The Oldest Syllabus: The Mithras Liturgy and the Ancient Object of Esoteric Psychology

What I mean by esoteric psychology Readers of this blog know that I have been circling one idea for years, and lately naming it openly: esoteric psychology. The name needs a word of explanation, because it does not mean what it seems to mean. It is not the psychology of people who believe strange things. … Continue reading The Oldest Syllabus: The Mithras Liturgy and the Ancient Object of Esoteric Psychology

New Landscape Holistic Project Part 6: The Place Calls First – The Magick Megalithic Circle at Pocilgais

Elemental Encounter, Bardon’s Soul Mirror, and the Ethics of Landscape Magick From Stone Phenomenology to Elemental Encounter This series (now with 6 parts) began with a simple but difficult decision: not to decide too quickly what the stone formation at Monte Pocilgais is. It may be a natural accumulation, an agricultural clearance cairn, a collapsed … Continue reading New Landscape Holistic Project Part 6: The Place Calls First – The Magick Megalithic Circle at Pocilgais

Working with Abraxas: A New Kind of Inner Report of a Modern Magus

There is something happening in the world of hermetic and magical practice right now. More people than ever are working with sigils, evocation formulas, and inner transformation practices. YouTube channels, online communities, and a growing number of books are bringing these ancient arts into the twenty-first century. At the same time, universities are taking Western … Continue reading Working with Abraxas: A New Kind of Inner Report of a Modern Magus

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

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

What does the word Tantra really mean? An instrument to ‘stretch’.

The word Tantra is frequently mistranslated in modern new age spirituality, but its Sanskrit roots reveal a much more technical and expansive meaning. It comes from the verbal root tan (to stretch, extend, or expand) and the suffix tra (an instrument or tool). Literally, Tantra means "an instrument for expansion." Meaning a way to gain … Continue reading What does the word Tantra really mean? An instrument to ‘stretch’.