When the Impossible Happens

Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities

Stanislav Grof M.D., Ph.D.

Table of Contents

PRAISE FOR WHEN THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENS

“This book is extremely intriguing in that it shows how a strong scientific mind confronts things which science cannot explain.”

—RAM DASS
Author of
Be Here Now

“This account of a remarkable life spent searching for new frontiers of consciousness is fascinating.”

—ODE MAGAZINE

“What all these [Grof’s] books have in common is the courage to speak in a forthright manner about experiences that are often judged as dysfunctional when expressed in general conversation.”

—WISDOM: PUGET SOUND EDITION

“Grof is one of the great explorers of this century. In this book, he has given us a collection of stories that, like those of Marco Polo, are so outside most of our experience that at first one tends to doubt their reality. However, if you are able to stay open, you see how profound, valid, and important these stories are and how much they extend our understanding of our own and humanity’s possibilities.”

—JAMES FADIMAN, PH.D.
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

“Far from the neurochemical artifacts and symptoms of toxic psychoses that main stream psychiatry would assert, Grof provides a compelling alternative approach to understanding and responding to such perturbations of inner experience ... In his most recent book
[When the Impossible Happens],
he has mapped a course for a new and more conscious field of psychiatry, one that honors the sacred plants and alkaloids passed down from ancient shamanic practitioners and discovered in modern laboratories.”

—SHIFT: AT THE FRONTIERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The Institute of Noetic Sciences

“In the late eighteenth century the Australian platypus was an impossibility. The scientific community refused to consider this paradigm-breaking mammal—venomous, egg-laying, and duck-billed—as anything but a hoax. Two hundred years later we still refuse to accept that ‘the impossible’ does happen. Stanislav Grof challenges this narrow minded refusal by half a century of courageously unbiased research of non-ordinary reality in the depth of the human psyche.”

—BROTHER DAVID STEINDL-RAST, OSB

“In this remarkable book, Stanislav Grof reflects upon half a century of research and experience in the realm of non-ordinary realities. The quality and quantity of these incidents place the ball squarely in the court of conventional science and psychotherapy, challenging their perspectives on personal identity, psychosis, and the very nature of reality. Some readers will dismiss
When the Impossible Happens
as the ravings of a deluded eccentric; for others, the book will be a life-changing experience.”

—STANLEY KRIPPNER, PH.D.
Coeditor,
Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence

“Acclaimed academics ... especially the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof author of numerous books on non-ordinary states of consciousness including his latest,
When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities,
go to extreme lengths to assure their unconventional research will stand up to scientific scrutiny
... When the Impossible Happens
is sheer entertainment of the voyeuristic type ... That he is one of the foremost practitioners of LSD therapy adds greatly to his story.”

—WWW.FOREWORDMAGAZINE.COM

“Stan Grof’s new book,
When the Impossible Happens,
has become an instant transpersonal classic.
”