There is a spring in the parish of São Brás de Alportel that has a name older than the town itself. It is called the Fonte do Mouro, the Spring of the Mouro. The name has survived centuries of conquest, conversion, and forgetting. The water still rises from the same place it always did. And … Continue reading New Landscape Holistic Project: The Magick Megalithic Circle Phenomenology, part 2:The Moura at the Bottom of the Spring: A Story from São Brás de Alportel and the Living Landscape of the Eastern Algarve
Author: Jan
New Landscape Holistic Project: The Magick Megalithic Circle Phenomenology – part 1: The Beings in the Stone, A Historical Perspective
Long before the vocabulary of psychogeography, phenomenology, or esoteric psychology existed, the people of Portugal knew that certain stones were inhabited. The figure at the centre of this knowledge is the Moura Encantada, the Enchanted Moura, one of the oldest and most persistent beings in Portuguese and Galician folk tradition. She is beautiful, she is … Continue reading New Landscape Holistic Project: The Magick Megalithic Circle Phenomenology – part 1: The Beings in the Stone, A Historical Perspective
New Landscape Holistic Project: The Magick Megalithic Circle Phenomenology, the Foundation at Pocilgais:
https://youtu.be/gcbx8753wQw?si=A8CXg626ZSH4Gqn1 Chapter One: The Oval on the Hill Around a large oval stone structure in the landscape of Monte Pocilgais, we intend to explore the genius loci of the place, its psychogeography, and the first steps toward a conscious landscape practice. This is more than tree-bathing, and more than landscape architecture. It is an attempt … Continue reading New Landscape Holistic Project: The Magick Megalithic Circle Phenomenology, the Foundation at Pocilgais:
The Inner Demon Is the One Who Says “I”
We usually imagine inner demons as dark forces hidden somewhere inside us, waiting to be discovered, named, healed, or defeated. The language is everywhere now. People speak of facing their demons, releasing their demons, transforming their demons. It sounds courageous, but often it remains at the level of a story we tell about ourselves. In … Continue reading The Inner Demon Is the One Who Says “I”
Podcast Episode: Authentic Spirituality And Inner Worlds
Pip: If you have ever suspected that the wellness industry is selling you the feeling of awakening rather than the thing itself, breath4balance has some thoughts — and some receipts. Mara: Jan has been writing this week about what authentic inner life actually looks like, how mystical traditions encode real experience, and where symbolic systems … Continue reading Podcast Episode: Authentic Spirituality And Inner Worlds
Reclaiming the Inner World
There is a world we have almost forgotten. Not the world of phones, deadlines, opinions, news, appointments and the endless noise of the outside. I mean the inner world. The quiet world behind the eyes. The world of dreams, symbols, silence, light, intuition, prayer, meditation and subtle presence. Many old traditions knew this world very … Continue reading Reclaiming the Inner World
When Spirituality Fills the Mind Instead of Opening It
I have just published a new paper on PhilPapers: Authentic Spirituality and the Colonisation of Inner Space: Closed Symbolic Systems, Dark Magick, and Yoga as Liberation. You can find it here:https://philpapers.org/rec/KEPASA-2 This paper is part of a new series I am developing under the title Authentic Spirituality. The name may sound ambitious, but the basic … Continue reading When Spirituality Fills the Mind Instead of Opening It
The Light That You Are: What the Tibetan Rainbow Body Actually Means
Jan M. Keppel Hesselink, MD, MSc, PhD There is a story told in Tibetan Buddhism that sounds, to the Western ear, like pure mythology. When a great meditation master dies, the body does not decay in the ordinary way. Instead, it dissolves into colored light. Witnesses describe rainbows appearing around the place of death. The … Continue reading The Light That You Are: What the Tibetan Rainbow Body Actually Means
Why We Are Starting Something New: A Manifesto for Authentic Spirituality
Jan M. Keppel Hesselink, MD, MSc, PhD Something has gone wrong with spirituality. Not with the real thing, but with what most people are being sold as the real thing. Walk into any bookshop. Scroll through Instagram for five minutes. Browse the retreat listings online. You will find awakening weekends, chakra activations, kundalini intensives, breathwork … Continue reading Why We Are Starting Something New: A Manifesto for Authentic Spirituality
Deconstructing Acupuncture Metaphors: Bell’s Palsy, Wind, and the Problem of Symbolic Medicine
A recent acupuncture tutorial on Bell’s palsy offers a useful case study in how traditional medical metaphors can slide into pseudo-explanations. The speaker begins reasonably enough. Bell’s palsy is described as a paralysis of the seventh cranial nerve, the facial nerve. He correctly notes the importance of early steroid treatment and the need to distinguish … Continue reading Deconstructing Acupuncture Metaphors: Bell’s Palsy, Wind, and the Problem of Symbolic Medicine
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