Spiritual Emergency Resolved over 50 Years
Dr. Brian Sackett PhD
Dr. Sackett will describe a childhood Near-Death Experience, a Shared-Death Experience with his wife of 25 years, and discuss more fully a Spiritual Emergency experience from 1970 that has taken many years to begin to understand, and finally to integrate into his personal and spiritual life. There were many things about the 1970 STE that he didn’t understand at the time, including why he lost touch with the meaning of his human life, the nature of the transcendent part of the experience, and whether he had lost his sanity. The picture started clarifying in 1990, when he learned about the category of Spiritual Emergence, and in the last thirty years as he explored several different spiritual paths, including meditation and Advaita (nonduality). He has now come to understand and integrate what began in 1970.
Brian Sackett PhD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Jose, California, and a recent Toronto, Canada resident. He specializes in working with clients dealing with trauma and abuse, spiritual emergence, anxiety, and depression. Prior to becoming a therapist, Brian worked for 25 years in high tech in a variety of positions, including director of sales, national accounts sales manager, product marketing manager, business development manager, and engineering program manager. His undergraduate degree is in mathematics from Stanford University, and he has a master’s degree in counseling psychology, and PhD in transpersonal psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Brian has meditated and studied meditation since he was 21 years old, and has had a number of strong spiritual experiences that have motivated him to do this. Some of the teachers who have influenced him are Baba Ram Dass, Swami Muktananda, Mother Meera, Adyashanti and Mukti, Sat Shree and Pia Ma (from Australia). As a psychotherapist, what he has learned that helps people deal with the intense sufferings of minor and major traumas turns out to be useful in exploring spirituality. Brian currently live in Toronto, Canada, and offers online spiritual guidance sessions and group meditations.