HR Geiger and Stan Grof

Last night I stayed up late looking through H.R. Geiger's Necronomicon. It is quite a body of work. Any artist would be proud and horrified of producing this. Geiger describes the process of creating his are as an exorcism.

While looking at the art, my thought process was to reconcile or practice the application of Dr Stanislav Grof's Birth Perinatal Matrices to the art. On a few occasions it was strikingly obvious that a lot of the images in the art were related to the matrices which apply to the peri-natal experiences. After about 20 minutes of looking at his art, I was positive that my dreams would revolve around some negative BPM related experiences. This was not the case. I was 'spared'. In retrospect I wish I was not spared, because these experiences tend to have a holotropic effect.

While I was at the Omega Institute last fall, I was able to listen to a "Darshan" of Dr. Grof's on Geiger's art as it relates to the BPMs as he calls them. This was truly fascinating and they started to come alive for me when looking at the art. The Geiger art is truly disturbing and grotesque, but at the same time beautiful and skillfully crafted. His lecture was done in a very interesting set and setting, because we had all been doing holotropic breathwork, and doing vipassana meditation for about 4 to 5 days at that point, and were really open.

What an experience. I suggest anyone interested in the BPM theory, do some cursory exploring of the theory, and then look at some Geiger art. You can find some lectures by Stan on the internet, so maybe also check those out. Stan also had a great slide show later on related to the political art aspect of BPMs. He said that people knew how to play on these complexes and matricies that we all (most of us) had laid upon us at birth. Octopus, closing in themes, etc.The Psychohistorian Lloyd deMause was a pundit of this idea. Stan discussed his collaboration with deMause at this later slide show presentation.

A member of the board of the Association of Holotropic Breathwork International told me once that Stan's real discovery for BPMs was the otological origin of Archetypes in the human consciousness. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. That smoked... I don't have enough experience or knowledge or archetypal patterns to say if this is accurate. It is a good theory and is worth looking into further.