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Who Is Stanislav Grof? Meet the Psychedelic Pioneer and Father of Holotropic Breathwork
Exploring Grof’s psychedelic legacy and lasting work
“If I am the father of LSD, Stan is the Godfather. Nobody has contributed as much as Stan for the development of my problem child” — Dr. Albert Hofmann
The mid-20th century was the golden age of psychedelic research. Around 40,000 patients were administered LSD, with overwhelming benefits for issues such as addiction, depression, and death-related anxiety.
One of the pioneers of this era was psychiatrist and consciousness explorer Stanislav Grof. Grof himself conducted around 4,500 psychedelic sessions during this golden age. However, his research with psychedelic substances was cut short following the infamous ban on psychoactive substances in 1971.
Since then, Grof, 89, has continued to impact the fields of psychiatry and psychology; along with his wife, Grof managed to circumvent the psychedelic ban by developing a novel method to induce psychedelic-like states with a simple breathing technique, which they dub Holotropic Breathwork.
