Stan Grofille Vaclav Havel -palkinto "Vision 97"

[Kalastaja]

Psychedelic Therapy and Research Pioneer Stan Grof Wins Prestigious Havel Award

The Board of Consultants of the Foundation of Dagmar and Vaclav Havel in Prague, Czech Republic, has decided to grant its prestigious award, Vision 97 for the year 2007 to psychiatrist, consciousness researcher, and psychedelic therapy pioneer Stanislav Grof, M.D.

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel and his wife Dagmar launched their Foundation ten years ago. Besides distributing money for cultural and social purposes, this Foundation focuses on long-term support and organization of projects and programs that aim for the future, have pioneering features, attempt to break down conventions, and strengthen those avenues of science and culture, which at present do not enjoy support of the majority of people or are not comprehensible to them, but which with their consequences can inspire or otherwise meaningfully influence the future." Former recipients of the award include the author Umberto Eco, former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, and psychologist Phillip G. Zimbardo. There will be a public ceremony in Prague in October, 2007.

I would like to share with you some exciting news that might interest you as my friends and colleagues friend I have just received a letter from the former Czech president Vaclav Havel that I will receive the Award entitled Vision 97 given annually by the prestigious Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation.

Much love, Stan
In Prague, March 20, 2007.

Dear Professor Grof,
I have the honor to inform you that the Board of Consultants decided to grant you the Award of the Foundation of Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Vision 97 for the year 2006. Allow me to say first a few words about our Foundation. My wife and I launched it ten years ago; beside distributing money for cultural and social purposes, it focuses 0n longterm support and organization of projects and programs that aim for the future, have pioneering features, and attempt to break down conventions and strengthen that, which at present does not enjoy support of the majority of people or is not comprehensible to them, but what with its consequences can inspire or otherwise meaningfully influence the future.
One of the programs of the Foundation is granting its annual Awards. It is given to thinkers, whose scientific work returns science into the framework of general culture, transcends the dominant concepts of knowledge and being, reveals unknown, surprising, or overlooked connections, and touches in a new way the mysteries of the universe and of life. It is thus an Award, by which we would like to bring the attention of the public to spiritual achievements, which in the best sense of the word do not meet the criteria of the established ways of exploring of reality.

[Kalastaja]

Stanislav Grof Receives Vaclav Havel Award
R.M. Crockford
MAPS Bulletin. Vol. 17 (3). 2007.

Another chapter in PragueÕs history
as a city of unusual wonder was recorded
on October 5, when the VIZE97 Foundation,
created by playwright and former
Czech president Vaclav Havel, presented
a lifetime achievement award to Dr.
Stanislav Grof, one of the worldÕs leading
psychedelic researchers. Dr. Grof, who
was born near Prague in 1931, pioneered
LSD-assisted psychotherapy in Czechoslovakia
until he emigrated to the United
States in 1967.

The ceremonies took place at the
Prague Crossroads, a deconsecrated 10thcentury
church converted into a spiritual
and meeting center by Mr. HavelÕs foundation.
The day began with Dr. Grof signing
copies of New Perspectives in Psychiatry
and Psychology, a collection of his recent
writings in Czech, and then joining a twohour
panel discussion about his work, and
the challenges of trying to reconcile
mystical experiences with organized
religion and modern psychiatry. The
discussions, open to the public, were
attended by about 100 well-wishers - a
local magazine recently named Dr. Grof
one of the 20 most important spiritual
leaders in the Czech nationÕs history -
along with several Czechs trained in
holotropic breathwork, a drug-free
method to induce non-ordinary states of
consciousness that Dr. Grof developed
with his wife Christina.

"Many addicts are on a journey to find
something, and they had several mystical
experiences, but most of them were not
able to integrate them,Ó said Stanislav
Kudrle, a Czech psychiatrist who has used
breathwork to treat drug and alcohol
addicts for 18 years. ÒWhat Stan Grof did
is, he brought the maps, he brought the
model and the method which makes it
possible to support these people on their
quest."

Not everyone was pleased about the
awarding of the Havel prize to Dr. Grof.
Priests and psychiatrists were quoted in a
Prague newspaper that day saying the
foundation had made an Òembarrassing
mistake,Ó and a Czech skepticsÕ society
accused Dr. Grof of Òpropagating absurd
ideasÓ by claiming that breathwork
enables participants to re-experience past
lives and their own birth. But such
criticisms were dismissed later in the
evening by Havel himself, in his speech to
the packed auditorium.

"This prize is for visionaries, for
explorers, for people who overstep
boundaries and notice new and unpredictable
connections,Ó said Havel. Such
researchers take risks, he noted, because
theyÕre often attacked by Òhard traditionalists
who canÕt imagine that science could
step beyond its own limits. These people
can even be fanatical opponents to
anything that is outside traditional
thinking. In the name of rationality, they
sometimes actually fight against new
ideas."

ÒIÕve always believed that what
happened once canÕt be erased, that the
whole history of our planet, and the
cosmos, is being written somewhere, that
Being has its own memory,Ó Havel continued.
ÒThe work of Dr. Grof showed me
that sometimes, something can return
from this greater memory to our own
consciousness. And that we can surprisingly
experience, maybe only for a few
minutes, something that happened a long
time ago, or in faraway places, that we
couldnÕt know by other means."

Havel and his wife Dagmar presented
Dr. Grof with a stylized staff of St. Vojtech,
the patron saint of Bohemia. Afterwards,
Dr. Grof said he was deeply moved by the
ceremony. It brought his work back to his
birthplace, he noted, and it was an honor
to be recognized by a statesman and
philosopher he greatly admires.

"And then [there was] the tremendous
surprise that Vaclav Havel had the
courage to appreciate research in something
thatÕs so controversial. ItÕs extremely
important in terms of other people taking
a second look, because of who he is. I hope
that it can ultimately help the field."
-----

Talvi 2007 numero MAPS:in lehdestä. Viimeisellä sivulla kuva Grofista vastaanottamassa palkintoa. (Aika raskas pdf).
http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v17n3/ ... r_2007.pdf

[Ahab]

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