The Unfolding Self

Ralph Metzner, PhD, (1936-2019) was a world-renown pioneer in the study of consciousness and transformative experience. His work stretched the boundaries of traditional psychology by incorporating shamanic methods that transform consciousness and expand understanding of the human psyche.  Metzner was involved in the study of transformations of consciousness since his time as a graduate student at Harvard University, where he worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects. Metzner co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience in the 1960s and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. Metzner earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and psychology from Oxford University and a PhD in clinical psychology from Harvard University. During the 1970s, Ralph spent 10 years in the intensive study and practice of Agni Yoga, a meditative system of working with light-fire life energies. In the early 1970s he wrote Maps of Consciousness, one of the earliest attempts at a comparative cartography of consciousness; and Know Your Type: Maps of Identity, a comparative survey of personality typologies, ancient and modern. In the 1980s and for a 10-year period, Metzner served as Academic Dean at the California Institute of Integral Studies where he taught courses on “Altered States of Consciousness” and “Developing Ecological Consciousness.” He later became a Professor Emeritus at CIIS.  Metzner’s books include The Well of Remembrance, Green Psychology, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture, and two edited collections on the science and the phenomenology of ayahuasca and teonanácatl. He also wrote The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience, first published in the 1990s. A new printing of The Unfolding Self was published by Synergetic Press in 2022.

The Unfolding Self

Preface viii

Introduction: From Caterpillar to Butterfly 1

Symbols and Metaphors of Transformation

Theories of Human Transformation

Variations on the Theme of Self-Transformation

1. Awakening from the Dream of Reality 20

Ordinary Awareness as Dreamlike

Dreaming, Sleeping, and Waking in Everyday Life

Transformation as an Awakening

2. Uncovering the Veils of Illusion 36

The World Perceived as Maya

The Transformation of Vision

Unmasking the Self

3. From Captivity to Liberation 54

Body and Form as Prison

Knots, Ties, Nets, and Bonds in Relationships

Strategies of Escape and Liberation

4. Purification by Inner Fire 74

Fire Deities and the Spirit of Fire

Hell, Purgatory, and the Fire of Purification

Kundalini and the Yoga of Fire

The Mystical Fire of Union

5. From Fragmentation to Wholeness 94

Psychic Fragmentation in Ordinary Awareness and in Madness

Shamanic Dismemberment: Osiris and Dionysus

Alchemical Separatio in Meditation and Psychotherapy

Approaches to Wholeness

6. Reconciling with the Inner Enemy 114

On Integrating the Shadow

Accepting the Unacceptable

From Denial to Affirmation

Purification and Elimination

From Inner Warfare to Inner Peace

On Facing One’s Demons

7. On Dying and Being Reborn 136

Conscious Death and Intentional “Dying”

Nearness to Death as Transformative Experience

Thanatos and Psychic Death

Alchemical Mortificatio

The New Birth and the Eternal Child

8. From Darkness to Light 159

Enlightenment of the Physical Body

The Illumination of the Mind

The Self as a Being of Light

9. Integrating the Inner Wild Animal 177

Remembering Our Evolutionary Ancestry

Animals in Folklore, Mythology and Religion

Tales of Animal Transformations

10. Unfolding the Tree of Our Life 198

The Tree as a Symbol of Self-Unfoldment

Climbing the Tree, Straightening the Pillar

The World Tree and the Inverted Tree

The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge

11. Journey to the Place of Vision and Power 223

The Myth of the Wanderer

Departure and Threshold Crossing

Descent into the Depths

“Flying” and the Upper Realms

Journeys into Nonordinary Reality

Returning Home

12. Returning to the Source 249

Man as Stranger, Life as Exile

The Outgoing Path and the Returning Path

The Homeward Journey

Notes 269

Bibliography 301

Index 312