A historical and clinical test of novelty: Can Psychiatry Renovate Itself? Enactive psychiatry presents itself as a solution to psychiatry’s integration problem: how physiological, experiential, social, and existential processes can belong to one coherent account of mental disorder. This essay argues that much of its conceptual material has identifiable predecessors in systems theory, phenomenology, philosophical … Continue reading Enactive Psychiatry: Old Wine, New Bottle—or a Better Vessel?
mental-health
Context Without Content: BodyMind Medicine and Magick
From Higher Occult Knowledge to the Traumatized Body For centuries, occult traditions have promised access to knowledge that remains unavailable to ordinary consciousness. It has been called gnosis, higher knowledge, secret wisdom, spiritual perception, clairvoyance, initiation, or the recovery of dormant human faculties. The terminology changes from one period to another, yet the basic structure … Continue reading Context Without Content: BodyMind Medicine and Magick
Jung, the Self, and the Inner Laboratory
Where analytical psychology meets a modern esoteric psychology Carl Gustav Jung’s Aion is one of his most difficult and ambitious works. Its subject is not merely the unconscious, nor even the familiar Jungian themes of shadow, anima, animus, and projection. Its deeper concern is the Self: the elusive psychic totality that includes the conscious personality … Continue reading Jung, the Self, and the Inner Laboratory
Madame de Salzmann at One Hundred: Attention, Automatism and the Birth of Inner Freedom
Jeanne de Salzmann was born in 1889, met G. I. Gurdjieff in 1919 and remained his closest pupil until his death in 1949. She subsequently guided the international continuation of his work until her own death in 1990, at the age of 101. The recordings discussed here therefore show not merely an elderly teacher recalling … Continue reading Madame de Salzmann at One Hundred: Attention, Automatism and the Birth of Inner Freedom
The Process of Sigilization an Undine Water Sigil of Sachiel, the formule and the evocation
Sigilization as a Process A sigil does not always begin as a finished symbol. More often, it emerges gradually through concentration, research, experimentation and repeated drawing. The final sign is only the visible result of a longer movement in which intention, imagination and gesture are brought together. There are several established ways of creating a … Continue reading The Process of Sigilization an Undine Water Sigil of Sachiel, the formule and the evocation
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
Structural Yoga and Somatic Yoga
Two Epistemologies of the Body 1. Yoga as a Way of Knowing Yoga has never been merely a system of exercises. At its core, it is a discipline of perception. Every genuine yoga tradition implies a particular answer to a fundamental question: how do we know the body? Is the body something that must be … Continue reading Structural Yoga and Somatic Yoga
The Enneagram as Dynamic Vortex: revelatons after a Sufi Shake
The "Work" of Gurdjieff often operates on a long time-horizon; I danced the "Movements" of Gurdjieff long ago and perhaps this has planted a rhythmic seed in my motor memory. Some days a good friend of mine let me know that only if you understand the enneagram completely, a higher being can be born. Apparently … Continue reading The Enneagram as Dynamic Vortex: revelatons after a Sufi Shake
What is Meditation?
What is meditation.....really? A short, sharp analysis! Most of the meditation manuals start with posture, breath counts and schedules: twenty minutes in the morning, twenty in the evening, sit in lotus if you must, repeat the mantra, wait for the quiet mind. The transcript you gave me takes the exact opposite approach. It doesn’t offer … Continue reading What is Meditation?
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