Books of the Dead: Manuals for Living and Dying (Art and Imagination)
by Stanislav Grof

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Book Reviews of Books of the Dead: Manuals for Living and Dying (Art and Imagination)

Book Review: A scholarly approach to books of the dead
Summary: 4 Stars

There are many "books of the dead," probably the most famous being the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol, or "liberation by hearing") and the Egyptian Book of the Dead (a collection of papyri based on a body of literature called "Pert em hru, or "coming forth in the light.") There are others as well, less known, from other cultures including the European Christian culture of the middle ages.

Stanislav Grof, a Czech psychiatrist and self-described former disciple of Freud, has written this book about the underlying doctrines and experiences which probably served as the impetus for such eschatological literature.

I met Stan Grof at a seminar at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California, in the 'seventies. He is a polished, impressive, baritone speaker with a slight European accent who presents as a serious, knowledgeable scholar. I think I still have tapes of his presentation.

Grof said, at the seminar, that he was originally--in Czechoslovakia where he originated--a dyed-in-the-wool
Freudian, until he began to perceive difficulties with that approach. He grew from there. He was one of the original medical investigators to use d-lysergic acid diethylamide in serious psychiatric research, from which he derived some astonishing results.

Grof was formerly Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is no lightweight airhead, but rather is a highly qualified, credentialed and credible researcher. This and his other books are well worth your time, if you have the necessary vocabulary and the scientific background to benefit from them.

In this book he examines such influences as perinatal experience and reports of out-of-body experiences as evidence, as well as his own research using subjects under the influence of psychedelics and advanced non-drug methods to arrive at his conclusions. His conclusions? That these ancient texts were not fanciful mythology or historical curiosities, but practical guides for situations we might well encounter sometime in our own future.

Interesting reading. I recommend the book to you.

Joseph H. Pierre,

author of The Road to Damascus and other books

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