularly but misleadingly called a “dark night.” In a person climbing towards maturation there comes a time when stability is found but internal satisfaction is not achieved. Standard ego and sensual gratification no longer holds the existential meaninglessness at bay. The growing sense of isolation creates a yearning for personal wholeness and ultimate unification. This is prime soil for spiritual emergence. Spiritual emergence will more often arise during intense spiritual practice, such as yoga, meditation, pranayam, prayer, kirtan, etc. Times of physical distress, especially injury near death, surgery, and childbirth are ripe for emergence. Transitional periods of life, identity fragmentation, sessions of therapy, and other times of emotional distress are conducive to this awakening. Sexual experiences of union and volcanic ecstasy and transpersonal experiences of psychedelic origin can also induce a spiritual emergence. At these junctures it is likely that the slow progress of an evolutionary period will begin.
This evolutionary period can forego its slow progress altogether, rapidly transforming the person and catapulting them into a spiritual emergency. The presence of any of the following three conditions can propel an emergence into an emergency. When the sufferer has no conceptual framework in which to assimilate the experience, understanding is absent and the person is thrown into chaos. Even if understanding is gained, this apprehension cannot substitute for the physical, psychological, and emotional flexibility needed to integrate the emergence. The inability to integrate is the bottleneck in the growth process as expansion becomes congestion. Lastly if the person is unfortunate enough in the birth lottery to find himself in a society or family who’s belief structures compartmentalize his experience as psychopathological, then his own perception of the event is altered. He may be condemned to mistreatment with expectations of no positive outcome and begin feeling panic, anxiety, and depression. The entire process may be horribly suppressed with medication and forceful therapies. The more of these conditions present, with fuller confidence can one predict a spiritual emergency.
There are several types of spiritual emergency that revolve around certain aspects of transpersonal phenomenon but they all contain the same constellation of symptoms. One’s experience may resemble shamanism, a kundalini awakening, an episode of ego death, a psychic opening, or any of the characteristics of transpersonal consciousness. The generic symptoms include a sense of newly gained knowledge about the self, world, or some aspect of reality; perceptual alterations including insights, synchronicities, and hallucinatory disturbances; and if present the delusions arrange themselves mythologically to include themes of the hero’s journey, archetypal motifs, martyr or messianic references, etc. Regardless of these, there is no conceptual disorganization occurring. The experiencer may become confused with highly complex material and appear psychologically disorganized to the uninitiated, but in regular everyday functioning the person is conceptually coherent.
The outcome of an evolutionary crisis depends on the capacity of the individual to integrate the spiritual emergency into his self-concept. His world view must expand considerably to now include dimensions hitherto unseen. His only options are an increased positive or negative functioning in the world. He is forever changed and can never return home to the comfort of ignorance. If supported he will heal and transcend his old ways and pull others along with him; if otherwise he may become overly sedated with medications and at worst institutionalized and outcasted. Possible positive outcomes includes a healing of psychosomatic and emotional difficulties, favorable changes in personality and the ability to find solutions to important problems in life, and most significantly an evolution towards higher consciousness, peace, compassion, and creativity. These positive outcomes are increasingly likely when several of certain criteria are present. These include but are not limited to the presence of the following four items: Good pre-episodic functioning, acute onset of symptoms, stressful precipitants, and a positive attitude. Good pre-episodic functioning means there have been no previous episodes of a psychotic break. The person has maintained a social network and has either been in or is capable of having an intimate sexual relationship, and has exhibited reasonable success in his vocation or school. The symptoms should have risen in three months or less and their duration should not stretch beyond the same amount of time after being established. A major change in the persons life preceding the spiritual emergency indicates there is a reason and it is not simply psychosis. This would include rite of passage related events such as marriage, a broken heart, entering a first career, and leaving the parental home; and other critical events such as an identity crisis, an encounter with death, a paranormal occurrence, etc. Having a positive attitude towards the spiritual emergency is very likely to guide one towards a positive outcome. This involves assigning meaning to the crisis as revelatory and an opportunity for growth. It is also helpful to have an arsenal of productive coping skills for navigating an acute psychotic break or spiritual emergency. With the experience and knowledge gathered by those gone before, it is possible to arrange a positive prognosis at the outset of the crisis.
The spiritual emergence is the progression into realms of consciousness development that involve the recognition of previously unknown spiritual dimensions to life. Too rapid of an exploration of these dimensions in depth and breadth, not always by choice, can lead to a spiritual emergency. Be wary of “seeing how far the rabbit hole goes.” Regard the myth of Icarus with reverence, for flying to close to the clear light of the sun without the proper gear and tools can result in crashing into the ocean the mystics swim in but in which the psychotics drown.