Whitehead on Selfhood
By Bill Meacham, Ph. D.
Copyright © 2025 Bill Meacham
Displayed prominently on a website devoted to Stan Grof’s teaching is an ancient Greek proverb: “Know Thyself.” Clearly, the nature of the self is of extreme importance for Grof. He says,
Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to conduct our life in such a way that it reflects deep philosophical and metaphysical understanding of reality and of ourselves discovered through personal experience during systematic spiritual pursuit.
The admonition to know and understand ourselves can be taken in two ways. First, we can learn things peculiar to each of us such as our talents and limits, the events that formed our personality, our deep fears and aspirations and the like. But we can also take it in a more general sense. What are structures of the self common to all people? How do those structures fit into a broad account of the whole of reality? Seeking the philosophical and metaphysical understanding of reality that Grof advocates, Alfred North Whitehead addresses these questions.
