A response to a popular YouTube video on “the thin line between samadhi and psychosis” A video is going around about a yogi in Rishikesh. He sat down to meditate, and three days later he was found with his eyes open, screaming and weeping. His guru is supposed to have said: “He opened the door … Continue reading Samadhi or Psychosis? Why the Question Is Asked Wrongly
spirituality
The room we never left
Close your eyes for a moment. Do not try to meditate. Just look. There is a space in front of you. It has no walls. A memory appears in it, then a worry, then a face, then a judgement about that face. You did not order any of this. It arrives, takes shape, colours your … Continue reading The room we never left
The Lattice and the Ultrasubjective Hyperspace
The neurophysiologist who approached consciousness from the outside Jacobo Grinberg, the Syntergic Theory, and the exploration of consciousness from within A Synthesis In December 1994, the Mexican neurophysiologist and psychologist Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum (1946–1994, presumed deceased) disappeared under circumstances that remain unresolved. His disappearance has since generated a mythology of its own, occasionally overshadowing the extraordinary … Continue reading The Lattice and the Ultrasubjective Hyperspace
Ultrasubjective Hyperspace: a new concept of the reality of our field of consciousness
The inner space where experience, imagination and magick are made The room we never left Close your eyes for a moment. Do not try to meditate. Just look. There is a space in front of you. It has no walls. A memory appears in it, then a worry, then a face, then a judgement about … Continue reading Ultrasubjective Hyperspace: a new concept of the reality of our field of consciousness
What Actually Happens When Someone Practices Magick?
From the study of texts to the study of real-time experienced Magick For a long time, scholars interested in magic, esotericism and occult traditions concentrated mainly on texts. This was understandable, because manuscripts, books, ritual instructions and doctrinal systems are what history leaves behind most reliably. They allow us to reconstruct how ideas moved through … Continue reading What Actually Happens When Someone Practices Magick?
Meditation from the Path of the Yoga of the Inner Light
Meditation on a Flame: The Light and the After-Light A practice from the yoga path of the inner light There is an old and simple doorway into meditation: a candle, a quiet room and your own eyes. In this practice we work with two kinds of light. The first is the flame in front of … Continue reading Meditation from the Path of the Yoga of the Inner Light
Landscape Magick
A Practical Guide to Place, Perception and the Imaginal World Landscape Magick explores how a place can become more than scenery. It can become a field of attention, relationship, symbolism and encounter. This book develops a practical method for working with landscape through observation, movement, imagination, ritual and first-person inquiry. It brings together psychogeography, phenomenology, … Continue reading Landscape Magick
The Thangka Book: Sacred Images as Maps of Inner Experience
Since the 1970s, I have travelled extensively through Nepal, Bhutan and India, where I met and studied with many spiritual teachers. One subject that has fascinated me throughout those decades is the extraordinary visual world of Tibetan thangkas. I have always been struck by their power, complexity and precision. After many years of study, I … Continue reading The Thangka Book: Sacred Images as Maps of Inner Experience
Can Meditation Be Too Much? On a Flawed Thesis!
A Real Signal, Wrapped in False Precision: A Second Look at "The Dark Side of Mindfulness" The Atlantic has just published a long, well-reported piece on Willoughby Britton, the Brown University researcher turned Cheetah House founder, who has spent nearly two decades documenting the ways meditation can go wrong ("The Dark Side of Mindfulness," theatlantic.com, … Continue reading Can Meditation Be Too Much? On a Flawed Thesis!
Beyond Forest Bathing: What Happens When the Landscape Begins to Answer Back?
Forest bathing and ecopsychology have done something important. They have helped restore our capacity to slow down, step out of the relentless cognitive machinery of modern life and become present in nature again. That sounds simple, but it is not. Much of the time we move through landscapes without really perceiving them. A forest becomes … Continue reading Beyond Forest Bathing: What Happens When the Landscape Begins to Answer Back?
