Healing Collective Trauma: Thomas Hübl on Expanded States of Consciousness | 2025 Summit

So Thomas, in this summit, we were chatting a little bit before we got started. We are exploring all the myriad ways in which human beings for millennia have been accessing expanded states of consciousness to realize their potential for healing, for personal evolution, spiritual evolution and awakening, which includes breath work, meditation, psychedelics and plant medicine, ecstatic dance, chant music, all kinds of methodologies. And in this year's summit, we have a particular through line on healing trauma and through expanded states of various kinds. And also when we talk about expanded states, we're really, we are of course, including those non ordinary states or which can be quite extraordinary and profound that people experience through intensive breath work or psychedelics and plant medicine and so forth. But we're really talking about any, any opening from a constricted state, right? Any movement from a constricted state towards opening and then that full spectrum from what might be open states within our normal waking reality, and then those that move into what are called non ordinary states. So in that light, you know, your work has been beautifully merging traditional wisdom, ancestral wisdom, mysticism and science for a long time. And so I wonder how you understand the, maybe the function, the mechanism of expanded states or expanding one's consciousness or healing trauma.

Well, maybe we need to set a little bit of a context here. Like as I understand the work of the great wisdom traditions, and in the wisdom traditions there is a core which I will call the mystical core of the wisdom traditions. That's where wakefulness, expanded states, very transcendent states, but also a knowledge of the deep energy flows that compose our reality happen. And so, at least in my work, we, we talk a lot in our groups, bridge of transcendence and inclusion or when we talk about trauma, the inclusion and the transcendence. And I will explain what I mean by that. Like the great wisdom traditions initiate us into the capacity to transcend the viewpoint that I'm holding today into that, that's in me, in the next level of transcendence. So what the camera, the way I'm identified with looking at life, when that is not anymore just me, but in me, I begin to have more space to witness that part of myself. So we call that subject object transcendence. So I begin to transcend the perspective that I'm holding right now because I realize a deeper perspective or a higher perspective or a more encompassing perspective. And that includes all the former perspective, all the former levels of development that I went through. So that process is important to understand. So expanded consciousness means also that, that I am seeing, feeling, realizing, witnessing something that I couldn't Witness before, because it was so me. Whatever that me is, whatever level of reality that me is, that me is not just a personal me. I can be identified with subtle states. And the subtle states when people say, oh, I'm spacious. Spaciousness is a subtle state. Causal consciousness is the witnessing capacity of the world of information. So when I am identified with all kinds of states, every new level of transcendence shows me like a deeper aspect of consciousness. So that's important. So a lot of the meditation practices, a lot of the deep contemplative and prayer practices, or as you mentioned, a lot of the practices before can induce such a transcendent moment. And sometimes that stays around for a while. Sometimes it's just fraction of a second. Sometimes it becomes a state like a real state that stays. And. And at the same time, I believe some spiritual traditions focus a lot on the transcendence movement, but don't focus enough on what I think comes. Now with the understanding of trauma, we have to have an inclusion practice, an integration practice. Because transcendence doesn't naturally transcend my unconscious parts. I can transcend what I'm aware of, but the parts that I excluded, I'm not aware of. So the processes where trauma resides, I'm usually aware of the fight of the smoke, which are the symptoms, but I'm not aware of the trauma. Many people, when they say, oh, it's my trauma, what they're saying is, it's these are the symptoms of my trauma. That's not my trauma. The trauma is somewhere buried much deeper. And we just see the smoke. Like, do you see somewhere smoke? You know, there's some fire. But often you don't see the fire because of all the smoke. And the trauma is usually suppressed and unconscious. And together we can begin to bring that up into our conscious awareness. Sometimes transcendent states do that for us, but sometimes also not. It's not given that that that stuff will come up. But more transcendence means also more energy runs through us. And that means there will be a pressure on. On the unconscious aspects. And that's why we say we need a deeper embodiment practice, which is inclusion, integration, healing. And we need a profound transcendence practice that can initiate me into more profound states or more expanded states of consciousness. And when they are being practiced together, then it's amazing because some people try to hide out in transpersonal states because the trauma is too painful or because spirit was the only resource. If in a family system there's a lot of domestic violence, there's a lot of neglect. A lot of things that are traumatizing. I have seen many, many people where spirit became their anchor, which is. Is important for that person. But it's also important that often spirituality then becomes like a promise in the future that. Because the world is a very painful place. And so we need to be aware that as. As people who run groups, work with people, many therapists, facilitators, we need to be aware of the. The pitfall or the. The. The bypassing that can happen in. In expanded states. So there is a lot of gray area, I would say, that needs a much deeper conversation and I think also a much deeper teaching. But I think the. To summarize this first point, transcendence, inclusion or integration and a deep. A deep realized understanding of deeper states. So we can recognize, if people pop into these states, that we can recognize that. So that means the state recognizes a state and a deep understanding of the energy flow and how trauma creates a stagnation in our embodiment and in the way we respond to daily life. Because otherwise spirituality becomes the promise in the future. And trauma says here and now, in this moment, in the traumatic moment, life is not good for me. So not here and not now is the better version. And if that merges with the spiritual promise, we perpetuate suffering. And that's very important, I think, for me to understand.