The New Paradigm in Consciousness Healing and Spirituality 40 Book Reviews

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THE NEW PARADIGM IN CONSCIOUSNESS,HEALING & SPIRITUALITY



BOOKS BY PIERRE FRED WALTER

The New Paradigm in Business, Career, Success & Prosperity

(Book Reviews)

!

The New Paradigm in Science and Systems Theory

(Book & Media Reviews)

!

The New Paradigm in Consciousness, Healing & Spirituality

(Book & Media Reviews)



THE NEWPARADIGM

In Consciousness, Healing & Spirituality40 Book & Media Reviews by Pierre Fred Walter

Jeremiah Abrams (Ed.) • Victor H. Anderson • Joseph Campbell

Deepak Chopra • Russell DiCarlo (Ed.) • Donna Eden • Mircea Eliade

Walter Y. Evens-Wentz • Jonathan Goldman • Stanislav Grof • J. Krishnamurti

Charles W. Leadbeater • Timothy Leary • Alexander Lowen • Terence McKenna

Ralph Metzner • Thomas Moore • Jeremy Narby • Michel Odent

Otto Carl Simonton • Hal & Sidra Stone • Dora van Gelder • Alberto Villoldo



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©2014 Pierre Fred Walter. Some rights reserved.

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This publication may be distributed, used for an adaptation or for derivative works,

also for commercial purposes, as long as the rights of the author are attributed. Theattribution must be given to the best of the user’s ability with the information avail-

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About Pierre Fred Walter

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About the Author

Parallel to an international law career in Germany, Switzerland andthe United States, Pierre focused upon fine art, cookery, astrology,musical performance, social sciences and humanities. He startedwriting essays as an adolescent and received a high school awardfor creative writing and editorial work for the school magazine.

Upon finalizing his international law doctorate, he privately stud-ied psychology and psychoanalysis and started writing both fictionand nonfiction works.

After a second career as a corporate trainer and personal coach,Pierre retired as a full-time writer, entrepreneur and consultant. Hisnonfiction books emphasize a systemic, holistic, cross-cultural andinterdisciplinary perspective, while his fiction works and short sto-ries focus upon education, philosophy, perennial wisdom, and thepoetic formulation of an integrative worldview.

Pierre is a German-French bilingual native speaker and writes Eng-lish as his 4th language after German, Latin and French. He alsoreads source literature for his research works in Spanish, Italian,Portuguese, and Dutch.

All of Pierre’s books are hand-crafted and self-published, designed by the author.

About Quoting

Quotes are followed by a forward slash (/) and a page number.They always refer to the author and the book that is being re-viewed, and the page number of the edition that was reviewed. It

may not in every case be the newest edition of the book.



To Nelson

The author’s profits from this book are being donated to charity.



Introduction

These book reviews were written between 2005 and 2014, the

result of an effort for making a contribution not only to academia,

but more so, to college students around the world who wish to be

informed about books that cover the exciting adventure of the

present paradigm changes in consciousness research, healing and

spirituality that we are currently living through.

The present volume belongs to a reviews trilogy that are in-

tended to be a coherent whole. The two other volumes are entitled

The New Paradigm in Business, Career, Success & Prosperity and The

New Paradigm in Science and Systems Theory.

This journey, undertaken with the intention to share knowl-

edge that I believe is useful to many people, was a great challenge

and adventure for me; it opened me new pathways that were con-

firming my research on the perennial holistic wisdom of ancient

civilizations who were thriving before patriarchy was putting na-

ture upside-down about five thousand years ago.



Currently, with the advent of the networked global society,

and systems theory as its scientific paradigm , we are virtually look-

ing into a different world, with a rise of ‘horizontal’, ‘networked’

and ‘sustainable’ structures both in our business culture, and in

science, and last not least on the important areas of psychology,

medicine, alternative healing, and spirituality.

—A paradigm, from Greek ‘paradeigma’, is a pattern of things, a configura-

tion of ideas, a set of dominant beliefs, a certain way of looking at the world, a set

of assumptions, a frame of reference or lens, and even an entire worldview.

While most of this new and yet old path has yet to be trotted,

we cannot deny the changes that happen all around us every day.

Invariably, as students, scientists, doctors, consultants, lawyers,

business executives or government officials, we face problems to-

day that are so complex, entangled and novel that they cannotpossibly be solved on the basis of our old paradigm, and our old

way of thinking. As Albert Einstein said, we cannot solve a prob-

lem on the same level of thought that created it in the first place—

hence the need for changing our view of looking at things, the

world, and our personal and collective predicaments.

What still about half a decade ago seemed unlikely is happen-ing now all around us: we are rediscovering more and more frag-

ments of an integrative and holistic wisdom that represented the

cultural and scientific treasure of many ancient tribes and king-

doms that were based upon a perennial tradition which held that

all in our universe is interconnected, and that humans are set in

the world to consciously live in unison with the infinite wisdominherent in creation as a major task for driving evolution forward!

THE NEW PARADIGM IN CONSCIOUSNESS, HEALING & SPIRITUALITY

8



It happens in science, since the advent of quantum physics

and string theory, it happens in neuroscience and systems theory,

it happens in biology, in ecology, and as a result, and because sci-

ence is a major motor in society, it happens now with increasing

speed in the industrial and the business world, and in the way

people earn their lives and manifest their talents through their

professional engagement.

More and more people begin to realize that we cannot hon-estly continue to destroy our globe by disregarding the natural

law of self-regulation, both outside, by polluting air and water,

and inside, by tolerating our emotions to be in a state of repression

and turmoil. Self-regulation is built into the life function and it can

be found as a consistent pattern in the lifestyle of natives peoples

around the world.It is similar with our immense intuitive and imaginal faculties

that were downplayed in centuries of darkness and fragmenta-

tion, and that now emerge anew as major key stones in a world-

view that puts the whole human at the frontline, a human who uses

their whole brain, and who knows to balance their emotions and

natural passions so as to arrive at a state of inner peace and syner-getic relationships with others that bring mutual benefit instead of

one-sided egotistic satisfaction.

For a real change to happen, we need to change the thinker, as

Krishnamurti used to say, which means we need to undergo a

transformation that puts our higher self in charge as the caretaker

of our lives, releasing our conditioned ego from this task.

Hence the need to really look over the fence and get beyond

social, cultural and racial conditioning for adopting an integrative

INTRODUCTION

9



and holistic worldview that is focused on a higher plane than the

level of mere problem-solving.

What all these books convey is that it’s not too late, be it for

our planet and for us humans, our careers, our science, our collec-

tive spiritual advancement, and our scientific understanding of

nature, and that we can thrive in a world that is surely more dif-

ferent in ten years from now that it was one hundred years in the

past compared to now.We are free to continue to feel like victims in this new reality,

and wait for being taken care of by the state, or we may accept the

state, and society, as human creations that will never be perfect,

and venture into creating our lives and careers in accordance with

our true mission, and based upon our real gifts and talents.

I haven’t given ratings in my reviews, and for good reason. I

find rating content a misguided popular institution that puts the

consumer in the role of the ‘king’ to judge all and everything from

a naturally limited personal perspective. As mindful humans we

should be careful with judgment, with judging others, or judging

what others have achieved and produced in terms of intellectual

or artistic content.

This being said, the very fact that a book was included in my

three review volumes is proof enough of the fact that the book is

highly worthwhile reading, and the review serves to elucidate the

why and how of that. Besides, there was no need to give any spe-

cific ‘star’ ratings.

I hope that any book you may be interested in that is included

here can help you to lead a better life, have a higher understand-

ing of your own path of life, help you to have better relationships,


10



a more harmonious emotional life, and a tighter grasp of scientific

research and ultimately—a success boost in your personal path of

life.

On the other hand, if any particular book you want to see re-

viewed is not included here, you may write to me using the email

address published in the very first page of this book. I will surely

consider your request for the next edition of this review sampler.

—Pierre Fred Walter

INTRODUCTION

11



Contents

Jeremiah Abrams 15• Reclaiming the Inner Child 15

Victor H. Anderson 25• Etheric Anatomy

25

Joseph Campbell 32• The Hero With a Thousand Faces 35

• Occidental Mythology 40

• Oriental Mythology 45

• The Power of Myth 50

Deepak Chopra

61• Life After Death 61

Russell DiCarlo (Ed.)

64• A New Worldview 64

Donna Eden 128• Energy Medicine 130

• The Energy Medicine Kit

136

Mircea Eliade

140• Shamanism 140



Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz

149• The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries 152

Jonathan Goldman

156• Healing Sounds 158

• Healing Sounds DVD 173

• Tantra of Sound 176

Stanislav Grof 182• Beyond the Brain 187

• The Holotropic Mind

189• The Cosmic Game 193

J. Krishnamurti 196• Education and the Significance of Life 204

Charles Webster Leadbeater 228• Astral Plane 231

• Dreams 254

• The Inner Life

262

Timothy Leary

276• Your Brain is God 276

Alexander Lowen

286• Pleasure 289

• The Language of the Body 305

Terence McKenna

312• The Archaic Revival 315

• Food of the Gods 329

• The Invisible Landscape 339

Ralph Metzner (Ed.) 344• Ayahuasca 344

Thomas Moore 362• Care of the Soul 362

CONTENTS

13



Jeremy Narby

372• The Cosmic Serpent 372

Michael Newton

380• Life Between Lives 380

Michel Odent 387• The Functions of the Orgasms

387

Otto Carl Simonton 402

• Getting Well Again

402

Hal and Sidra Stone 415• Embracing Our Selves 415

Dora van Gelder 421• The Real World of Fairies 421

Alberto Villoldo

434• Healing States

437

• Shaman, Healer, Sage 443

• Healing the Luminous Body 450

• The Four Insights 454

Bibliography

459

Personal Notes 464

CONTENTS

14





Embracing Our Selves , the present book was an important inspira-

tion for drafting my own approach on healing the inner child. This

reader is well edited and presented; each contribution is essential

and brings a new insight and perspective for awakening the inner

child. Jeremiah Abrams wrote once in a presentation of the book

that inner child recovery is a religious quest. I can fully subscribe to

this statement, as it’s in accordance with the oldest of traditions. In

fact, the Hermetic Tradition was teaching the dialogue with our

inner selves as a path to self-knowledge, and unfortunately this is

today forgotten in our rushy and outwardly prosperous culture.

Inwardly, most of us are impoverished on the level of soul which

is why we have such a high level of depression and resulting emo-

tional disorders in our modern international culture.

Let me tell you upfront that this book is not about psychiatry.You do not need any psychological knowledge for reading it, and

applying its wisdom in your own life. Most contributions, and to

mention here especially those of Jeremiah Abrams, Gaston Bachelard,

Joseph Campbell and John Loudon expand on the poetic and mytho-

logical dimension of a healed and functional inner child. But even

those other contributions, written from the pulpit of psychiatricprofessionals, to mention only John Bradshaw, Nathaniel Branden,

James Hillman, Robert M. Stein or Hal and Sidra Stone , do not pre-

sent inner child healing as a discipline that is strictly speaking to

be placed within the closed space of psychiatric hospitals or the

coach of the psychoanalyst. Also these contributions are very well

readable for the novice and non-professional reader, and they em-phasize the poetic, creative and artistic role of the inner child,

while they also show what good a functional inner child can do


16



within a healthy and well-composed psyche. To make this book

review not too extensive, I have chosen to publish a few quotes

from the contribution of each author to the reader.

Jeremiah Abrams

If we are to stop abusive family patterns and not transmit

them to the next generation, then the internalized parental

image also must be recognized as wounded. Such compas-

sionate awareness is a developing phenomenon in the livesof those courageous adults who are overcoming their shame

and pain in order to acknowledge and heal the wounded

child within./168

Gaston Bachelard

He is stuffed with sociability. He is prepared for his life as a

man along the lines of the ideal of stabilized men. He is alsoinstructed in the history of his family. He is taught most of

the memories of early childhood, a whole history which the

child will always be able to recount. Childhood—that

dough!—is pushed into the die so that the child will follow

closely in the path of the lives of others./45

The child dreamer is alone, very much alone. He lives in theworld of his reverie. His solitude is less social, less pitted

against society, than the solitude of men. The child knows a

natural reverie of solitude, a reverie which must not be con-

fused with that of the sulking child. In his happy solitudes,

the dreaming child knows the cosmic reverie which unites

us to the world./45

JEREMIAH ABRAMS

17



John Bradshaw

Our source relationships were bathed in poor modeling and

abandonment. This created our shame-based identity. Be-

cause we had no authentic self, we clung to our caregivers in

a fantasy bond or built walls around us where no one could

hurt us. These earliest imprints colored all our subsequent

relationships./225

The emotionally shut-down person literally is filled with

will, i.e., becomes will-full. Willfulness is characterized by

grandiosity and unbridled attempts to control, and is the

ultimate disaster caused by toxic shame./227

Nathaniel Branden

In effect, the child we once were can be experienced as a

source of pain, rage, fear, embarrassment, or humiliation, to

be repressed, disowned, repudiated, forgotten. We reject that

child just as, perhaps, others once did—and our cruelty to

that child can continue daily and indefinitely through our

lifetime, in the theater of our own psyche where the child

continues to exist as a subpersonality, a child-self./243

When related to unconsciously and/or negatively, a child-self is left in a kind of alienated oblivion. In the latter case,

when the child-self is left unconscious, or is disowned and

repudiated, we are fragmented; we do not feel whole; in

some measure we feel self-alienated; and self-esteem is

wounded./244

Left unrecognized, not understood, or rejected and aban-doned, a child-self can turn into a ‘troublemaker’ that ob-

structs our evolution as well as our enjoyment of existence.

The external expression of this phenomenon is that we will


18



at times exhibit harmfully childish behavior, or fall into pat-

terns of inappropriate dependency, or become narcissistic, or

experience the world as belonging to ‘the grown-ups.’/244

On the other hand, recognized, accepted, embraced, and

thereby integrated, a child-self can be a magnificent resource

that enriches our lives, with its potential for spontaneity,

playfulness, and imaginativeness./244

Joseph Campbell

How might we as individuals get in touch with the child

that lives within us? By killing the dragon ‘Thou shalt’. By

choosing not to live by other people’s rules? Right. Respect-

ing them, but not living by them./260

James Hillman

Jungian therapy, at least how I practice it, brings about an

awareness that fantasy is a creative activity which is con-

tinually telling a person into now this story, now that one. …

Soulmaking goes hand in hand with deliteralizing con-

sciousness and restoring its connection to mythic and meta-

phorical thought patterns. Rather than interpret the stories

into concepts and rational explanations, we prefer to seeconceptual explanations as secondary elaborations upon ba-

sic stories which are containers and givers of vitality./278

Whenever we are caught in a literal view, a literal belief, a

literal statement, we have lost the imaginative metaphorical

perspective to ourselves and our world./278

The main body of biblical and classical tales directs fantasy

into organized, deeply life-giving psychological patterns;

JEREMIAH ABRAMS

19



these stories present the archetypal modes of experiencing.

/279

John Loudon

There is a sense then in which the self is a lifelong project, as

long as we remember that it is a project that requires as

much passivity as activity (to use Teilhard’s terms)—both

receptivity and taking hold, yin and yang./237

The child has the glory of simply being, like a flower or an

animal, without the necessity of doing anything, becoming

anything in order to be fully what it is./238

In later childhood, one is socialized into conventional values

and meanings. While this is necessary for an adequate sense

of self-worth and basic orientation and for social order, all

too many of us can become arrested at this stage of devel-

opment and lead what Paul Tillich calls ‘heteronymous’

lives, in which something external sets our priorities, estab-

lishes what is meaningful and worthwhile./239

But if we give ourselves to the process of growth, if we take

up the search for wholeness, the quest for understanding

(rather than the vain longing for certainty), we are set on a

path that leads not back to the childhood we may nostalgi-

cally idealize but forward toward an authentic fullness and

integration./239

Maturity, then, is an achievement of synthesis. It is not sim-

ply a chronological stage of life./240


20



Alice Miller

The true self has been in ‘a state of noncommunication’ as

Winnicott said, because it had to be protected. The patient

never needs to hide anything else so thoroughly, so deeply,

and for so long a time as he has hidden this true self./136

Where there had only been fearful emptiness or equally

frightening grandiose fantasies, there now is unfolding an

unexpected wealth of vitality./137

Jeffrey Satinover

I would say that the puer may result from a parental milieu

which, in a roughly eighteen-month to a two-year-old child,

habitually disrupts any sign of assertiveness, of action or

fantasies that carry not the hallmark of masculinity, but of

specialness and grandeur./146

Thus, an internal vicious circle is established; each constella-

tion of the Self, bringing with it a tide of grandiose fantasies,

is followed by a tide of self-criticism and re-fragmentation.

/147

By reflecting back to the child his specialness and grandeur,the parent helps to sustain a kind of necessary inflation. This

inflation will motivate the child to move into an ever-

expanding world where, by suffering tolerable defeats, the

inflation will be modified and personal identity sustained

more and more by the capacities of the ego./153

Robert M. SteinCreative psychological development, individuation, is de-

pendent on spiritual freedom. When we say, for example, a

man has a free spirit, do we mean that he freely or necessar-

JEREMIAH ABRAMS

21



ily transgresses the imposed manners, mores and taboos of

his culture? I think not. But it does mean the freedom to do

anything or go any place he desires in the imaginal realm.

He is a man who has clearly distinguished the sacral, time-

less world from the secular, historical world. He knows he

can move with unashamed dignity among the gods and de-

mons which belong to the mundane world. Such freedom

cannot occur with a primitive form of consciousness in

which inner and outer reality are governed by the same laws

and values. In this sense, our Judeo-Christian tradition is

primitive in that our thoughts and desires are subject to the

same dogma, the same regulation, as our deeds. Spiritual

freedom requires a break with biblical tradition and the de-

velopment of a new form of consciousness—a consciousness

which promotes the cultivation of imaginal freedom./265

If one has experienced an authentic rebirth, one is ready to

enter into a new life where kinship of spirit becomes a

stronger bond than kinship of blood./269

The lack of firmly rooted kinship connections is perhaps

more responsible for our sense of isolation and alienation

today than any other single factor. Frequent renewal through

kinship connection is basic nourishment for our spiritual

and physical well-being./270

There is a great need nowadays for new forms in marriage,

friendship and community which will promote the devel-

opment of erós and feelings of kinship connection./270

The exchange of soul-substance which occurs when two

souls meet and touch is essential for the life and health of the

body and spirit. Inner wholeness soon becomes cold, rigid


22



and life-killing if the soul is not continually re-humanized

and renewed through the human connection. Still, it is just

because soul-connections are so rare and difficult to have in

our culture that the internal healing of the mind/body split

and internal wholeness is so essential. This is another para-

dox which we cannot avoid./270

The need to keep one’s soul carefully hidden and protected

disappears when one is no longer dependent on the connec-

tion to another for completion. There is no longer the fear of

experiencing and expressing one’s feelings, one’s reactions

to another, simply because the integrity and wholeness of

one’s being are not dependent on a particular relationship.

This increases the possibility of having close human connec-

tions, and it decreases the demands and expectations which

we are all prone to make upon those we care for. In addition,

the revealed soul generally evokes the emotion of love, espe-

cially when it demands nothing from the other. Thus, inner

wholeness opens the door to many more possibilities for

soul-connection, in spite of the lack of erós promoting ves-

sels in our culture./271

Hal and Sidra Stone

What is this child like? The most striking quality is its ability

to be deeply intimate with another person. The facilitator

can feel a physical warmth and a fullness radiating from this

child. It is as though the space between the two people is

alive and vibrating./177

The vulnerable child is tuned in energetically—it is aware ofeverything that is happening. Words will not fool it for a

moment. As you speak, the child will know if there is any

change whatsoever in your energetic connection to it./177

JEREMIAH ABRAMS

23



Caring for this inner child through an aware ego gives a feel-

ing of real strength. It represents real empowerment./184


24



Victor H. Anderson

Etheric Anatomy

The Three Selves and Astral Travel

With Cora Anderson

New York: Penguin Arkana, 1993Albany, CA: Acorn Guild Press, 2004

Etheric Anatomy is a small booklet that really surprised me! It’s an account bypeople situated far from the mainstream. The book is precious for anybody who

is researching the human aura, lucid dreaming, astral projection, or general pa-

gan knowledge about the vital energy.





soul and spirit body is made up of three definite parts or

entities. Each of these three entities has its own individual

and collective existence in the soul and personality, just as

surely as the three atoms in a molecule of water./8

The authors have a unique manner of describing phenomena

known from psychology, psychoanalysis, parapsychology and

quantum physics, as they use the terminology of the natives, and

not the language of modern science. But for this very reason, theiraccount actually gains vivacity and authenticity. Some observa-

tions are strikingly original, such as the idea—which I found in

other clairvoyant literature—that the human body emits a specific

sound, a sound that is different from one individual to the other, a

frequency that identifies the individual:

Another interesting property of the vital body, although dif-

ficult to detect, is a faint buzzing sound, somewhat like that

of a bumblebee. This signals the gathering in and arrange-

ment of atoms and molecules to maintain the structure of the

dense body./12

The subatomic world, known as the specific focus of quantumphysics, is in the language of the natives the world of the spirits. I

have found this indeed confirmed in the overwhelming part of

shamanic literature. The author states on the same lines:

What we call the ‘spirit world’ is composed largely of parti-

cles and frequencies of a subatomic nature. We of the Craft

say that these planes or worlds are / below the atom. Weknow the vital body to be made up of what we call bio-

plasma. Besides the other finer particles and frequencies of

which it is composed, there is a small amount of plasmic hy-

VICTOR H. ANDERSON

27



drogen, i.e., electrons and protons. In substance, it actually

resembles the more tenuous parts of the sun itself! The term

‘astral body’ may be vindicated after all./12-13

A particularly interesting field of study has become aura re-

search, and even aura healing, the healing of the luminous body.

What years ago was still relegated to ‘esoteric traditions’ is now

beginning to be effectively integrated into the official body of

medical science and psychology.

The author clearly states that contrary to common belief, the

aura is not limited to living beings, but is an energy-related phe-

nomenon that is to be found with all objects, be they inanimate.

He writes:

Every object with which we deal in everyday life is sur-rounded by a kind of shadowy counterpart that varies in

color, density and dimensions, depending on the kind of

matter. A steel ball an inch in diameter will have a pale,

violent-blue replica of itself extending one sixteenth of an

inch from it on all sides. If we examine a bit of rock, we will

find that it too has an extension that varies in color and di-

mension depending on its composition. Pieces of wood andother more organic objects have wider and sometimes more

colorful ‘surrounds’, as psychic children call them. When we

break a rock in two, the etheric part follows the outline of the

break./13

It has been said that only living things have auras. This is

not the case. Every material object of appreciable size is sur-rounded and penetrated by some of the etheric matter and

frequencies from the various planes of existence. Even a

statue has an aura. The auras of what we call inanimate ob-


28



jects are static and homogenous in appearance unless acted

upon by mana from ourselves or the mana and presence of

spirits, saints or the Gods./17

What has been seen by the use of Kirlian Photography is de-

scribed by the authors here in a beautiful passage. The phenome-

non has been demonstrated also by energy healers such as Donna

Eden who heal recurring pain in phantom limbs by impacting en-

ergetically upon the aura of the missing or amputated limb.

If we keep cutting the leaf up, a point is reached at which the

vital body of the leaf will dissipate into the ether. If a part of

the leaf is torn off and slowly pulled away, the bioplasma

will stretch out a half centimeter or so, and then break off

and rejoin the severed parts./14

Further research is needed in order to determine when the

fetus becomes an individual human being, that is, ensouled.

Based on my personal observations, I would estimate the

time as forty-two to forty-five days./36

There is a striking congruence with what Dr. Rick Strassman

writes in his book DMT—The Spirit Molecule (2001) , where he says

that in his observation ‘a pineal DMT release at forty-nine days

after conception marks the entrance of the spirit into the fetus.’

Now, let me comment on Part Two of the booklet, written by

Cora Anderson and entitled The Three Souls and Out-of-Body Travel.

Cora Anderson distinguishes between the alpha spirit, the beta

spirit and the delta spirit, and writes with regard to the ‘vital body’

and that other authors call the ‘etheric body’:

VICTOR H. ANDERSON

29



The alpha spirit is usually the first to feel sex attraction and

fall in love. It does not separate sex from love. In some

primitive cultures, it is called the bush or animal spirit. The

word animal does not put a low meaning to it, but means

‘anima, life soul or spirit’. In the ignorant and undeveloped

human being, the alpha spirit becomes so full of complexes,

it can no longer use its form of natural instinctive mentation.

/44

There are several important ingredients in this statement. First

of all, I am thankful for her clarifying that ‘animal spirit’ in the

terminology and scientific worldview of the Kahunas is not to be

connoted with ‘lowness’ of any kind. What Cora Anderson calls

the alpha spirit, the Kahunas call the low self or unihipili.

The Unihipili will release the mana to the Aumakua as se-men is released in sex, or water sprouts from a garden hose.

You will feel a tingling up and down your spine and in your

genitals. If you feel a sudden surge of sexual feeling, do not

repress it. This signals a most perfect and intimate union

with the God within you, your Aumakua. Always remember

you are a trinity in the divine image; otherwise, this prayer

will not work./49

The secret about the huna prayers is that it’s the low self that

sends the mana , and the quest for help or advice, to the high self or

Aumakua , and not the middle self or rational mind. This is why the

prayers of mechanistic minds remain unfulfilled! This is logically

so because it’s simply not the middle self—our reasoning mind—that sends the vital force to the high self, but the low self. This is a

brilliant example for the fact that religion, understood intelli-


30



gently, has much in common with science, as it is inquisitive, and

not based upon dogma.

I leave it here with my review, expressing my thankfulness to

the authors and to my own higher self for having guided me to

find this precious resource of wisdom.

VICTOR H. ANDERSON

31





Joseph Campbell was an important discovery for me. I found

his books back in 1998, through a reference in the book The Great

Mother , by Erich Neumann. His work assumes for me the same

importance as, for example, the work of Carl Jung. His books give

us insights about the development of the collective unconscious,

just as Jung’s—but from a mythological , not psychological, perspec-

tive. However, his books contain a common thread, a basic mes-

sage, and this message is that patriarchy is a form of life-denial, a

collective neurosis—not a lifestyle, not a philosophy, not a Weltan-

schauung , but rather a twist given to life and that distorts our very

nature. And ultimately, therefore, it’s a refusal of true humanity.

Campbell develops the theme further with Bill Moyers in The

Power of Myth (1988) , by alluding to the Star Wars plot.

Darth Vader has not developed his own humanity. He’s arobot. He’s a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but in

terms of an imposed system. This is the threat to our lives

that we all face today. Is the system going to flatten you out

and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to

make use of the system to the attainment of human pur-

poses? How do you relate to the system so that you are not

compulsively serving it?/54

Patriarchy, with its craving for obedience to the father, is a sort

of compulsion neurosis. Not only are individuals flattened out by

systems that are eternal replacements of real fathers—those who

typically abandoned their roles as true caretakers, but authority-

craving individuals also have flattened out their better halves,their right brains, so as to serve the system even more diligently.

In this sense, as a sentinel for attention to the signals pointing to a

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

33



possible coming of Orwellian times, Campbell’s oeuvre cannot be

underestimated. It should be read in all schools, also because it’s

essential to train the right brain capacities of associative, symbolic

thinking from early age. In fact, these capacities were highly devel-

oped in the great scholar, next to his poetic understanding and

word magic, which is why his books are great reading, and not

dry scholarly pamphlets. And then we might finally ask the perti-

nent question: ‘How has patriarchy come about—and what was

before?’ It all started with a murder. The murder of the Goddess.

And it became the foundation of what is called a culture. It be-

came the foundation of what is called a religion.

In biblical times, when the Hebrews came in, they really

wiped out the Goddess. The term for the Canaanite goddess

that's used in the Old Testament is the Abomination. Appar-ently, throughout the period represented in the Book of

Kings, for example, there was a back and forth between the

two cults. Many of the Hebrew kings were condemned in

the Old Testament for having worshiped on the mountain-

tops. Those mountains were symbols of the Goddess. And

there was a very strong accent against the Goddess in the

Hebrew, which you do not find the Indo-European mytholo-gies. Here you have Zeus marrying the Goddess, and then

the two play together. So it's an extreme case that we have in

the Bible, and our own Western subjugation of the female is

a function of biblical thinking./215-216

It seems that when man began to preach high morality and

confessed to strife for goodness, he began to really becomediabolic. Campbell remarks that the vandalism involved in

the destruction of the pagan temples of antiquity is hardly

matched in world history./248


34



The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Princeton: Princeton University PressBollingen Series, XVII, 1973

The Hero with a Thousand Faces is one of Joseph Campbell’s best books. It contains

much of the other books, but when it comes to presenting the material, this book

really is well-edited. The headers are comprehensive and the book in its overall

makeup addresses not only scholars but also a young and always-young audi-

ence as it has a significant contact with present-day reality.

We are now once again in the midst of a Hero Cult , and Camp-

bell has to be credited with the merit to have shown the negative

sides of this patriarchy-related phenomenon and its many unde-

sirable consequences. Contrary to the proponents of the cult of

hero modeling, Campbell makes it all clear that, by following this

idea, you miss your soul entirely. In the meantime, he is not the

only one who is saying that. We are going to see further down in

the review of Care of the Soul (1994) by Thomas Moore, that there

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

35



are more authors now being alert to warn us about the dangers of

hero modeling, and perfectionism, as these are symptoms of both

individual and cultural narcissism.

Campbell can be said to be in contradiction with the hero cult,

while this may sound like a paradox. Well, the paradox finds its

solution in the simple fact that Campbell, in accordance with the

oldest of traditions, defines the hero in a different manner than

current popular culture. While this may not be obvious on firstsight, this and my other reviews of Campbell’s books will peel this

truth out for everybody to see.

The answer is probably that to be a hero in today’s hero cul-

ture, you have to abnegate self , so as to bring about private victory

and eventually public victory , to use popular terms. However, it

has to be seen that the creator of these terms, Stephen R. Covey,was not advocating modeling. Other leadership trainers however

do. In Covey’s definition of a leader, soul has certainly a firm and

well-deserved place.

—See Pierre Fred Walter, The New Paradigm in Business, Career, Success &

Prosperity, Book Reviews, 2014

A responsible coach and leadership trainer cannot overlook

the immense quantity of junk productions, especially popular

video games, where the hero is depicted as an abusive type of to-

tally masculine—and often equally totally brainless—type of per-

secutor, and ruthless killer. The film title ‘The Terminator’ also is

an indicative for this kind of redefinition of the hero. But this kind

of hero is the ‘false hero’ not the true hero as the old sagas and

fairy tales have featured him. Joseph Campbell steps into that old


36



tradition and explains and describes it with all his rich and mature

vocabulary, and his vivid imagination.

In this book, he takes an archetype-based approach for pre-

senting a wealth of material from mythology and the folk lore of

olden times and of all times, a lore that defines the hero as a basic

novelty , a unique brew of characteristics and a specific energy that

brings forth its mark upon the world, whatever stands in the way,

and thereby produces and changes culture. The archetypal jour-ney of the hero is laid out in the chapter headings, Departure (I-1),

Initiation (I-2), Return (I-3), Keys (I-4), Emanations (II-1), Virgin

Birth (II-2), Transformations (II-3), Dissolutions (II-4).

Campbell defines the hero as a being in transformation , and thus

open for change, flexibly intelligent, and ready to leave behind the

old serpent skins. But what really distinguishes the hero from theordinary man is that he follows but his star , to paraphrase Dante,

and that he models only his or her own self, yet by doing so, and

here is the other paradox, sets the personal mission on the public

stage and makes out of it what the Romans called res publica.

Thus, the hero is defined by the fact of overcoming not only

personal limitations but also selfish orientation, having set the

stage for a transpersonal outcome of his or her particular mission.

To bring about transpersonal realization, not abnegation of self is

needed, but affirmation of self , not ‘victory’ over selfish needs, but

listening to these needs through a constant focus inside and an open

ear for our inner child, the main creative energy in us.

Campbell puts the rebirth of the hero in our focus, which oth-

ers call second birth and which aligns us with our spiritual family,

and often alienates us from the blood family, the pedigree, the il-

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

37



lusion of ‘home sweet home’, and the eternal co-dependence of

the nuclear family that smashes the child’s striving for autonomy

and self-reliance by manipulating children’s emotional life in the

name of ‘the child’s own best.’ Campbell writes:

The hero … is the man or woman who has been able to battle

past his personal and local historical limitations to the gen-

erally valid, normally human forms. … The hero has died as

a modern man; but as eternal man—perfected, unspecific,

universal man—he has been reborn./19-20

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces , Campbell puts a particular

stress on using introversion and introspection as tools for gaining

self-knowledge and strength, the unique force that animates the

hero, his creative energy:

Willed introversion, in fact, is one of the classic implements

of creative genius and can be employed as a deliberate de-

vice. It drives the psychic energies into depth and activates

the lost continent of unconscious infantile and archetypical

images./64

Campbell sees the uniqueness and the power of the hero not

only in specific talents, personal strength, or a certain alignment

with universal laws, but also in the release of a specific energy

that, using cross-cultural insights and comparisons, he identifies

as the cosmic life force that animates all sentient beings. The hu-

man paradox is that the specific realization of spiritual energy is

brought about not by abnegation of self and focus on ideals, but in

the contrary through a deliberate and long-term focus on one’s

own unique energy. This energy, again paradoxically, strongest is


38



visible not in our good deeds, but in our bad ones, which are those

attributed to our shadow. It is our shadow, our inner daimon as Soc-

rates called it, that most originally expresses the essence of our be-

ing, and it’s by dialoguing with this instance, and not by repress-

ing it, that we realize our full spiritual nature. And saying this, I

am in alignment with the writings of Hermes Trismegistos and the

Eleusinian mysteries.

Campbell’s message is important for understanding what thetrue hero is and what the false hero is, and as a consequence to

eventually see that what is thriving today in popular culture is not

heroism, but false heroism. It is not by striving to be superhuman

but by accepting to being only human that we become fully human.

Thus, it’s by accepting our simple yet so wonderfully colorful

humanity that we realize the spiritual man and woman in us. Forthis to happen, we have to focus on our inner world, not on outer

sense-givers. And most importantly we have to avoid those who

come with instant concepts for self-realization and their endless

quick fixes. The soul abhors quick fixes, and instant solutions, and

it prefers the convoluted and slow liberation from our inner maze.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

39



Occidental Mythology

Princeton: Princeton University PressBollingen Series, XVII, 1973

Occidental Mythology, to say it coarsely, renders the murder culture eventually

comprehensive. It is Joseph Campbell’s merit to have unveiled Isis a second time,

after her first veil was torn down by Helena Blavatsky …

It all started with a murder, the Murder of the Goddess , and it

became the mold of all the murders perpetrated thereafter. And

he, the scholar, politely talks about ambivalence and inversion for

explaining that the basic symbols of the Bible address a pictorial

message to the heart that exactly reverses the verbal message ad-

dressed to the brain, and that this nervous discord inhabits both

Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism, since they too share in

the legacy of the Old Testament. We do have a constant rhetoric in

the Bible that uses the word ‘love’ like a strange kind of balm for

the wounds torn by violence and the patriarchal fear of the female.


40



For it is now perfectly clear that before the violent entry of

the late Bronze and early Iron Age nomadic Aryan cattle-

herders from the north and Semitic sheep-and-goat-herders

from the south into the old cult sites of the ancient world,

there had prevailed in that world an essentially organic,

vegetal, non-heroic view of the nature and necessities of life

that was completely repugnant to those lion hearts for

whom not the patient toil of earth but the battle spear and its

plunder were the source of both wealth and joy./21

The ‘fury of fire and sword’, as Riane Eisler called it in The

Chalice and the Blade (2005) , was in Campbell’s opinion a moralistic

neurosis as the point of departure of patriarchy.

—See my review of Riane Eisler’s Books in Pierre Fred Walter, The New

Paradigm in Science and Systems Theory (Book and Media Reviews)

He speaks about an infantile thinking in opposites that typi-

cally is marked by an almost total absence of holistic intuition, as-

sociation and synthesis. It is a stiff and inflexible, and neurotic left-

brain concept, called the ‘solar worldview.’

If this worldview would be a historical artifact, we could rele-

gate it to the history department. But we are not yet beyond thesolar worldview, as it has become rather popular again, with relig-

ious and political fundamentalism, and a widespread moralistic

attitude pervading public discussions. And one may ask why hu-

manity has developed a solar worldview in the first place? Camp-

bell explains:

As the mother of all living, Eve herself, then, must be recog-

nized as the missing anthropomorphic aspect of the mother-

goddess. And Adam, therefore, must have been her son as

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

41





uncircumcised, that were to follow. (...) And the observation

must finally be added that all references to sexual life, all

phallic symbols, such as abound and are so aggressive in /

numerous religions—including the historic religion of

Greece—are in Minoan art completely missing./62-63

After the peaceful, emotionally intelligent, wistful and abun-

dantly joyful Minoan Civilization was ravaged and burnt to ashes,

an upside-down movement set in that Campbell well describes asa rewriting of mythology, that resulted in attributing to most dei-

ties the exact opposite values they have had before; it was a forum

of cultural brainwashing. All cultural values were turned to their

opposite. As a result, something like a new morality came up at that

time of early patriarchy that is based upon the demonization of

the autonomous, wistful and knowledgeable female:

The Babylonian epic of Creation is a forthright patriarchal

document, where the female principle is devaluated, to-

gether with its point of view, and, as always happens when a

power of nature and the psyche is excluded from its place, it

has turned into its negative, as a demoness, dangerous and

fierce./86

And here we see why the serpent became a demon, and a se-

ducer, and why native cultures, with their natural integrative atti-

tude toward nature and the female, have been largely decimated

over the course of patriarchy.

Studying the research undertaken by Joseph Campbell gives

us the opportunity to be informed and enlightened about the in-

famous cultural betrayal that is part of our past as a civilization,

with all the consequences this entails. One of them namely is our

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

43



problem with controlling violence and abuse. Fact is that patriar-

chy has made of abuse an automatism. It has built abuse right in

its cultural and social setting. It has made abuse inevitable, and

this is logically so, as this cultural paradigm came about through

murder and abuse, and the ravaging of ‘the children of the en-

emy’, when the strong-and-righteous were taking over the non-

believers. And we can even go as far as saying that patriarchy is per

se a form of ritual abuse of nature. And that is why we have to

overcome the cultural betrayal of patriarchy and not for any other

less important, reason!


44



Oriental Mythology

New York: Penguin Arkana, 1991Originally published in 1962

When we want to learn what the difference is between our culture and its patri-

archal roots, so well described by Campbell in Occidental Mythology, then we are

on a path of synthesis, and of unification.

Campbell expresses it in Oriental Mythology in the terms ‘The

Indian point of view is metaphysical, poetical; the biblical, ethical

and historical.’ We could also say that the Oriental mind is better

able to tolerate opposites instead of being trapped by them, and as

a result can assume the simultaneous existence and non-existence

of reality, god or truth. Or, to use modern terminology, the Orient

did not need quantum physics for understanding that life is essen-

tially patterned and nonlinear, not hierarchical and linear. This is

what Campbell calls the still point of eternity, as the spiritual field

beyond the dual nature of physical appearances. And from this

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

45



wistful point of departure of non-dualism, the Oriental mind fos-

ters not opposition to nature, but acceptance of all nature, includ-

ing human nature. The social outflow of this worldview is the ac-

ceptance of the fact that humans are not individuals only, but also

part of group life, endowed with social and cultural responsibility.

Oriental culture is pervaded by the idea that we are all inhabit-

ing not only visible reality, but also a greater scheme of intelli-

gence than the intellectual mind, and the divine is seen as inhabit-ing non-human and inorganic life as well. From this insight, a cul-

ture has been created that teaches the dialogue with self not only

as a personal hygiene and religious quest, but also as a cultural

imperative. While in the West, religion was ritual and dogma, in

the East it was inquiry in the nature of reality, a dialogue with self

and the universe, and attention to the answers given by the uni-verse to our individual quest for truth. Campbell puts this process

in very eloquent terms:

One has but to alter one’s psychological orientation and rec-

ognize (re-cognize) what is within. Deprived of this recogni-

tion, we are removed from our own reality by a cerebral

shortsightedness which is called in Sanskrit maya delusion(from the verbal root ma, ‘to measure, measure out, to form,

to build’, denoting, in the first place, the power of a god or

demon to produce illusory effects, to change form, and to

appear under deceiving masks; in the second place, ‘magic’,

the production of illusions and, in warfare, camouflage, de-

ceptive tactics; and finally, in philosophical discourse, the

illusion superimposed upon reality as an effect of ignorance.Instead of the biblical exile from a geographically, histori-

cally conceived garden wherein God walked in the cool of

the day, we have in India, therefore, already c. 700 B.C.


46



(some three hundred years before the putting together of the

Pentateuch), a psychological reading of the great theme./13

And as a result, and not surprisingly so, Oriental culture long

ago came up with a set of techniques that help to bring about this

inner unity which is alignment, peace, and inner growth; and

called it yoga. And the inquiry process itself, the observation of

inner processes, and the reflection pattern, was called meditation.

The analogy is given of the surface of a pond blown by a

wind. The images reflected on such a surface are broken,

fragmentary, and continually flickering. But if the wind

should cease and the surface become still—nirvana: ‘beyond

or without (nir-) the wind (vana)’—we should behold, not

broken images, but the perfectly formed reflection of the

whole sky, the trees along the shore, the quiet depths of thepond itself, its lovely sandy bottom, and the fish. We should

then see that all the broken images, formerly only fleetingly

perceived, were actually but fragments of these true and

steady forms, now clearly and steadily beheld. And we

should have at our command thereafter both the possibility

of stilling the pond, to enjoy the fundamental form, and that

of letting the winds blow and waters ripple, for the enjoy-ment of the play (lila) of the transformations. One is no

longer afraid when this comes and that goes; not even when

the form that seems to be oneself disappears. For the One

that is all, forever remains: transcendent—beyond all; yet

also immanent—within all./28

As for the oldest religion of humanity, Taoism, this book con-tains invaluable source references from age-old scriptures and po-

etic works, such as the works of Chuang Tzu.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

47



In the following passage, Campbell cites Chuang Tzu, Book

VI, Part I, Section VI. 2-3:

The True Men of old knew nothing either of the love of life

or the hatred of death. Entrance into life occasioned them no

joy; the exist from it awakened no resistance. Composedly

they went and came. They did not forget what their begin-

ning had been, and they did not inquire into what their end

would be. They accepted their life and rejoiced in it; they

forgot all fear of death and returned to their state before life.

Thus there was in them what is called the want of any mindto resist the Tao, and of all attempts by means of the Human

to assist the Heavenly. Such were they who are called True

Men. Being such, their minds were free from all thought;

their demeanor was still and unmoved; their foreheads

beamed simplicity. Whatever coldness came from them was

like that of autumn; whatever warmth came from them was

like that of spring. Their joy and anger assimilated to whatwe see in the four seasons. They did in regard to all things

what was suitable, and no one could know how far their ac-

tion would go./28


48



I haven’t found a better description of the integral worldview

of the old Taoist sages and their unifying and non-harming, re-

spectful attitude toward life and living—and their true integration

of nature in all its forms and expressions. And what few have been

able to elucidate, the difference between the Indian and the Chi-

nese mind, Campbell has ventured into and he came up with a

quite elaborate distinction. Even more eloquent and daring, when

comparing Indian and Japanese religious customs and spiritual

traditions, Campbell writes:

These, then, are the signatures of the two major provinces of

the Orient, and although, as we shall see, India has had its

days of joy in the ripple of the waves and the Far East has

cocked its ear to the song of the depth beyond depths, never-

theless in the main, the two views have been, respectively,

‘All is illusion: let it go’, and ‘All is in order: let it com’'; in

India, enlightenment (samadhi) with the eyes closed; in Ja-

pan, enlightenment (satori) / with the eyes open./29-30

And then again comparing the religions of the Far East with

our Middle Eastern religious tradition, Campbell wistfully con-

cludes:

Whereas in the greater Orient of India and the Far East, such

a conflict of man and God, as though the two were separate

from / each other, would be thought simply absurd./32-33

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

49





Now, the person who isn’t a specialist, but a generalist like

myself, sees something over here that he has learned from

one specialist, something over there that he has learned from

another specialist—and neither of them has considered the

problem of why this occurs here and also there./11

Campbell illustrates a variety of material he presented in Occi-

dental Mythology , perhaps because the content is more controver-

sial, and also because it bears a direct link to our own culture. Heexpresses some deep truths that form part of his mythological vi-

sion in a more convincing manner than in the former book, for ex-

ample as to the Christian ideal of brotherhood, and how it was

applied in practice:

Now brotherhood in most of the myths I know of is confined

to a bounded community. In bounded communities, aggres-

sion is projected outward. For example, the ten command-

ments say, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Then the next chapter says,

‘Go into Canaan and kill everybody in it’. That is a bounded

field. The myths of participation and love pertain only to the

in-group, the the out-group is totally other. This is the sense

of the world ‘gentile’—the person is not of the same

order./28

Campbell leaves no doubt that this myth indeed tells us an

important story about present times, and that it has forged some

of our controversial values. They were essentially forged through

that in-group versus out-group thinking that goes back to our Bibli-

cal past:

The Hebrews were absolutely ruthless with respect to their

neighbors. (...) That is to say, love and compassion are re-

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

51



served for the in-group, and aggression and abuse are pro-

jected outward on others. Compassion is to be reserved for

members of your own group. The out-group is to be treated

in a way described there in Deuteronomy. Of course, in bib-

lical times, when the Hebrews came in, they really wiped out

the Goddess. The term for the Canaanite goddess that’s used

in the Old Testament is ‘the Abomination’. Apparently,

throughout the period represented in the Book of Kings, for

example, there was a back and forth between the two cults.

Many of the Hebrew kings were condemned in the Old Tes-

tament for having worshiped on the mountaintops. Those

mountains were symbols of the Goddess. And there was a

very strong accent against the Goddess in the Hebrew, which

you do not find the Indo-European mythologies. Here you

have Zeus marrying the Goddess, and then the two play to-

gether. So it’s an extreme case that we have in the Bible, and

our own Western subjugation of the female is a function of

biblical thinking./215, 216

It seems that since those early times of patriarchy, humanity is

entangled in one tight knot of violence, and it is our major trinity

of religions that have helped this knot to be so tight. It is not one

of these religions, but all three of them, Judaism, Christianity andIslam that are sworn into this kind of thinking. By contract, East-

ern culture and religion offer a counterpoint here, and Campbell

puts it eloquently when he says:

Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within

us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads of India in

the ninth century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the

worlds, are within us. They are magnified dreams, and

dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of


52





the lord of the central tree, where time and eternity come

together. He is the primary god, actually, in the Garden of

Eden. Yahweh, the one who walks there in the cool of the

evening, is just a visitor./54

Campbell’s answer is in alignment with the oldest of tradi-

tions, that all affirm the serpent to be the god of the gods, the ul-

timate spiritual force of the universe. This is also the teaching of

the old Chinese sages and of most of the native peoples around

the world. But to depict Yahweh as a visitor is an idea I have not

found elsewhere. Campbell implicitly says that what Eisler called

the ‘truncation of civilization’ through the reversal of the symbol-

ism after the cultural turndown of matriarchy, has not really taken

place, at least not on the level of the unconscious, and in mythol-

ogy. Campbell suggests that what he called the counterplayer to

patriarchy, the Serpent-Goddess, is still active on the level of the

unconscious, and probably also on the level of the collective un-

conscious, relegating the ‘New God’ to the status of a visitor. But


54









ing their own authentic vision to the emotional addictions of their

parents. Campbell’s message is encouraging for all of us because

it’s positive, and because it’s human in a time where inhumanity

seems to get the overhand, and he shows us that we have to find

our strength inside because we all have extraordinary gifts and re-

sources:

I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal.

Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experi-ence of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate

it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when

people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met

an ordinary man, woman, or child./205

When Campbell voiced his opinion that he found the idea of

God as Absolute Order ‘simply ridiculous’, the discussion took avery interesting turn. Moyers asks if the courage to love, in the

troubadour tradition of the Middle Ages, became the courage to


58



affirm one’s own experience against tradition and why that was

important for evolution of Western thought? Truly, an intelligent

question. Campbell replies:

It was important in that it gave the West this accent on the

individual, that one should have faith in his experience and

not simply mouth terms handed down to him by others. It

stresses the validity of the individual’s experience of what

humanity is, what life is, what values are, against the mono-

lithic system. The monolithic system is the machine system:

every machine works like every other machine that's come

out of the same shop./234

I think here we have got to an angular point in our tradition in

that it is not a monolithic system , because love, human love and de-

sire, is a transformational lever not only for individual growth, but also for society at large. Campbell affirms:

The best part of the Western tradition has included a recog-

nition of and respect for the individual as a living entity. The

function of the society is to cultivate the individual. It is not

the function of the individual to support society./239

The idea is paramount in the history of Western individualism

and here we encounter what the wisdom tradition has called The

Holy Grail. What is that about? Campbell explains:

The Grail becomes symbolic of an authentic life that is lived

in terms of its own volition, in terms of its own impulse sys-

tem, that carries itself between the pairs of opposites of goodand evil, light and dark./245

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

59



The individual love quest is always a manifestation of the

larger desire to become an individual, to gain true autonomy, to be

self-reliant and powerful, and this quest can never be respectable ,

to paraphrase Krishnamurti. Campbell notes:

Insofar as love expresses itself, it is not expressing itself in

terms of the socially approved manners of life. That’s why it

is all so secret. Love has nothing to do with social order./254

When we recognize that love is on a different level than social

order, we can realize our love, and will realize it not on the lines of

social order and majoritarian approval, but based upon our own

soul values.


60



Deepak Chopra

Life After Death

The Book of Answers

London: Rider, 2006

Life After Death is one of Chopra’s best. I am talking about this specific edition

that he published with Rider in London, not about the later version entitled Life

after Death: The Burden of Proof, that he published in the USA.

What makes the strength of the present edition is that design-

ers and the publisher really worked well to bring over Chopra’s

poetic content to the distinguished reader. For this book is not just

scientific in the modern sense of the word; it is scientific within the

oldest traditions of the world, and among them the tradition Chopra



himself originates from, the wistful Vedic tradition of India. In this

sense, the book is an artful composition of poetic teaching tales

and scientific text interwoven in a fantastic poetic tale.

I do not presently know an author who could do such a fusion

without losing his style, and get into popular science jargon.

Chopra is beyond these categories, which is why he can afford

to put his whole heart and soul in a book where others, afraid of

public opinion in a matter that is still highly controversial, wouldprobably stay with the hard facts. That is truly admirable. I would

like to laud the designers and the publisher, Rider-Randomhouse

in London, for this wonderful rendition of Chopra’s thoughts. The

choice of the cover, the font, the layout and design, all is the work

of skilled craft-makers, and it shows so much care taken! This is

how it should.

This book was for me a journey, and I read it parallel with

Charles W. Leadbeater’s Inner Life (1911)—which I am equally re-

viewing in this present volume—and that was truly a good mix.


62





Russell DiCarlo (Ed.)

A New Worldview

Conversations at the Leading Edge

Erie, PA: Epic Publishing, 1996

A New Worldview, edited and published by Russell E. DiCarlo, is somehow a

radical book in that it really holds its promise: it presents a new worldview, and

all its contributors are leading-edge scientists and paranormal healers of the

highest caliber and with the highest credentials.

This is the most electrifying science book I have read so far,

and each contribution is a major one. I go as far as saying that this

book will really contribute changing your regard on life forever,







therapist, Brennan has spent the last 15 years studying the

human energy field and working as a healer. Hands of Light

goes beyond conventional, objective knowledge while re-

taining scientific clarity. It details a study of the human en-

ergy field and how it is intimately connected to a person's

health and well being and contains essential information for

anyone involved in healing and conscious health care, in-

cluding people seeking to heal themselves. Science and spiri-

tuality may currently be at odds, but fortunately there will

always be scientists who are spiritual seekers, and it is in the

mingling of the two worlds where wisdom is born.

—Jodie Buller

Barbara Brennan

I have a scientific background, and from a scientific perspec-

tive, there aren’t any adequate experiments to tell you what

the field really is. So I am going to have to speak solely from

my experience as a healer who is able to perceive the field

and work with it. From this perspective, the human energy

field—which can be perceived by anyone with practice—is

the matrix structure upon which the cells of the physical

body grow. It is the template of the physical body./146-156,

at 146

RUSSELL DICARLO (ED.)

67



Based upon my experience as a healer conducting private

sessions with clients spanning a fifteen year period, and as a

teacher for as many, I can tell you that anything that happens

in the physical body will happen in the pattern of the energy

field first./146-156, at 146

In between the structured layers of the field is a bioplasma

like energy that simply flows along the lines of the struc-

tured field pattern. It’s the energy that flows along the lines

of the structured field pattern that changes very fast with

thoughts and emotions, not the structured pattern itself. For

example, if you stop yourself from feeling something, it will

stop the flow of energy in the field. And if you experience

the feeling, the energy will be released. There is a direct cor-

relation. There are even correlations between the energy field

and the part of the brain you are thinking with. As you

change your thought patterns, the patterning of the field

changes./146-156, at 147

When you forgive yourself, wonderful things happen. There

is a certain tension and stagnated energy that is held in the

field whenever there is anything that you won’t accept

within yourself. It’s kind of like a mucous that you get when

you have a cold. So you actually create distortions in your

own energy pattern that have to do with unforgiveness to-

wards yourself. These distortions will eventually lead to

illness./146-156, at 148

Life is associated with constant movement in the personal

energy field, so any attitude of non-forgiveness within the

self will create blockage. When you have a non-forgiving

attitude towards an individual, there will be a definite pat-

tern in your field. The outer edge of your field will become


68



rigid and brittle when interacting with that person. There

will be additional ways that you will not let your life energy

flow out towards that person. There are great bands of en-

ergy or bioplasmic streamers that normally flow between

people when they interact. There’s an exchange of life en-

ergy that normally goes on between all living things. It’s not

just human beings: there’s a flow between humans and ani-

mals, humans and plants. But if there is a sense of unfor-

giveness, all that will be stopped./146-156, at 149

If you look at the energy field, there are three major aspects:

reason, will and emotion. All are associated with psychologi-

cal phenomena. When you judge another, you stop the flow

of your emotions towards that person which would be on

the front of your body, and you would be pushing your en-

ergy to the back of the body, into the will, and then running

it up into the mind. So you ‘will not’ accept that person, and

then the energy moves up your body to the head region and

you rationalize it in the mental sensors./146-156, at 149

When a person allows love into their field, the field becomes

very soft, very flowing, resilient. The whole field blows up

sort of like a balloon. It becomes very energized and the en-

ergy flows out of the field in a very healthy way./146-156, at

149

To feel grateful is one of the most important experiences we

need as humans. When we feel it, there is an acceptance of

everything in our life and a surrender to basic values in life.

We can see the positive in everything and also feel thankful

for it. That’s essential because it allows a connection to take

place between the personality self and the deeper regions of

the human being, the core essence or the divinity within. The


69





The field of anyone who hasn’t done a lot of personal devel-

opment work and transformed themselves will be quite brit-

tle. It will be laden with blocks, stagnated energies, and

probably tears, disruptions and imbalances./146-156, at 153

One major thing about the human energy field: energy and

consciousness cannot be divided. So whenever the energy

moves, you also experience it. You become consciously

aware of it. Transformation is about becoming consciously

aware of everything. In other words, awakening./146-156, at

153

From the broader spiritual perspective we are all connected

in concentric spheres. Those who are closer around us are

more involved in the creation of our personal reality than

those who are outside of that sphere. You can expand that

out concentrically. We not only create as individuals, we cre-

ate as groups, as communities, as nations, and as the whole

of humanity./146-156, at 155


71



CAROLINEMYSS PH.D.

Caroline Myss Ph.D. is an international lecturer in the field of

human consciousness and is widely recognized for her pioneering

work with Dr. C. Norman Shealy, former president of the Ameri-

can Holistic Medicine Association, in the area of the intuitive di-

agnosis of illness. Together they have written the book, The Crea-

tion of Health. According to Myss, the root cause of disease is not to

be found at the level of the physical body, but rather at emotional,

mental and spiritual levels.

Editorial Book Reviews

Who can help asking ‘Why?’ when they develop a disease?According to theologian and ‘medical intuitive’ Caroline

Myss, Ph.D., and co-worker C. Norman Shealy, M.D., who is

a physician, neurosurgeon, and expert on pain and stress


72



management, the answer goes further than a medical expla-

nation. The Creation of Health explores the emotional,

physical, and spiritual patterns that form health and the

stresses that can cause disease.

Joan Price

Myss identifies eight dysfunctional patterns that lead to ill-

ness. Being aware that ‘negative attitudes create negative

responses within the physical body’ allows you to make

changes toward health after identifying your emotional,

psychological, and spiritual stresses. The most interesting

chapters discuss specific diseases in terms of lifestyle factors,

stress, and psychological patterns and energy factors, with

case studies. A heart attack, for example, is ‘an explosion of

energy attempting to break down an emotional barrier ...

caused by warehousing fears and anger’, says Myss. The

authors alternate, rather than co-write, chapters and topics,

so you know whose perspective you’re reading. The theo-

retical sections are not easy reading, but the insights you can

apply to your own health make the work immensely

worthwhile.

Christiane Northrup

The pioneering work of Dr. Shealy and Caroline Myss is the

best way I know to learn the dynamics of the human energy

system. Applying the principles ... outlined in this book in

your own life may be the most important thing you do for

your health this decade.

—Christiane Northrup M.D. is the author of Women’s Bod-

ies, Women’s Wisdom.


73





sponses form patterns that influence your electromagnetic

circuitry. This dictates a quality control signal that influences

the creation and quality of cell tissue./136-145, at 137

This means you would be taught to take responsibility for

your attitudes and for the thoughts that you generate be-

cause you would be taught that from that moment on, every

thought you have has a consequence in the physical world.

It is irrelevant to me that you can't see it. You’re going to live

your life by that fact./136-145, at 137

Energy is intelligent. It is alive. It is information—energy is

information. It is one and the same thing./136-145, at 137

Nobody ever goes to heaven sane. You have to go quite in-

sane before you get enlightened./136-145, at 138

I cluster the 1st , 2nd and 3rd chakras under what I would call

the tribal or the group mind. But instead of looking at each

of the chakras individually, I cluster them. So the 1st , 2nd and

3rd are one unit, 4th , 5th , 6th and 7th are another. Then there’s

the 8th , which is symbolic. (…) At some point, every one of

us, somewhere along the line—this life, next life—is destined

to break free of the tribal mind and develop the upper 4th ,

5th , 6th and 7th chakras. It is inevitable. This is the stage of

individuation. The 4th thru the 7th chakras have nothing to

do with time and space./136-145, at 139

So, in looking at the top level, when you start the journey of

individuation—being an individual by pulling away fromthe tribal mind—you begin the journey of becoming congru-

ent, of getting all the seven chakras lined up with a more

mature will. That’s when you have to go into conflict with


75



the tribal mind, because you are now purging yourself of

what you want to believe versus you have been pro-

grammed to believe./136-145, at 143

If people could stay in present time for two days, their whole

life would change, because the consequence of having that

much energy would activate synchronicities—coincidences

in their lives of being in the right place at the right time and

that would change everything./136-145, at 145


76



GARYZUKAV

Gary Zukav is the author of the book The Dancing Wu Li Mas-

ters , which won the 1979 American Book Award in Science, and

helped to establish him as one of the foremost interpreters of the

new physics. A graduate of Harvard University, he has also

authored the book The Seat of the Soul , which describes the evolu-

tionary journey of humanity from external power based upon the

perception of the five senses, to authentic power based upon the

perceptions and values of the soul.

Amazon Editorial Review

At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al

Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, ‘pat-

terns of organic energy.’ Journalist Gary Zukav and the oth-

ers present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the

Wu Li Masters—the teachers of physical essence, Zukav ex-plains.


77



Mary Ellen Curtin

The 'new physics’ of Zukav’s 1979 book comprises quantum

theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories

age they haven’t percolated all that far into the collective

consciousness; they’re too far removed from mundane hu-

man experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu

Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the

most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century

science.

David Bohm

This book is an extremely clear and easily understandable

account of the latest developments in physics …

Gary Zukav

The evolutionary transition that humanity is now in has no

precedent. There is nothing in our past from which we can

extrapolate our future. (...) This evolutionary transition is

one from a five sensory species that is evolving through the

exploration of physical reality with the five senses to a spe-


78







walk. As you begin to move in the direction that your soul

wants you to move, you begin to get a sense of meaning.

When your life is alive with meaning, when you are excited

every day about what you are doing, when you want to get

up, when you want to be with people, when you have no

fear, when you have forgotten to worry, when you are fully

engaged with your life, you are moving in alignment with

your soul. That is authentic power./317-330, at 322

Decision-making today is primarily an intellectual function.

We use logic and understanding that originates in the mind.

This / logic and understanding is linear and exclusionary.

That is, you cannot think of one thing without excluding

others. You cannot understand something one way and un-

derstand it in other ways simultaneously. We are now devel-

oping a higher order of logic and understanding that origi-

nates in the heart. The heart is inclusive. It accepts. The intel-

lect judges. The higher order of logic and understanding that

originates in the heart comprehends nonlinear realities and

simultaneous realms of truth./317-330, at 323, 324

Quantum physics is the pinnacle development of science. It

leads us to the intellectual realization that consciousness is

an aspect of physical reality, that the two can’t be separated.

/317-330, at 327

Human history has been the sequential recording of one bru-

tality after another. You will know in yourself that you are

striving for authentic empowerment when a part of you de-

cides that it will not participate any longer in this brutality,

that your life will contribute something else to this human

experience, and you find a way to do that in your day-to-day


81



interactions. These will cumulatively form the course of your

life./317-330, at 329


82



JACQUELYNSMALL, MSS

Jacquelyn Small is the the author of Becoming Naturally Thera-

peutic , Awakening in Time or The Sacred Purpose of Being Human.

Another of her books, the Transformers has become a classic.

Small is the former Director of Training for the Texas Commission on

Alcoholism and Drug Abuse; and she served on the external degreefaculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Menlo Park,

California, for four years.

She currently sits on the Advisory Board for the National Council

on Codependence. Her company, Eupsychia, Inc., is a healing and

training center dedicated to bridging traditional and transforma-

tional psychologies.


83



Editorial Review

Noted psychologist Jacquelyn Small helps us break the cycle

of addictive behavior, destructive relationships and self-

harm by teaching that we are not human beings learning to

be spiritual, we are spiritual beings learning to be human.

Jacquelyn Smalls 12 Principles of Wholeness, developed in

her 30-year clinical practice, provide a one-year process of

psychospiritual inner work. Blending ancient wisdom and

modern science, this process has led client after client to the

personal transformation of addictive living that precedes

spiritual awakening. The readings, exercises and guided im-

ageries in this book will help you access blocked emotions

and modify the basic patterns buried within you that are

holding unwanted behaviors in place. You will learn how to:

Release stuck emotions through ‘inner work’ designed to

heal your past. Identify pseudo-personalities that masquer-

ade as your true self. Create the inner space required for a

spiritual awakening to occur naturally.

Jacquelyn Small

Western psychology is based upon ego psychology. Unfor-

tunately, even though the word psychology comes from the

word ‘psyche’, which means ‘soul’, Western psychologists

really have not been very knowledgeable of the fact. They

have focused their attention upon the ego, which is like

studying the shell of an egg and not looking inside to dis-cover the essence of the chick./331-358, at 332


84



If you bring in a little Eastern thought about the energy cen-

ters called ‘chakras’, you will realize that each of us has

seven different levels of consciousness that we are capable of

experiencing while we, as consciousness, are in human form.

Historically, ego psychology in the United States has studied

the first three levels of consciousness—the physical body,

emotions, and workings of the mind, which has been nar-

rowed unfortunately to the intellect. What many psycholo-

gists don’t realize is that beyond body, emotions and mind

we have yet another level of consciousness which you might

think of as the heart./331-358, at 332

The seventh level of consciousness is where you begin to live

your deepest truth and embrace your spiritual will. When

people come into that stage of consciousness, they become

‘transformers.’ If they walk into a room full of other people,

their very presence begins to cause energy shifts to occur.

/331-358, at 332

The transformer is flowing through life, allowing you to be,

and they don’t ever view you through judgmental eyes, as

needing to be changed. The reformer is always trying to

change you because they have already got a preconceived

notion of what’s right. If you don’t live up to their ideal, they

have a way to either punishing you, making you feel wrong,

or pulling away from you. A transformer just doesn’t view

you that way at all. They simply meet you in the moment

and because they see you from the ‘Bigger Picture’, they

know that you are a spirit in human form and that you’ve

gotten caught in a condition, trapped in something that is

scaring you, beating you up, or taking your energy./331-358,

at 333


85



I see addiction as a way of being stuck in the past through

repetitive, self-destructive behavior./331-358, at 334

There are so many addictions—some are just more subtle

than others. The chemical addictions are the easiest ones to

spot. People even get addicted to their ideas and beliefs and

become extremely unwilling to change their rigid and dys-

functional point of view. Sometimes I think those are the

worst addictions of all because they block growth./331-358,

at 335

Our intrinsic nature is spiritual. We are made of light parti-

cles. We have the ability, just as physics is showing us now,

to manifest as both the particle, localized in time and space

as the personality that we / know so well, and also as the

wave function, which is our spiritual nature. The law of

complimentarity rules us. I am an ego in concretized, physi-

cal form, but I also can evaporate and be spirit. But spirit is

not a belief or dogma. It’s not religion. Spirit is an internal

force that moves you toward the realization of your ideal.

When we relax our ego-driven controls, we flow naturally

toward what inspires us./331-358, at 335, 336

To be healthy individuals we just learn to honor our human

nature and also honor the fact that we are spiritual beings

and not try to be either/or. If I fall down in my conscious-

ness and think I am just an ego, I get stuck in the muck.

Every condition that I butt up against will start defining

me— ‘I am a neurotic. I am a divorced woman. I am a basket

case. I can't get it right.’ All those things we say and do when

we are in a lower state of consciousness./331-358, at 336


86



I am sure you have met people like that. They are always

pretending to be positive. Everything is just so full of love

and light all the time, but you don’t feel as though you have

touched a real person. And you have a little secret knowl-

edge that if you ever did punch one of their buttons an over-

heated ‘shadow self’ would come out. And in fact, you can

bet it does behind closed doors./331-358, at 336

Most of us are from dysfunctional families which means

we’ve got some very core issues to deal with—with mom,

with dad, with life, with self-image. / So our little earthy self

is made up of an ego nature that takes on a ‘persona’ which

means ‘mask’ in Greek. It tries to live according to society’s

standards so that it won’t get in trouble. It is a very basic

structure called ‘personality.’ When I call it ‘lower self’ I

don’t really mean that it is ‘less than’ the Higher Self. It’s just

closer to the earth, very susceptible to destruction. It’s con-

crete. /331-358, at 336, 337

We have seen what people are like who have no egos. They

are in back wards of state hospitals. They can’t function in

the world. The ego is living the earth life and it knows the

ways of the outer world./331-358, at 337

We can operate in the world through the laws of material-

ism, of limitation, of separation, of sensation and of survival.

We can live our lives locked into a sense of separateness and

isolation, of only looking out for ourselves. We have that

power. Unfortunately, some people do that without even

knowing it./331-358, at 337

Once you have developed a strong ego and personality

structure and have become identified with it, then you’ve


87



got a foundation and the strength to go through the trans-

formational process and experience more of your spiritual

nature. And that transformational process is going to be cha-

otic at times because it’s a ‘death/rebirth’ process. If you

don’t have a strong ego, you will not be able to make it. Peo-

ple can shatter into fragments and become mentally ill. /331-

358, at 338

The soul wants to play, to dance, to experience life. It just is

what it is. The soul lives totally in the moment. When it

picks up a piece of paper, it starts to feel the texture of the

paper and begins to get really into it. It gazes into a sunset,

captivated by its beauty. It is totally caught up in whatever it

is doing at the moment. And if you think about it, that’s the

way we love to be in life more than anything else—totally

and intensely involved. And when we are in that state of

consciousness there is no sense of time. You might think you

have been sitting somewhere ten minutes and it’s really been

an hour./331-358, at 338

The intellect is in between, and it serves as a bridge between

our conscious and unconscious mind. It serves as a gate-

keeper. The intellect will only let in so much soul power at

once because the soul is light and it’s terrifying to an ego

that’s not able to handle it. So our intellect serves as a filter

and it will restrict our awareness to as much of reality as we

can handle at any one time. The intellect is like a computer,

very mechanical and always being programmed with infor-

mation from what is already the past./331-358, at 339

The intellect is always drawing its knowledge from the past.

It’s like a little researcher and it makes a lot of mistakes be-

cause it is using that person’s perception which is going to


88



be distorted if there is a lot of unfinished psychological busi-

ness going on all the time./331-358, at 339

On the other hand the Higher Self mind, which operates

from a very expanded state of consciousness, sees whole pat-

terns. It thinks in terms of the whole, not the part. It might

move in and dissect something for a minute, but it won’t get

lost in it. It can pull back out and see the whole picture, put-

ting all things in their proper perspective. In Eastern

thought, it’s called ‘Big Mind’./331-358, at 340

When I was twenty-nine I had a clinical near-death experi-

ence. I was out of my body for a while, looking down upon

it from above the hospital bed saying calmly to myself, ‘You

don’t want to go back into that body, do you? That body has

had it.’ But when my thoughts turned to my son who was

eight years old at the time, I felt compelled to return. He

didn’t know how to take care of himself. It was my compas-

sion for my son that brought me back. Through this experi-

ence I had a wonderful opportunity to know that there is no

such thing as the death of the individual. There are only

shifts of consciousness to other states of being. In that next

state beyond where I am now, my body dissipates and I just

become space. Using the language of the new physics, I am

dissolving my particle nature and I am moving into a wave

function. I can dialogue with myself and with others, even

when I am out of my body./331-358, at 341

We have to continuously be stepping out of our old skin,

‘making dying our profession,’ if we are to grow. And right

now, as one Humanity we’re stepping out of one big, huge,

human soul skin and we are moving into a new dimension

of consciousness./331-358, at 341


89



If you allow the law of attraction to draw you, if you allow

yourself to be pulled by your bliss rather than deciding from

the intellect whom you should mate with, you will find that

you are exactly with the partner you need to be with at the

time. It may not need to be a marriage. It may just be a love

affair. Or it may be a real close friendship or a business part-

nership. Sometimes we have to go through the trials of a re-

lationship to find out what is our right relationship. Some-

times the role or label we put on a relationship misidentifies

it./331-358, at 342

Your desire nature is always moving you towards fulfillment

of your ideals. (...) But if your desires are distorted and begin

moving you towards self-destructive, addictive and self-

defeating behaviors and activities, then you’re going to mess

up your energy for awhile which will really slow you down

in your growth. Sometimes I think we deliberately choose

something dysfunctional to slow us down or send us off

course because we start moving too fast. Or because, for

some reason, we need the lesson this dysfunction will pro-

vide. /331-358, at 342

If you make decisions based on greed, or want too much

luxury, or put yourself into debt financially just so you can

have a lot of goodies, then you are letting the lords of mate-

rialism become your god and rule you. That kind of life al-

ways leads to misery./331-358, at 343

I think it is very important to be in our bodies, and to be

fully involved with life. To really be willing to commit to

being here. (…) Attachment involves getting hooked on out-

comes and expectations. It’s an ego thing. It is not a Higher

Self state. If I have become attached—let’s say to my mate—


90



in a jealous, possessive way and I feel as though I own him,

look how I am going to behave. I am going to act in a way

that is going to make me less than proud of my reactions. So

attachment is the exact opposite of love. It’s paradoxical be-

cause we tend to think of attachment as meaning you are

really close and intimate with someone. But attachment

blocks intimacy. It blocks true intimacy./331-358, at 344

To use an analogy, the Higher Self is really more an artist

than a scientist. It really doesn’t care if it is validated empiri-

cally. It just wants to express. It is full of life, full of creativity,

full of joy. It is loving whatever is happening in the moment.

Even if it is something ‘negative’, it can honor the fact that

both positive and negative are part of life./331-358, at 344

The Higher Self, coming from our pattern of wholeness,

tends to live from the ‘bigger picture.’ It possesses a creative

imagination—meaning that its thoughts are creative—and it

knows it. It takes responsibility for how it thinks. (…) It’s

light, it’s energy, it’s vibration. It’s experienced through

sound, color, music, movement, flow—those are all words

that pertain to the Higher Self. The Higher Self is not ‘in-

formed’, meaning it’s not in form. It’s energy. It is an energy

matrix, or scaffold, that formulates matter into an individual.

It is an archetype./331-358, at 345

I can literally start becoming a living representative of that

Higher Power in my life. Then people start calling you

teacher, or they say, ‘you are representing an archetype.’ You

have to be careful. As you begin to attract people to you,

which happens when you begin to express your Higher Self

a lot, you have to know the responsibility that’s involved.

You are more influential than you perhaps realize, so you


91



have to be careful about the words you use and the things

you do and be willing to take complete responsibility. /331-

358, at 346

The minute that I start realizing that I am a soul in human

form, everything changes and my soul consciousness comes

alive in me. It always has been, but I just didn’t notice it be-

fore. Now I have noticed it; it is a conscious aspect of my

experience. I begin to learn about the soul’s qualities—the

soul just is quality actually. That’s the definition of the soul,

it’s qualities such as inspiration, imagination, joy, celebra-

tion, light, play, spontaneity, deep compassion, hope, and

faith. The soul is really not a thing, it is our essence, our ‘fla-

vor.’ The soul desires to manifest here on the earth through

our physical forms. Our souls are wanting to spiritualize

matter. What that means in ordinary language, is that we are

learning how to bring the good, the true and the beautiful

through in all our relations and in all our activities./331-358,

at 347

I think we are shifting away from fear consciousness to con-

sciousness of love and compassion. We are shifting from

separatism to more of a unified wholeness. I think we are

realizing now that we are not individual countries, that we

are all living on one globe. Television and the media have

helped us to realize that we just can’t separate off from each

other as we’ve done in the past. And yet because we are both

an ego and a soul, we also have a right to have a personal

life. We have a right to our privacy. We have a right to make

our own decisions and choices and to honor each others in-

dividual nature while at the same time recognizing our right

relationships with each other as soul brothers and sisters.

Ultimately, we’re all here for one reason and that is to bring


92





journey and you become the bridge. And you realize the

journey is your home./331-358, at 358


94



LARRYDOSSEY, M.D.

Dr. Larry Dossey is the author of Space, Time and Medicine , Re-

covering the Soul and Healing Words which explores remissions of

illness that are unexplained by the traditional paradigm of medi-

cine. A physician of internal medicine, he served as battalion sur-

geon in Vietnam and was former Chief of Staff of Humana Medical

City Dallas Hospital.

He lectures internationally and in 1988 was invited to deliver

the annual Mahatma Gandhi Lecture in New Delhi, the only phy-

sician ever invited to do so.

Dr. Dossey is co-chair of the Panel on Mind/Body Interven-tions, National Institute of Health in Washington, D.C.


95



Dr. Larry Dossey

Now, there is overwhelming evidence that if you take prayer

into the laboratory and subject it to testing, you can show

that it works. So, that’s the big news. This information has

been marginalized and it is practically unknown, even to

physicians. It is not taught in medical schools. But it’s out

there./124-135, at 127

My primary interest is not the practical applications of

prayer to make diseases go away. It’s really the larger mes-

sage about who we are, and what our origins and destiny

may be. How consciousness manifests in the world. Those

are the real issues that go far beyond whether you can use

prayer to bail yourself out of a difficult situation or illness.

/124-135, at 127

The prevailing notion that prayer is asking for something—

basically talking out loud to a cosmic male parent figure who

prefers English—either for yourself or somebody else is woe-

fully incomplete. I want to get away from that common wayof looking at prayer. Prayer for me is any psychological act


96



which brings us closer to the transcendent. It’s not the terri-

tory of any specific religion./124-135, at 127

Love is a felt quality that can change the state of the physical

world. We are beyond metaphor and poetry here. We are

talking about something that literally can make a difference

in outcomes in the world./124-135, at 128

The materialists cannot account for non-local events. There is

currently nothing within the field of biological science that

can explain distant, non-local, consciousness-related events.

/124-135, at 128

The problem is, the skeptics and the materialists won’t look

at non-local data at the level of biology and psychology.

They will grant you that non-local phenomena occur at the

quantum level—the level of the very small, such as atoms

and subatomic particles. That has been proven beyond a rea-

sonable doubt. But the notion that these things can happen

at the level of the psyche and at the level of biology is just

not being entertained./124-135, at 128

These non-local manifestations of consciousness—among

which prayer is one type—display characteristics that are

not displayed by any known form of energy. For example,

prayer, transpersonal imagery effects, and so on, are not a

function of the amount of distance a person is from their tar-

get. These activities are just as effective when done on the

other side of the earth as when they are done close up. /124-

135, at 128

The reason that many of the dedicated materialistic scientists

are so infuriated over the mere discussion of prayer and dis-


97



tant healing, is that it really begins to call into question their

world view. It calls into question the adequacy of materialis-

tic science, upon which these people have staked their ca-

reers, self-identity and self-esteem. And when you begin to

question somebody’s world view, that’s more inflammatory

than making derogatory comments about their mother. It

generates tremendous animosity and really draws a line in

the sand. If the data is right, then the materialist’s model of

the universe is inadequate. It’s down to that. That’s why you

see people libeling and slandering other people over these

issues in the scientific journals./124-135, at 129

Right after I began to attract the attention of cynics, material-

ists and skeptics in medicine, I pulled a book off my shelf

called Garrison’s History of Medicine, written in 1929. It’s

one of my favorite books. I went back and looked at the way

the great medical authorities of the day treated Oliver Wen-

dell Holmes, who was among the first to suggest hand-

washing. He was vilified for proposing the silly idea that

washing your hands could cut down on the incidence of in-

fections and death following childbirth, in spite of the fact

that there was supportive scientific data which had been col-

lected from the hospital. It showed that the practice of physi-

cian hand-washing tremendously lowered the death rate

following childbirth. The data was in, yet in spite of that, this

man was unbelievably hounded by other leading orthodox

obstetricians./124-135, at 130

Physicist Max Planck, commenting about the controversy

surrounding quantum physics around the turn of the cen-

tury said that, science changes funeral by funeral. That’s a

clever way of stating that some people are never going to

change their mind./124-135, at 131


98





PETERRUSSELL

Peter Russell graduated with first class honors in theoretical

physics and experimental psychology at the University of Cam-

bridge (England).

He has been a business consultant for fifteen years to interna-

tional corporations such as Apple Computers, Shell, BASF, Ameri-

can Express and BP. He produced a series on meditation for BBC

Radio 4, and is the author of seven books, including The Global

Brain Awakens , which explores the psychological dimensions of the

global crisis and The White Hole In Time.

Editorial Review

At this unprecedented moment in history, when escalating

crises threaten all life on earth, internationally renowned

physicist-futurist Peter Russell weaves together the physical


100



and social sciences, modern technology and ancient mysti-

cism to demonstrate that the possibility of global illumina-

tion is now as real-and as imminent-as the threat of mass

annihilation.

In this updated edition of The Global Brain Awakens, Russell

details an extraordinary new vision of humanity’s potential

as a fully conscious super organism in an awakening uni-

verse. Presenting evidence that the earth itself is a living be-

ing and every person upon it a cell in the planetary nervous

system, Russell describes how breakthroughs in telecommu-

nications and computer networks are rapidly linking the

human species into an embryonic global brain.

At the same time, the human potential movement is growing

faster than any other segment of society, and influencing

every aspect of the culture-including business, politics and

medicine. Russell shows how the convergence of these pow-

erful trends is creating the required conditions for an evolu-

tionary shift in consciousness from egocentrism to geo-

centrism.

First published in 1983 as The Global Brain and translated

into ten languages, Russell’s seminal work won acclaim from

forward thinkers all over the world. Regarded by many as

years ahead of its time, its original predictions about the im-

pact of computer networks and changing social values were

quickly fulfilled.


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Peter Russell

Consciousness is used in many different ways. You can talk

about consciousness in the context of whether you’re awake

or asleep, or in terms of social consciousness, which involves

one’s value system. (…) I tend to look at the current timesfrom a different perspective. As human beings, we are expe-

riencing the most significant era of change in this planet’s

history—not just in human history but probably in the his-

tory of this planet. Never before has a species arisen which

has so much creativity and so much intelligence but also so

much destructive capability, which has shown itself through

such / things as the environmental crisis. In my view, we arereally being pushed to work inwardly and to go through an

evolutionary process. If we don’t, I doubt we’ll survive

much longer. We’ve come to this point in history where we

have to learn how to use our powers of creativity and our

intelligence in ways that do not threaten our own future, nor

the future of the rest of this planet. I think many people are

looking at the ecological crisis as signaling the need for peo-

ple to change their thinking and to change their values.

/359-373, at 359, 360


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If you look at what’s happening in the world, you will find

that now, we’re all becoming interconnected. The linking

together of humanity, which began when the emergence of

language allowed us to share information with each other,

has now reached a global level. We are sharing information

through television, through print, through video, through

computer networks. We are beginning to function as a single

information system./359-373, at 364

Science fiction writers of thirty or forty years ago had no

idea of what was going to happen to computers and infor-

mation processing. Most science fiction writers were talking

about huge computers. They didn’t see the advent of the

small, portable personal computer, the lap-top computer

which could be networked with other computers. In the

same way, very few people can foresee the incredible speed

of change and awakening that is possible on the level of con-

sciousness, once things start taking off./359-373, at 364

If a system is sent into a chaotic, disordered state, it can—

though not every time—reorganize itself into a higher state

of organization and capability. On the global level we are

going through chaos. We are seeing breakdowns of economic

systems, and the turning around of some of the political sys-

tems in Eastern Europe. It appears to be the breaking down,

but it’s also a field in which new levels of organization could

emerge. They haven't emerged yet, but the time is ripe for

something new to happen./359-373, at 365

One thousand years ago, you could probably predict the

next hundred years. One hundred years ago, we could

probably predict the following twenty to thirty years. Today,

we really can’t predict more than a few months ahead in


103



many areas. What I call the ‘prediction horizon’ is getting

closer and closer and closer, so we are certainly moving into

a much more unpredictable world. But within that unpre-

dictability, there is so much potential for change. I think

we’re in the most exciting time in human history. In our own

lifetimes we are going to see as much development, and as

much evolution, as perhaps the whole of humanity has wit-

nessed over the last 5000 years./359-373, at 365

We now have—interestingly enough—about the same num-

ber of people living on the planet as there are nerve cells in

the human brain. We are now entering this process of con-

nectivity. We aren’t yet as interconnected as the nerve cells in

the brain and we only communicate with one or two people

at a time, but I think the way our technology is going, over

the next ten, twenty or thirty years, that connectivity will

probably rival that of the human brain. When that happens, I

think we are in for a major transformation on a global level.

/359-373, at 366


104



The word ‘synergy’ comes from the Greek—syn and ergos—

literally meaning to ‘act together.’ In a high synergy system,

the individual units—whether they be people in a society or

nerve cells in a brain—while acting in their own interest, are

also acting for the good of the whole system. It’s an align-

ment between individual interests and group interests. /359-

373, at 366

Many of us compromise our individuality. We don’t really

express ourselves. We don’t live our own truths. We tend to

live the truths that the media tell us. We live the truths that

the fashion houses tell us. So we wear the latest fashions, do

the right things, go to the ‘in’ places. Not because, ‘that’s

who I am’ but because we want to belong to the right group.

We want to be seen to be part of the system. As we begin to

wake up, we also become more open to other people—more

compassionate, more loving towards other people, more able

to interconnect with other people. At the same time that’s

happening, we also gain a greater inner strength to actually

be ourselves, to express our own truths./359-373, at 368

The change in world view that I think needs to come, is a

shift in values of what we consider to be important. That

comes back to a fundamental belief about how we find the

peace that we’re looking for in the world. It could come from

reading books, but I think they would be books of a more

spiritual nature. If one goes back and reads some of the old

classic spiritual teachings, one finds the same basic message

about letting go of attachments, letting go of our beliefs

about how to find happiness and beginning to recognize that

whether or not we’re at peace is not a question of what we

have or do, but is a question of how we see things./359-373,

at 369


105



The critical decision rests upon how we perceive the world.

In each of our lives, in every single moment, and regardless

of whatever is happening to us, we have the opportunity to

either see this as a threat or as an opportunity: an opportu-

nity to learn more about ourselves, an opportunity to de-

velop our consciousness in some way or other, an opportu-

nity to grow. Part of the shift entails putting this into practice

in our own lives so that at every moment of the day we be-

gin to make that choice. Instead of seeing things through the

eyes of fear, the eyes of anxiety, the eyes of separation, we

begin to see that we are actually in control of our lives. We

are in control of how we see things and we begin to exercise

that control and learn to use what is happening in the world

for our own inner growth and development./359-373, at 370

Consciousness is something completely nonmaterial and

totally indefinable by modern science and yet it is something

common to all of us./359-373, at 370

The meta-paradigm of Western society suggests that the ma-

terial world is real, and that consciousness and mind are

somehow offshoots of material reality. (…) I think the new

meta-paradigm that is beginning to emerge is saying that

consciousness is primary to the universe. In some sense,

matter is created in our consciousness, we are the creators of

our experience of reality./359-373, at 371

It was my meditation experience in India that made me real-

ize that consciousness is primary, and matter is something

we create in our awareness. That’s not to say matter doesn’t

exist out there somewhere, but every time I experience it I

am re-creating a version of it for me in my mind./359-373, at

372


106



I think on a more global level, the shift is going to happen as

the anomalies build up, as we begin to realize that con-

sciousness cannot be excluded from our understanding of

the world as has been suggested by modern physics. As we

begin to realize the world doesn’t work without including

consciousness, that consciousness is primary. Then I think

the shift in world views will happen./359-373, at 372


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PETER SENGE

Peter Senge is Director of the Systems Thinking and Organiza-

tional Learning Program at MIT’s Sloan School of Management , and

a founding partner of Innovation Associates in Framingham, Mas-

sachusetts. He has introduced thousands of managers at Ford,

Digital, Apple and other major corporations to the disciplines of

the learning organization through seminars. He is the author of

the book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning

Organization.

Editorial Review

Peter Senge, founder of the Center for Organizational Learn-

ing at MIT's Sloan School of Management, experienced an

epiphany while meditating one morning back in the fall of

1987. That was the day he first saw the possibilities of a

‘learning organization’ that used ‘systems thinking’ as the

primary tenet of a revolutionary management philosophy.


108



He advanced the concept into this primer, originally released

in 1990, written for those interested in integrating his phi-

losophy into their corporate culture.

The Fifth Discipline has turned many readers into true be-

lievers; it remains the ideal introduction to Senge’s carefully

integrated corporate framework, which is structured around

‘personal mastery’, ‘mental models’, ‘shared vision’, and

‘team learning.’ Using ideas that originate in fields from sci-

ence to spirituality, Senge explains why the learning organi-

zation matters, provides an unvarnished summary of his

management principals, offers some basic tools for practic-

ing it, and shows what it’s like to operate under this system.

The book’s concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever.

—Howard Rothman

Peter Senge

The difference between a child at the age of one, two, or

three, learning to walk, learning to read, learning all the in-

credible stuff that kids learn, and that same person at the age

of ten or twelve learning grammar because they have to, is

the basic difference between aspiration and fear./206-219, at

207


109



The first principle of real learning is that learners learn what

the learner wants to learn./206-219, at 208

This whole idea of tapping the capacity of human beings in

an organization to learn because they really want to, not be-

cause they have to, is the key for two reasons. Reason one: if

people were really learning what they wanted to learn, they

would be enthused and excited about what they were doing.

The other reason is the key from an organizational stand-

point. Learning based on desperation or fear is always going

to be episodic in nature. In other words, people will learn as

long as they have to, as long as there is a threat that they

have to respond to. As soon as that threat goes away, the

learning will stop. So you will get episodes of learning and

change./206-219, at 208

The Japanese are very, very good at continual learning. It’s

part of their culture; part of the very way they manage. For

most Westerners, learning is what happened to us in school

and when we grow up, we work. We’re not learning any-

more. So with that kind of mind-set, we tend to only learn

when there is a crisis that compels us to learn. That’s a very

important, practical difference between learning that’s based

on aspiration versus desperation./206-219, at 208

The second core capability of a learning organization would

be the ability to have reflective conversation in organiza-

tions. (…) Much important work gets done through conver-

sation. Decisions are made through conversations; decisions

are implemented through conversations—people talking to

one another. Most conversations are marginally productive;

often they are counterproductive. People come in with dif-

ferent views and they end up polarizing and having a debate


110



rather than a conversation. It’s usually not even a very good

debate. What people really have in mind remains unsaid.

They’re afraid that if they expressed their true thoughts,

things would get worse, not better./206-219, at 208, 209

In productive conversations people become more aware of

the assumptions they hold, the very basis of why one sees

things the way they do. It’s important to realize how relative

these assumptions are. Nobody carries God’s truth in their

head. We carry views, opinions, interpretations—things that

are a product of our life experience. They’re very idiosyn-

cratic to us; they’re not absolute. Yet we treat them as if they

are absolute./206-219, at 209

One of the reason that shared visions don’t exist and why we

can’t tap collective aspiration is because we don’t know how

to manage the communication process whereby individual

visions can be articulated and can interact so that, over time,

people can truly start to feel a part of something larger than

their own individual vision, a part of a really shared vision.

/206-219, at 209

By the time many managers rise to any kind of a position of

authority, they are usually extremely good at advocating

their views and getting others to ‘buy in.’ In fact, what’s

really needed is not just the advocacy of my views but an

inquiry into my views and the views of the other people.

There needs to be a balance of advocacy and inquiry. It’s al-

most completely absent in most large organizations. /206-

219, at 209

We have no idea of the process of going from A to B. We tend

to see problems as isolated from one another. If I’m in manu-


111



facturing, I see a manufacturing problem. If I’m in research, I

see a research problem. If I’m in product development, I see

a problem development problem. I treat these separately

when, in fact, often they are highly interdependent./206-219,

at 210

If you’re building an automobile, you have 12 or 13 major

engineering sub-specialties. Each of those specialists is off

solving their own isolated problems, but in fact they have to

produce one car. The success of the car actually doesn’t de-

pend on having the best transmission system and the best

drive train and the best steering. You can put all the best

parts together and you won’t necessarily get the best car.

What makes the best car is the way all the parts fit together.

/206-219, at 210

So, life is integrative. Whenever we’re trying to produce

something, we’re producing something that has to work as a

whole, but our patterns of thought and our ways of identify-

ing and solving problems are highly fragmented. In our cul-

ture, being an ‘expert’ literally means knowing a lot about a

little. So the whole notion of expertise is very counterpro-

ductive to being effective in organizations because organiza-

tions have to produce something that is integrated./206-219,

at 210

Customers have real needs and real problems—they don’t

care about 13 different features that you have, each of which

is world class. They really care about how it all comes to-

gether into an integrated product or integrated service. /206-

219, at 210


112



So the third capability has to do with the ability to deal with

complexity, to deal with high degrees of interrelatedness and

processes which are far from static. They are dynamic,

changing over time. It involves systems thinking./206-219,

at 211

In the West, we tend to think of knowledge as something

that we have in our heads. We actually don’t make any rig-

orous distinction between knowledge and information. We

treat knowledge as a little more important than information.

/206-219, at 211

You know something about human relationships when you

have some capacity to produce meaningful relationships. It’s

not something you’ve read about in a book. You have some

capacity to work with other people, particularly those whose

ideas, emotions, backgrounds and previous experiences

might be very different than yours./206-219, at 211

Real learning is learner directed; it involves self-assessment.

In school, we learn that what’s most important is what the

teacher says, not what we say about how well we are doing.

It’s ironic: for the rest of our lives, we’re / not going to have

a teacher around to tell us how we’re doing. Yet most kids

do not develop any capability for objective self-assessment,

which is absolutely critical for lifelong learning. And so we

have a lot of very strange and I would say, counterproduc-

tive, notions about learning in the West./206-219, at 211, 212

In Eastern cultures, it’s typical for people to think of learning

as something that’s actually in the body, not just in the head.

When you say, ‘I know’, in most Eastern languages such as

Chinese and Japanese, you literally are saying it from the


113



center of your body—‘I know it; it’s in me’. In the West, we

tend to think of it as in our heads. This is a part of the dualis-

tic Western philosophy that makes its presence felt in so

many different areas. There is a real disconnect in our think-

ing about learning between the head and the hand, between

our intellectual knowledge and our capacity for action. It

actually is deeply rooted culturally./206-219, at 212

In many traditional European cultures, there was a very rig-

orous, rigid cultural distinction between the people who

worked with their hands and the people who did not have to

work with their hands. It’s always sobering to remember

that Michelangelo could not have dinner with his patrons

because the artisans occupied a different social class because

they worked with their hands. That fragmentation is very

deeply imbedded in Western culture and it’s very relevant to

these questions of learning and what we mean by knowl-

edge. We have a lot of executives sitting around in corporate

suites who really think that, ‘We come up with the big ideas

here, right?’, ‘We create strategy’. Think about the parallel to

this: ‘We create the strategy—you guys have to implement

it!’ And, of course, what’s one of the biggest problems facing

domestic organizations! They can’t implement strategy. The

reason they can’t implement strategy is because their entire

way of thinking about it is so deeply fragmented. Our notion

is that the top of the organization thinks and that the people

at the local level, in the guts of the organization so to speak,

take action./206-219, at 212

The Japanese think of strategy as something that emerges

throughout the whole organization. A lot of the best strategic

ideas come from the front lines, and conversely, the people at

the top should be spending their life involved at all levels of


114



the organization. If you go to Honda’s corporate headquar-

ters, you will never find any executives there./206-219, at

212

So, you see, this whole separation of head and hand, of intel-

lect and action, of corporate management and local actors, is

really a Western product. It’s very much a product of our

culture and our heritage, and it represents a huge problem

when it comes to learning because real learning, is by its na-

ture, integrative. Real learning integrates new ideas, new

insights and new actions. If there is no change in behavior,

there’s no learning. But also, if there’s no change in under-

standing, there’s no learning either. There has to be

both./206-219, at 213

There’s a famous library in Oxford, England, that has an an-

cient, circular courtyard with 12 or 13 different doorways

leading in. Over each doorway is printed ‘Geology’, ‘Phys-

ics’, ‘Biology’, ‘Literature’, etc. It is a wonderful symbol of

our theory of knowledge in the West. You enter through each

of those doors and you leave the knowledge contained be-

hind the other doors. So, the whole notion that knowledge

could be a more integrated activity is really lost in the West.

It’s a profound problem and so is this deep, cultural ten-

dency towards fragmentation—the breaking up of wholes

into pieces./206-219, at 214

There is a profound need to develop integrative disciplines

in the sciences. What we have today is an enormous ten-

dency towards educating people in very narrow ways. Occa-

sionally, someone comes along who, just by the sake of their

own brilliance, is integrative—they cut across different dis-

ciplines and we consider those people real geniuses. Well, I


115



don’t know if they’re real geniuses or they’re just real con-

trarians. They somehow manage to resist the temptation to

fragment knowledge./206-219, at 214

We tend to think of ourselves as things isolated from one

another. If you take seriously the notion of the primacy of

wholes, then you arrive at an entirely different view. You

seen an individual as the reflection of a community; a strand

in a web of interrelationships. /206-219, at 215


116



STANGROF

Dr. Stanislav Grof , M.D., Ph.D. is a psychiatrist with over

thirty-seven years of research experience in non-ordinary states of

consciousness.

Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Dr. Grof, along with Abra-ham Maslow is considered a primary founder and theoretician of

transpersonal psychology.

He’s the author of Psychology of the Future , Spiritual Emergency ,

LSD Psychotherapy , Realms of the Human Unconscious , Beyond the

Brain , Human Survival and Consciousness Evolution and co-author,

with his wife Christina, of The Stormy Search for The Self .


117



From the Back Cover

This accessible and comprehensive overview of the work of

Stanislav Grof, one of the founders of transpersonal psy-

chology, was specifically written to acquaint newcomers

with his work. Serving as a summation of his career and

previous works, this entirely new book is the source to in-

troduce Grof’s enormous contributions to the fields of psy-

chiatry and psychology, especially his central concept of

holotropic experience, where holotropic signifies ‘moving

toward wholeness’.

Grof maintains that the current basic assumptions and con-

cepts of psychology and psychiatry require a radical revision

based on the intensive and systematic research of holotropic

experience. He suggests that a radical inner transformation

of humanity and a rise to a higher level of consciousness

might be humankind’s only real hope for the future.

This book is by a pioneering genius in consciousness re-

search. It presents the full spectrum of Grof’s ideas, from his

earliest mappings of using LSD psychotherapy, to his clinical

work with people facing death, to his more recent work with

holotropic breathing, to his latest thoughts about the cosmo-

logical implications of consciousness research and the pros-

pects for dealing with an emerging planetary crisis.

Grof has always been one of the most original thinkers in the

transpersonal field, and his creativity has kept pace with the

maturity of his overall vision.

—Michael Washburn


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Stan Grof

Non-ordinary states of consciousness are certainly a unique

source of profound insights into the deepest recesses of the

human psyche. In my opinion their potential significance for

psychiatry is comparable to the importance of the micro-

scope for medicine or the telescope for astronomy. It is hard

to believe that this area has been largely ignored by tradi-

tional psychiatrists and psychologists./98-109, at 98

The attitude of Western psychiatry that sees mental health as

simply the absence of symptoms certainly has to be radically

revised. (...) In the alternative system of medicine known as

homeopathy, the symptoms are seen as expressions of heal-

ing, not the disease. Therapy in homeopathy consists of a

temporary intensification of the symptoms to achieve

wholeness. This approach results in profound healing and

positive personality transformation rather than the impover-

ishment of vitality and functioning that accompanies the

suppression of symptoms through the use of prescribed

drugs. The emphasis on constructive working with symp-

toms instead of their routine suppression is the first major

difference between the strategies based on modern con-sciousness research and those used in mainstream psychia-

try. /98-109, at 99


119



Mainstream psychiatry is based upon the Cartesian-

Newtonian materialistic world view which maintains that

the history of the universe is basically the history of develop-

ing matter. The only thing that really exists is matter and life;

consciousness, and intelligence are its accidental and insig-

nificant side-products. In this kind of world view, there is no

place for spirituality. To be spiritual means to be uneducated,

unacquainted with modern scientific discoveries about the

nature of the Universe. It means to be involved in supersti-

tion, in primitive, or magical thinking. Traditional psycho-

analysis explains spirituality as a regression, as a fixation on

the infantile stage—a step backwards in development rather

than a step forward. In this context, the concept of God is

interpreted as the projection of your infantile image of your

father in the sky. Interest in religious ritual is seen as analo-

gous to obsessive-compulsive behavior of a neurotic and

explained as a regression to the anal stage of libidinal devel-

opment. /98-109, at 100

And here lies the fundamental difference between traditional

psychiatry and transpersonal psychology which considers

spirituality to be an intrinsic dimension of the human psyche

and a critical factor in the universal scheme of things. This

conclusion is not some kind of irrational belief or a specula-

tive metaphysical assumption. It is based on systematic

study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in which we

can have direct experiences of the spiritual dimensions.

These experiences fall into two distinct categories. In the first

one are experiences of the Immanent Divine; they involve

direct perception of unity underlying the world of separa-

tion and a realization that what we experience as material

reality is actually the manifestation of creative cosmic en-

ergy. The second category includes experiences of the Tran-


120





In other words, the insights that people get into the nature of

the cosmos in non-ordinary states are in fundamental con-

flict with the old, Cartesian-Newtonian world view, but are

very similar in nature to descriptions that we find in

quantum-relativistic physics and other avenues of the new

paradigm./98-109, at 103

In non-ordinary states, the material world is experienced as

a dynamic process where there are no solid structures and

everything is a flow of energy. Everything is perceived as

patterns of energy and behind patterns of energy there are

patterns of experience. Reality appears to be the result of an

incredibly precise orchestration of experiences and the ob-

server plays a very important role in the creation of the

universe./98-109, at 104


122



There exists substantial evidence that consciousness is not a

by-product of matter, an epiphenomenon of the neuro-

physiological processes in our brain, but a primary attribute

of existence./98-109, at 104

In the course of this century, quantum-relativistic physics

has seriously undermined the belief in the tangible and un-

ambiguous nature of our material reality. It has thrown a

new light on the ancient Buddhist idea that form is empti-

ness and emptiness is form. In the subatomic analysis, mat-

ter in the usual sense of the word, disappears and what re-

mains is pattern, relation, mathematical order—elements

which we would certainly associate with consciousness

rather than matter./98-109, at 105

Traditional science claims in a very authoritarian way that

the material universe which we experience through our five

senses, is the only existing reality. And if we experience

other realities, such as historical or archetypal elements of

the collective unconscious, these are seen as illusory experi-

ences derived from the perceptions and memories of this

world. In other words, transpersonal experiences are fanta-

sies or hallucinations. This position is presented as an evi-

dent scientific fact that has been proven beyond any reason-

able doubt, but a closer examination clearly shows that it is

an unfounded metaphysical assumption. Modern con-

sciousness research actually has brought ample evidence

that there are other experiential dimensions of reality with

specific and demonstrable characteristics. To borrow an

analogy from electronics, material reality is just one ‘holo-

graphic cosmic channel’. There are other ‘channels’ that are

equally real or unreal as this one./98-109, at 105


123



Robert Monroe has developed some very effective means of

inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness, with special

emphasis on those that are conducive to out-of-body experi-

ences. In non-ordinary states, the sharp difference between

what is ‘real’ and what is ‘unreal’ tends to disappear. Our

ordinary material world appears less real and the world of

the archetypal beings and other aspects of the transpersonal

world become very convincing and believable. Careful study

reveals that they are more than fantasies or hallucinations.

Once we realize that in both instances we are dealing with

‘virtual realities,’ the distinction between what is ‘real’ and

what is derived becomes rather arbitrary./98-109, at 105

The traditional point of view of Western materialistic science

is that we are Newtonian objects, made up of atoms, mole-

cules, cells, tissues and organs, that we are highly developed

animals and biological thinking machines. If we seriously

consider all the data amassed in the last few decades by

modern consciousness research, we discover that this point

of view is incorrect, or at least incomplete. It is just one par-

tial aspect of a much more complex picture. It can be main-

tained only when we suppress all the evidence from para-

psychology and the study of non-ordinary states of con-

sciousness, such as mystical, psychedelic, and near-death

experiences, or trance phenomena and meditation. In all

these situations, we can also function as fields of conscious-

ness which can transcend space, time, and linear causality.

/98-109, at 106

Quantum-relativistic physicists have a definition of suba-

tomic matter and also of light that combines in a paradoxical

fashion two seemingly incompatible aspects of these phe-

nomena. This is the wave-particle paradox described by


124



Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity. To understand

the nature of subatomic matter or light, you have to accept

that they are phenomena which can have characteristics of

both particles and waves. These are two complementary as-

pects of the same phenomena and each of them manifests

under different circumstances. We are now discovering that

something similar applies to human beings. We are Newto-

nian objects, highly developed biological thinking machines,

but we are also infinite fields of consciousness that transcend

time, space, and linear causality. These are two complemen-

tary aspects of who we are and each of them manifest under

different circumstances, the first in the ordinary state of con-

sciousness, the other when we enter a non-ordinary state of

consciousness./98-109, at 106

The most important thing to realize that traditional psychol-

ogy and psychiatry do not make a distinction between a

mystical experience and a psychotic experience. From a tra-

ditional point of view, all forms of non-ordinary states of

consciousness—with the exception of dreams where there is

a certain tolerance—would be interpreted as pathological

phenomena. Strictly speaking, Western psychiatry has pa-

thologized the entire history of spirituality. /98-109, at 106

We actually have many psychiatric articles and books that

discuss which psychiatric diagnosis would be most appro-

priate for the founders of various religions, their prophets,

and saints. Franz Alexander, a famous psychoanalyst and

founder of psychosomatic medicine, even wrote a paper en-

titled Buddhist Meditation as an Artificial Catatonia, putting

spiritual practice into a pathological context. Similarly, an-

thropologists argue whether shamans should be viewed as

hysterics, epileptics, schizophrenics, or maybe ambulant


125



psychotics. Many people who have transpersonal experi-

ences are automatically treated as psychotics, people suffer-

ing from a mental disease, because psychiatrists do not make

a distinction between a mystical experience and a psychotic

experience./98-109, at 107

The concept of spiritual emergency suggests that many epi-

sodes of / non-ordinary states of consciousness that are cur-

rently diagnosed as psychoses and treated by suppressive

medication are actually crises of transformation and spiritual

opening. Instead of routine suppression through drugs, we

should give these people support and guidance to help them

through these experiences. When properly understood and

properly guided, these states can result in emotional and

psychosomatic healing and positive personality transforma-

tion. /98-109, at 108

If you look back at human history, you will find that many

people have invested enormous amounts of energy in the

spiritual quest. They have also made tremendous sacrifices

for this purpose—the sacrifice of material possessions, pro-

fessional careers, as well as of personal and sexual life. In

transpersonal psychology, the impulse toward spirituality is

viewed as a very natural and very powerful drive in human

beings. In Western culture, we have lost all socially sanc-

tioned contexts in which people can experience non-

ordinary states of consciousness and have spiritual experi-

ences. Our attitude toward spirituality is certainly peculiar.

There is a bible in every motel room and even leading politi-

cians pay lip service to God; but if a person would have a

powerful spiritual experience in the church, an average min-

ister would send them to a psychiatrist./98-109, at 108


126



Experiential contact with the archetypal domain in and of

itself is not necessarily beneficial. It is possible to get inflated

by identifying with an archetype, and it can leave you in a

state of grandiosity. For example, some people who experi-

ence identification with Jesus Christ, which is a very com-

mon experience in non-ordinary states, can end up believing

that they are actually the historical Jesus. Another common

pitfall is to experience one’s own divinity (in the sense of the

Tat tvam asi of the Upanishads) and attaching this insight to

one’s body ego (I am God and that makes me special). /98-

109, at 109


127



Donna Eden

Books Reviewed

Energy Medicine (1999)

The Energy Medicine Kit (1999)



Donna Eden has treated over ten thousand individual clients

and has taught hundreds of classes, speaking to standing-room-

only audiences throughout the United States, Europe, Australia,

New Zealand, and South America. Able from childhood to per-

ceive the body’s subtle energies, she works with those energies to

heal others and to teach others how to work with them.

—From: The Energy Medicine Kit (Back Cover)

DONNA EDEN

129



Energy Medicine

With David FeinsteinNew York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1999

Energy Medicine is a quest book, the final outcome of a quest of the authors, a real

voyage, and realization of a dream, with all the obstacles that this implies.

From her book and writing style, Donna Eden appears to be a

very strong character, and she probably needed to have exactly

that quality in her wisdom quest as when she started, more than a

decade ago, modern medicine was really hostile toward the idea

of integrating any of the many perennial healing concepts that it

discarded as vitalistic. The authors introduce their book in very

comprehensive terms:

The return of energy medicine is one of the most significant

cultural / developments of the day, for the return of energy

medicine is a return to personal authority for health care, a


130



return to the legacy of our ancestors in harmonizing with the

forces of nature, and a return to practices that are natural,

friendly, and familiar to body, mind and soul./2-3

It also seems that Donna Eden’s collaboration with David

Feinstein led to a wholesome mix of energies. The authors have

done ground-breaking research on the ubiquitous quality of the

energy concept and have laid the theoretical groundwork of the

Donna Eden Energy Healing Practice. This is truly a good thing tohappen, as there are today many healers who learn from hearsay

and practice methods they don’t really understand. Not so for

Donna Eden. She has complemented her strong intuitive knowl-

edge, or what she directly perceives through her extraordinary

energy sensitivity, by a thorough base of theoretical and cross-

cultural knowledge, and this makes the strength of both her heal-ing practice and her books. The authors write on the cultural

background of energy medicine:

Numerous cultures describe a matrix of subtle energies that

support, shape, and animate the physical body, called qi or

chi in China, prana in the yoga tradition of India and Tibet,

yesod in the Jewish cabalistic tradition, ki in Japan, baraka

by the Sufis, wakan by the Lakotas, orenda by the Iroquois,

megbe by the Ituri Pygmies, and the Holy Spirit in Christian

tradition. It is hardly a new idea to suggest that subtle ener-

gies operate in tandem with the denser, 'congealed' energies

of the material body./16

To add to this list that the Japanese call this energy hado , not ki,

so far as water is concerned, as Masaru Emoto explains in his

books.

DONNA EDEN

131





not implied in the concept per se. So for knowing the difference

between atman and soul you have to get into Hinduism and

Christianity, and it’s not guaranteed that you will find the answer.

In fact, you don’t need to know the exact difference, for if you look

at both notions from an energy point of view, for you will very

quickly understand that both notions are dynamic, that both no-

tions are considered as containers of vital energy. So if this serves

you as a commonality, you don’t need to do that extended philo-

sophical and religious research. It seems to me that the authors

have taken the latter approach, as they are talking about soul:

The soul is the source of the most subtle energies of your

being. Yet this subtle energy gives form to everything else

about you, from your cells to your sense of self. If spirit, as it

is often defined, is the all-pervasive, intelligent energy ofcreation, soul is the manifestation at the personal level./20

Now, let’s look at another fundamental principle of energy

medicine: balance. What does balance mean? I have found it ex-

pressed in Chinese medicine as harmony. In Chinese medicine,

harmony means health. It’s as simple as that. The ancient Chinese

physicians discovered that when an organism is healthy, it is natu-

rally harmonious , and there are no extremes. All is in a state of

harmonious balance. The same is true the other way around:

when an organism is found to be in harmony, the physician could

conclude that the organism is in good health.

This was ignored over centuries in Western medicine, and en-

ergy medicine now brings this perennial notion of harmony or

balance into our own medical paradigm. The authors write:

DONNA EDEN

133



Balance is a pivotal concept within energy medicine, just as

homeostasis is a pivotal concept within biology. All systems

move toward an energetic balance, a state of internal stabil-

ity and harmony with other energies. At the same time,

every expenditure of effort and every interaction with the

environment upsets this balance. You are always moving

toward balance and always disturbing that balance in living

and growing./22

However, the book goes far beyond the theory. The theory is

kind of underlying, and the book really is a practical guide for

healing, and you can apply it on a daily basis. The knowledge is

transmitted in good little chunks, and with clear and comprehen-

sive language.

There are many different ways to work on your vital energy,

and how to balance it if you have abused of yourself too much,

through stress, smoking, fatigue, drug intake or through destruc-

tive relationships. For most common ailments the book gives prac-

tical advice how to treat not just the symptom, but the underlying

energy misbalance, so as to reestablish health by opening the en-

ergy flow, as a first step, and by balancing the energies, as a sec-

ond step. The authors explain that many health problems, at their


134



early stage can be healed simply by opening the energy blockage.

How does the energy flow get blocked? In most cases by mishan-

dling our emotions, by repressing certain emotions, or by trying to

overadapt to certain situations, disregarding feelings of anger or

frustration over long periods of time. This is how the vital energy

can become obstructed.

Energy medicine is really useful in informing the reader about

the possibility to heal disease by simple methods of energy rebal-ancing, by enhancing the energy flow, also by giving the necessary

practical advice so that the reader can administer the methods by

himself or herself, without needing to consult an energy practitio-

ner.

DONNA EDEN

135



The Energy Medicine Kit

With David FeinsteinNew York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1999

The Energy Medicine Kit is really an ingenuous product. I was very pleased when I

received it and opened that promising yellow box. And how well all is put to-

gether! This would make a wonderful present, to be true!

I congratulate the authors and the publisher to have come up

with this brilliant idea, that I have seen nowhere before! I have

myself started my journey through this Kit by watching the DVD,

seeing Donna Eden in her healing seminars. It was a good idea to

combine the literary content with multimedia clips. Now, after

discovering the DVD, I saw that I had much more in this precious

thunder box. There is a crystal, and I wondered what to do with it.

So I looked first in the Guidebook to find some instructions,

and found them on page 21: ‘How to Use The Energy MedicineKit’, with reference to page 23: ‘Using a Crystal As Your Training


136



Wheels.’ I would like to quote here from this guide as this is really

useful to know before-hand:

While I am a hands-on kind of healer, some people find it

easier to begin to experiment with energy methods if they

use a device such as a crystal. Like everything else, crystals

carry a vibrational rate that can influence other energies in

their proximity. Crystals also reflect light, perhaps the most

primary vibration of the universe. Spinning the crystal over

an electromagnetically sensitive point on the skin has a sub-

tle but immediate effect on the energies involved with that

point. When practiced with consistency, working with a

crystal can begin to bring about beneficial changes in your

energies and in your life./23

Then I saw that the first of the 43 cards contains specific in-

formation about ‘How to Spin a Crystal’, and I tried out the exer-

cise described on Card 2 ‘Spinning a Crystal over Your Chakras’

and made a surprising discovery. As the two-year old baby of my

friend had a headache that day, I taught the girl to hold the crystal

in front of her third eye and spin it first in clock-wise and then in

counter clock-wise direction. The girl, very attentive to this heal-

ing technique that she surely had never seen before, and smart

enough in holding and spinning the crystal, did it for about one

minute. Then they left my office. Half an hour later the mother

came back to me with the girl, smiling, and told me the baby’s

headache had disappeared completely.

Well, I don’t know of course if this was a coincidence as thiswas not a repeated experience, but there is a possibility that the

healing was effected by the crystal. I know that usually when the

DONNA EDEN

137



girl has a headache it’s for hours in a row and the mother brings

her to the doctor; however, this was that time obviously not neces-

sary.

As I am myself in perfect health in the moment, I have not

tried out the crystal or any other of the techniques taught in the

Kit on myself, but I will surely do so in case of sickness.

If you need more information for building trust in energy

medicine, you should perhaps do what I did before I ordered thisKit, i.e. read about the theoretical and cross-cultural research the

author has done relating to her energy healing practice, by order-

ing her book Energy Medicine that she co-authored with David

Feinstein.

The present Kit is a practical guide for self-healing, while the

book offers you insights, information and research about energy

healing, and practical guidance for self-healing.

Last not least, let me mention the 21 exercises on the CD audio

that is equally provided with this Kit. Now, I found it a little diffi-


138



cult to exactly take the body positions the author describes on the

CD for the various exercises, and it would have greatly facilitated

the understanding if the author would have included some addi-

tional cards for the exercises on the CD that demonstrate visually

the positions to take. But this is surely the only negative point I

could find in this overall very beautiful Kit.

DONNA EDEN

139



Mircea Eliade

Shamanism

Ancient Techniques of Ecstasy

New York: Penguin Arkana, 1989

First published by Pantheon Books, 1964

Shamanism by Mircea Eliade is considered to be the classic on shamanism, and it

remains a reference book. However, the book is not an easy read. Especiallywhen compared with Terence McKenna’s books, and those by Richard Schultes,

Michael Harner or Ralph Metzner, Eliade’s book takes the appearance of a rather

dry scholarly work, reference manual, or standard academia. But this is its value!



The book contains so many details that one single lecture will

generally not leave very deep traces, except you dispose of a pho-

tographic memory. The eminent advantage of the book or gener-

ally of Eliade’s approach to shamanism is that his research did not

take its origin in the Amazon, but in Siberia. True shamanism, the

most original and untouched ritual of shamanism originates from

Siberia, not from the Amazon, while today’s media suggest the

very contrary. It is important at the very start of studying shaman-

ism to learn that it is not a religion. As Eliade observes:

For all that shamanism dominates the religious life of Cen-

tral and North Asia, it is nevertheless not the religion of that

vast region. Only convenience or confusion has made it pos-

sible for some investigators to consider the religion of the

Arctic or Turko-Tatar peoples to be shamanism./7

This is probably why Eliade sub-titled the book Ancient Tech-

niques of Ecstasy , for it’s that, a technique, a ritual, something eso-

teric and not what the religion normally does; shamanism could in

fact be called the higher octave of religion, like the Mystery Schools

in Antiquity added something essential to Greek religion, without

representing that religion. As a result, the shaman, while highly

respected, and even venerated and encountered with awe, is an

outcast!

On the other hand, while a certain mental alienation may pre-

cede the initiation of the shaman, Eliade’s early stance on shaman-

ism helped to repel the standard misnomer, for the most part

brought up by ignorant missionaries, that shamans were mentally

ill, schizophrenic or hysterical people. The contrary is true. The

shaman typically is in his set and setting the only person of a

MIRCEA ELIADE

141



really sane mind. But for developing that sanity of mind, mental

alienation is often brought about by the inner self, as a temporary

condition, for the sole purpose of deconditioning the candidate

and purifying his inner world, and his perception of reality. Eliade

observes:

Psychopaths or not, the future shamans are expected to pass

through certain initiatory ordeals and to receive an educa-

tion that is sometimes highly complex. It is only this twofoldinitiation—ecstatic and didactic—that transforms the candi-

date from a possible neurotic into a shaman recognized by

his particular society./14

Like the sick man, the religious man is projected onto a vital

plane that shows him the fundamental data of human exis-

tence, that is, solitude, danger, hostility of the surroundingworld. But the primitive magician, the medicine man, or the

shaman is not only a sick man; he is, above all, a sick man

who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself.

/27

Disease often has to worsen before it can be cured—that’s

known since times immemorial. By the same token, those who

rank high in society often go through a difficult childhood or had

their trials in their first years of professional engagement. Eliade

observes that many a shaman had a predisposition to shamanism

since their childhood, which typically manifests in ‘being differ-

ent’, having visions and precognitive dreams, but also suffering

from strange fears, or even epileptic seizures:

But the future shaman exhibits exceptional traits from ado-

lescence; he very early becomes nervous and is sometimes


142



even subject to epileptic seizures, which are interpreted as

meetings with the gods./15

Thus, shamanic power often is the result of overcoming a dif-

ficult condition, be it a mental illness or a physical trauma; this

overcoming is the result of a major effort from the side of the indi-

vidual, something like a personal victory, but one that was in

some way aided by spiritual forces, not by ego-driven action:

There is always a cure, a control, an equilibrium brought

about by the actual practice of shamanism. It is not to the

fact that he is subject to epileptic attacks that the Eskimo or

Indonesian shaman, for example, owes his power and pres-

tige; it is to the fact that he can control his epilepsy./29

When we consider the extraordinary power of a shaman, forhealing himself and others, and for communicating with spirits so

as to alter fate, for example prevent a tribal war between neighbor

tribes, we might wonder what personal qualities or characteristics

such a person must develop? Are they innate, or can they be ac-

quired? Opinions here vary from culture to culture, and it seems

that communication abilities are primed in this process:

As for the Sudanese tribes studied by Nadel: ‘No shaman is,

in everyday life, an abnormal individual, a neurotic, or a

paranoiac; if he were, he would be classed as a lunatic, not

respected as a priest.’ Nor finally can shamanism be corre-

lated with incipient or latent abnormality; I recorded no case

of a shaman whose professional hysteria deteriorated intoserious mental disorders. In Australia matters are even

clearer: medicine men are expected to be, and usually are,

perfectly healthy and normal./31

MIRCEA ELIADE

143



For the Yakut, the perfect shaman ‘must be serious, possess

tact, be able to convince his neighbors; above all, he must not

be presumptuous, proud, ill-tempered.’ One must feel an

inner force in him that does not offend yet is conscious of its

power.’/29

Finally there seems to be some agreement that the shaman,

while he may appear an unusual figure, is a person not of ordi-

nary, but of superior intelligence:

According to the testimony of Belyavsky and others, col-

lected by Karjalainen, the Vogul shaman displays keen intel-

ligence, a perfectly supple body, and an energy that appears

unbounded. His very preparation of his future work leads

the neophyte to strengthen his body and perfect his intellec-

tual qualities./29


144



In general, the Siberian and North Asian shaman shows no

sign of mental disintegration. His memory and his power of

self-control are distinctly above the average./30

Shamanism is distinct from religion also by its redefinition or

alternative definition of what is sacred. Contrary to the common

definition of sacredness primarily being defined by religious tradi-

tion, in shamanism sacredness has an immediate quality about it,

and is often related to mystic appearances, or a direct perception ofthe divine. Eliade observes:

It is important to bring out this notion of peculiarity con-

ferred by an unusual or abnormal experience. For, properly

considered, singularization as such depends upon the very

dialectic of the sacred. The most elementary hierophanies,

that is, are nothing but a radical ontological separation ofsome object from the surrounding cosmic zone; some tree,

some stone, some place, by the mere fact that it reveals that it

is sacred, that it has been, as it were, chosen as a receptacle

for a manifestation of the sacred, is thereby ontologically

separated from the other stones, trees, places, and occupies a

different, a supernatural plane./32

In this sense, for the truly religious mind, the detail becomes

the major thing in life, and nothing will be really insignificant.

Such an attitude, that in major religions only is seen as awe in

front of the divine, greatly enhances our faculties of perception. As

the attitude it not projected onto a divine figure but is general, na-

ture as such is embraced and integrated into a greater spiritual

whole, and that makes that shamanism is so successful in healing

the human body. For it brings along alignment , an alignment that

MIRCEA ELIADE

145



most tribal peoples indeed possess, which makes for their peace-

ful and non-harmful living, and their silent dialogue with nature.

The other fundamental question that Eliade asked and tried to

answer in his book was what is the intrinsic quality of the sha-

manic cure, and how does it come about? Eliade writes:

The shaman’s ecstatic journey is generally indispensable,

even if the illness is not due to the theft of the soul by de-

mons or ghosts. The shamanic trance forms part of the cure;whatever interpretation the shaman puts on it, it is always

by his ecstasy that he finds the exact cause of the illness and

learns the best treatment./328

In fact, the astonishing difference between the way shamans

cure is that the shaman takes the medicine, while in our culture

it’s the patient. The shaman, through the trance, enters the vibra-

tional field of the patient, and can thus detect the real problem of their

illness, by screening their luminous body. This is all the secret, or

the most part of it. No medicine is needed when you can alter vi-

brations within the aura, an insight that today has been made use-

ful for medicine again, and that is at the basis of what we call vi-

brational medicine. Eliade observes further:

The morphology of shamanic cure is the same almost

throughout South America. It includes fumigations with to-

bacco, songs, massage of the affected area of the body, iden-

tification of the cause of the illness by the aid of the helping

spirits (at this point comes the shaman’s trance, during

which the audience sometimes ask him questions not di-

rectly connected with the illness), and, finally, extraction of

the pathogenic object by suction./329


146



A particularity that can be found in many tribal nations is that

illness is attributed to the interference of the spirit world. Modern

medicine hardly ever asks how the patient may have contributed

to bringing about their disease; the spiritogenic etiology, used by

shamanic cultures, would by most doctors probably be qualified

as schizophrenic. Not so in tribal cultures. Rule and exception can

be seen as reversed in the sense that in most native cultures, ill-

ness is primarily seen as a form of superimposition of malignant

spirit power, and only in second instance as a possible result of an

individual’s condition, weakness, or fragility, or corruption to

have let it happen. Eliade describes a healing ritual:

Throughout Melanesia treatment of a disorder begins with

sacrifices and prayers addressed to the dead person respon-

sible, so that he will remove the sickness. But if this ap-proach, which is made my members of the family, fails, a

mane kisu, ‘doctor’, is summoned. By magical means the

latter discovers the particular dead man responsible for the

sickness and begs him to remove the cause of the trouble.

/364

The most important for understanding shamanism is the sha-man’s frequent use of entheogens , plants that contain psychoactive

compounds, which, when taken at appropriate doses, produce a

consciousness-altering effect upon our psyche and perception.

There are various names for such plants, and the name that is

given reflects the state of mind of the researcher. Eliade says in his

book that a shamanic culture was at its decline or caught in deca-dence when their people take hallucinogenic compounds for ef-

fecting the shamanic trance. Today, this opinion is clearly contra-

MIRCEA ELIADE

147



dicted by the large majority of modern researchers, such as, for

example, Metzner, Harner, Schultes, or McKenna who consider

Eliade’s bias as a myopic view and a basic misconception about

shamanism.

For example, contrasting with this view, Terence McKenna

writes in his book The Archaic Revival (1992), p. 15:

While Eliade asserts that the use of narcotic substances as an

aid to ecstasy invariably indicates a decadence or vulgariza-tion of the shamanic tradition, there is reason to doubt this.

I will come to an end of my book review at this point, because

this book contains so many details, and there are so many differ-

ences in ritual from tribe to tribe, and so many different forms of

shamanism, that to advance more details here out of contextwould be rather confusing.

As a serious shamanism researcher, you simply can’t do with-

out this reference work written by one of the finest scholars on the

subject.

But on the other hand, it’s equally true that you can’t just limit

yourself to this study because the author has many a peculiar per-

spective or point of view that other, more recent, researchers

openly contradict or even invalidate. So care is needed here, and

discretion, because after all, it’s not easy to form rational views

and thorough understanding of something that is so remote, ex-

otic and outlandish as shamanism, when you see it from the per-

spective of our own culture and tradition.


148



Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz

Books Reviewed

The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries (1911)

Pixies, elves, dwarfs, leprechauns, and the other enchanted

little people: where do they come from? Folklorists consider them

the byproducts of ancient religious beliefs, occultists term them

nature spirits, and the peasantry call them fallen angels—creatures

neither good enough for redemption nor bad enough to be forever

lost.



This collection of reports of elfin creatures in Wales, Ireland,

Scotland, and Brittany ranks among the most scholarly works ever

published on the subject.

The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries begins with the author’s

collection of firsthand testimony from living sources, classified by

individual country and introduced by leading authorities on an-

thropology and folklore.

The next section concerns the recorded traditions of Celtic lit-erature and mythology, followed by an examination of a variety of

theories and their religious aspects. The book concludes with a

remarkably rational case for the reality of fairy life.

Narrated with an engaging sense of wonder by W.Y. Evans-

Wentz, the first American ever to receive the degree of Doctor of

Science in Comparative Religion from Oxford, this volume offers a

valuable resource for students of anthropology and Celtic lore, as

well as hours of delightful reading for fairy enthusiasts.

—From: Back Cover

What the note on the book cover unfortunately forgot to relateis that the book is not only a fantastic, unprecedented and pre-

cious resource for anthropologists and lay persons, but also, and I

would say primarily for:

• Parapsychologists

• Energy Healers

• Dream Researchers

• Bioenergy Researchers


150



• Theologians

• Theosophists

• Shamans

• Poets

WALTER YEELING EVANS-WENTZ

151



The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries

London: Frowde, 1911Minneola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2002

The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries is the final account of an immensely complex

and long-standing research on fairy faith in Britain and Brittany, the French Bre-

tagne. The research Dr. Evans-Wentz conducted on fairies was meticulous and

scientific. There was obviously an effort from the part of the researcher to some-

how classify and objectivize the fairy world, and this was perhaps necessary at a

time when holistic science was not yet born in the West and scientists had to give

an appearance of ‘pedantic detachment.’

On the other hand, this old-fashioned pedantic, meticulous

and detailed research approach is perhaps a good counterpoint to

the hairy stories this book abounds of.

But are we not outgrown from the times where as good as eve-

rybody was to dismiss all this as folk lore and superstition? Are

we not somewhat more mature today to have a compassionate

and participatory regard on these intriguing phenomena?


152



Well, I believe we are, and that therefore this study appears

like the first volume of a greater vision—and the second volume

still needs to be written! Unfortunately this book was written at a

time when the overwhelming majority of people in our culture

were dismissing fairies as pure superstition and folk belief.

It is sometimes good to see the context in which a particular

book was written. I had a similar impression with Shamanism by

Mircea Eliade, and I think both researchers share some personalitytraits. Both books are considered as reference books, which also

implies that you may want to skip some passages or even chap-

ters, as the author’s dry academic style gets a bit annoying over a

longer sitting. But on the other hand, this detached style somehow

contrasts well the sometimes really unbelievable stories that are

counted in the book.Indeed, what Evans-Wentz did was to collect and catalogue

stories about fairies, in a very orderly fashion, with all pertinent

information like tags put on needled ants, much like Béla Bartók

catalogued most of Hungary’s folk melodies and made a fantastic

music from that scurrilous repertoire of century-old musical lines.

And this adds on to the credibility of the author. Because some

of the stories are so hair-rising, bold and unheard-of that surely

without this enhanced credibility of the author, I would not have

considered this book as a source of research in parapsychology.

An Irish mystic, and seer of great power, with whom I have

often discussed the Fairy-Faith in its details, regards fairy

paths or fairy passes as actual magnetic arteries, so to speak,

through which circulates the earth’s magnetism./33, note 1

WALTER YEELING EVANS-WENTZ

153



Perhaps the study would have benefited from a comparative

perspective as to other paranormal phenomena than fairies?

I could imagine that the comprehension of the intrinsic fairy

phenomenon could have been more amply illustrated and eluci-

dated. Evans-Wentz correctly evaluates the fairy faith as being a

part of a tradition of world-wide animism, and he does his best to

convey to the reader that this is a good thing, and not something

to dismiss as pseudoscience.The theory of worldwide animism was also held in the face of

one of the greatest holistic scientists, Johann Wolfgang von Go-

ethe, and yet today we know that his color theory is a valid alter-

native scientific approach in its intent to contradicting Newtonian

science. Evans-Wentz writes:

The modern belief in fairies, with which until now we have

been specifically concerned, is Celtic only in so far as it re-

flects Celtic traditions and customs, Celtic myths and relig-

ion, and Celtic social and environmental conditions. Other-

wise, as will be shown throughout this and succeeding chap-

ters, it is in essence a part of a world-wide animism, which

forms the background of all religions in whatever stage of

culture religions exist or to which they have attained by evo-

lution, from the barbarism of the Congo black man to the

civilization of the Archbishop of Canterbury; and as far back

as we can go into human origins there is some correspond-

ing belief in a fairy or spirit realm, as there is to-day among

contemporary civilized and uncivilized races of all countries.

/226

You can travel the world and ‘collect beliefs,’ for cataloguing

them. And you can also trust human intelligence and travel the


154





Jonathan Goldman

Books Reviewed

Healing Sounds (2002)

Healing Sounds DVD (2004)

Tantra of Sound (2005)



Jonathan Goldman, M.A., is an internationally renowned

writer, musician, and teacher. He is an authority on sound healing

and a pioneer in the field of harmonics. Jonathan is the author of

Healing Sounds, Shifting Frequencies , and The Lost Chord.

He has studied with masters of sound from both the scientific

and spiritual traditions, incorporating this knowledge and energy

into his teachings and healing music. His award-winning record-ings include Chakra Chants and The Lost Chord. Jonathan is director

of the Sound Healers Association in Boulder, Colorado, and CEO of

Spirit Music. He teaches all over the world.

Andi Goldman, M.A., L.P.C. is a licensed psychotherapist,

specializing in holistic counseling and sound therapy. She holds

an M.A. in counseling psychology from Boulder Graduate School

and is Codirector of the Sound Healers Association and Director of

the Healing Sound Seminars. Andi is the developer of Tele-Counsel,

the nation’s first telephone counseling service specifically offering

home-bound clients structured counseling. She has been an educa-

tor at international schools in Japan, Germany, and Indonesia and

has lived and traveled extensively throughout the world. She is a

musician, teacher, sound healer, and the wife and partner of Jona-

than Goldman. Together, Jonathan and Andi have dedicated their

lives to the path of service, helping awaken and empower others

with the ability of sound to heal and transform. They lecture and

give workshops worldwide.

—From: Tantra of Sound

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

157



Healing Sounds

The Power of HarmonicsRochester: Healing Arts Press, 2002

Originally published in 1992

Healing Sounds was really a discovery for me! It was through the DVD that I dis-

covered Jonathan Goldman’s erudite approach to sound healing. The DVD trig-

gered my interest to order Goldman’s two major books, to know more about the

theory, while I had seen the practice on the DVD.

Let me be down-to-earth in this review and instead of talking

generalities, I would prefer to comment some of the quotes I have

taken from the book.

Before I do this, I would like to say that this book is very read-

able because the author understands to explain quite uncommon

things in a clear and easy-to-read diction that initiates the readerin a matter that has been blinded out from our consciousness since

centuries. The author skillfully weaves personal anecdotes in the


158



narration, which makes the matter more lively and interesting to

the novice reader—for let us not be delusional on the matter itself:

it’s a highly dry and mathematical subject!

I have in fact studied sound theory during my musical studies

at university that I had engaged parallel to my law studies, and I

remember to have read a thick book written by the German com-

poser Paul Hindemith about harmonics. And I remember that every

time when I was reading a few pages of the book, I was beginningto fall asleep!

Not so with Goldman’s book. He manages to provide the ut-

most necessary of technical information by imbedding it in a

larger context of information so that the read never really gets te-

dious and boring. To begin with, why should you study sound,

harmonics and sound healing? If you are not a healer, and if it’snot specifically for self-healing, there is a reason that the author

gives, and that I find important. He states:

Sound plays a key role in these times, for sound is helping

us adjust to the frequency shifts that are occurring on so

many levels./viii

Presently, the huge revolutionary shifts in human conscious-

ness are indeed reflected by a raising energy vibration on the cel-

lular level, as it has been affirmed by many esoteric and scientific

authors. This is why it is a good idea to learn more about sound

and vibration, in general. The author notes:

Everything is in a state of vibration. Everything is frequency.

Sound can change molecular structure. It can create form.

We realize the potential of sonic energy; we understand that

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

159



virtually anything can be accomplished through vibration.

Then, the miraculous seems possible./viii

What are harmonics? They are mathematical extrapolations of

vibration projected in sound, but sound that most of the time we

do not consciously ‘hear’ but perceive as timbre. For example, the

special timbre of a trumpet is created by the harmonics of the

sound coming out of the trumpet. The same tone played on a pi-

ano sounds like ‘piano’ because it has got different overtones than

those created by the trumpet. The author explains:

The first harmonic which occurs vibrates twice as fast as that

first note, the second harmonic vibrates three times as fast,

the fourth harmonic vibrates four times as fast and so on./16

Different instruments will all sound overtones, but specific

overtones are most prominent in different instruments.

These most prominent overtones are called formants. They

are the area of the sound spectrum where the sound energy

is most highly concentrated./25

The striking characteristic of harmonics is that they are affect-

ing all vibrations that are in the immediate environment, and they

affect most the ones that are mathematically closest related to the

one that is the triggering vibration—and therefore are called ‘har-

monics’ of it. The author explains:

These notes are not the same and yet they are interrelated. If

you were to strike that lowest C on the piano, you wouldalso set into resonance all the other Cs on the piano. They are

harmonics of each other./16


160



Anything that vibrates creates harmonics. Since the universe

is composed of nothing but vibrations, everything creates

fundamental tones and harmonics, ranging from electrons

orbiting around atoms to the planets orbiting around the

sun./31

But the author, in accordance with ancient knowledge on the

power of correct proportions, sees and evaluates harmonics not

only as an important ingredient of musical science, but also of na-ture in general. He wistfully explains what must baffle the uniniti-

ated reader, but lets the sage nod in agreement:

The entire length of the body can be viewed as adhering to

the Golden Section if we first divide the length of the body

into the proportions of the Golden Section at the navel.

These proportions are then found at the nipple dividing theentire width of the human body if the arms are stretched out.

The loin divides the distance from the ground to the nipples

in the proportions of the Golden Section. These proportions

are found in many other aspects of the body: when the knee

divides the entire leg; when the eyebrows divide the head;

when the elbow joint divides the entire arm. These propor-

tions of the major sixth (3:5) and minor sixth (5:8) can befound in other bodies, such as those found in the plant, in-

sect and animal kingdoms./35

Now, for the modern reader it is probably not self-evident why

sound can be used for healing, even when knowing the theory of

harmonics. The author imbeds his explanations within a larger

historical and cultural context:

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

161



In India, where the art of music has been developed to the

point of being a science, there are thousands of scales, called

ragas, which are designed to have particular effects on the

emotions. The scale which arises from the harmonic series of

the first four octaves is known as Raga Saraswati. It is named

after Saraswati, the Indian Goddess of both music and sci-

ence. /29

In different cultures, science and music have not been sepa-

rated as in the West. The ancient mystery schools of Greece,

India, Tibet and Egypt had a vast understanding of the rela-

tionship between music and healing, based upon vibration

as the basic creative force in the Universe./29

It is important to know that once science and sound were not

separated as it is today but sound theory was part of the perennial

science traditions, as for example the Hermetic tradition.

In Antiquity, the sage was mathematician in just the same way

as he was musician and musical theorist, writer, poet, philosopher

and teacher of the youth, and also political theorist, orator, gov-

ernment consultant, astrologer, fortune teller, life consultant and

coach—all in one single person! Goldman studied one example ofthis ancient archetype of the scholar and found it embodied in the

Greek mathematician Pythagoras:

Pythagoras believed that the universe was an immense

monochord, an instrument with a single string that stretched

between the heavens and the earth. The upper end of the

string was attached to absolute spirit, while the lower endwas connected to absolute matter. Through study of music

as an exact science, one could become familiar with the as-

pects of nature. He applied his law of harmonic intervals to


162



all the phenomena of nature, demonstrating the harmonic

relationship within the elements, the planets, and the con-

stellations. /30

To Pythagoras and his students, the Music of the Spheres was

more than a metaphor. The Greek master was said to have

actually been able to hear the sounds of the planets as they

vibrated in the heavens. The relationship between this

movement of the heavenly bodies and sound has been hy-

pothesized by scientists for centuries. Recently, scientists

using advanced mathematical principles based upon the or- bital velocities of the planets have equated different sounds

with different planets. Amazingly, they seem to be harmoni-

cally related. Perhaps this ancient master had hearing which

could perceive these astronomical movements as sound./30

Pythagoras had a school on the island of Crotona where he

taught his understandings of the mysteries of the universe.This ancient mystery school operated at three levels of initia-

tion. The first level, the acoustici, learned to recognize and

then apply the various musical proportions demonstrated to

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

163



them through the use of the monochord. The second level,

the mathematici, dealt more specifically with knowledge of

numbers, as well as individual purification and mental self-

control. Before going on to the next level, it was necessary

that the disciple be as clear in mind and body as possible for

the responsibilities of the sacred information then received.

The third and highest level of initiation, the electi, were

taught the secret processes of psychic transmutation and of

healing with sound and music./31

Goldman’s merit in this book is that he does not only refer to

his own admittedly broad experience with sound healing, as a

professional sound healer, but that he also quotes important scien-

tific research done on healing with sound, and in general on the

effects of sound on the human psyche and on emotions. This en-

ables the reader to follow up from the notes and research the mat-

ter more deeply.

For example, he quotes the German scientist Hans Kayser

who, in the 1920s, developed a theory of world harmonics. Gold-

man elaborates:

He believed that through understanding the connection be-tween music and mathematics, it would be possible to create

an understanding of the relationship between tone and

numbers. Thus qualities (tonal sensations) could be derived

from quantities (numbers) and quantities could be derived

through qualities./33

According to Kayser, the whole number ratios of musicalharmonics corresponds to an underlying framework existing

in chemistry, physics, crystallography, astronomy, architec-

ture, spectroanalysis, botany and the study of other natural


164



sciences. The relationship expressed in the periodic table of

elements, an understanding of the formation of matter, re-

sembles the overtone structure in music./33

Another example of this excellent reference work of the

author, which actually broadens and backs up his own theoretical

foundation, is Cymatics and its founder, the Swiss scientist Hans

Jenny.

Cymatics is the name which Dr. Jenny gave to his work. The

name comes from the Greek kyma, a word which means

wave. Cymatics is the study of wave-form phenomena. It is

proof positive that sound has the ability of creating form.

Once they are exposed to sound waves, the inanimate blobs

of liquid, pastes, and other materials in Dr. Jenny’s experi-

ments begin to undulate and move. Slowly as the sound con-tinues to affect them, they begin to take form. No longer

shapeless blobs, these forms pulse and vibrate with the

sounds that course through them, looking for all the world

like living breathing creating. They are, however, not alive,

but merely assume the features of life through the extraordi-

nary power of sound. Once the sound is stopped, these

shapes cease and the inorganic creations resume their shapeas formless blobs./36

Jonathan Goldman also explains that harmonics is not just an

intellectual or New Age fancy but has its roots in human evolu-

tion, and most probably, from the information we gain from the

old myths and sagas, preceded verbal language:

There are legends that before there was a spoken language of

words, there was a harmonic language. This language al-

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

165



lowed humankind to communicate with all the creations of

nature. It utilized the concept of information being encoded

on the pure tone frequencies of harmonics. It was different

from telepathy in that it used sound but it was similar to te-

lepathy for the thoughts and information were sent on the

sound wave and were received by the listener. This may be

one of the ways by which dolphins communicate with each

other, transmitting three-dimensional holographic thought-

forms of sound. /53

And looking in the future, we can speculate that we may en-

able time-travel through manipulating sound and frequencies,

probably through the use of huge powerful quartz crystals that act

as energy transducers. The author states:

It is possible that harmonics can actually create an openingor a gateway between different realms of existence./59

Another important body of knowledge on sound and vibra-

tion is native wisdom and the author has merit to mention the

most basic facts in this context:

The Aboriginal people utilize a form of harmonics in theirsacred ceremonies that is not created from the voice but from

an instrument. The didjeridu is a hollowed-out tree limb

which is blown into to produce a very low fundamental tone

as well as very distinct overtones. The sound is very similar

to the One Voice Chord of the Tibetan monks./60

The Aborigines believe that before the first Aboriginal peo-ple came to this planet, there was a race of supernatural be-

ings called the Wandjina. They were a Dreamtime race and

responsible for the creation of the various creatures and


166



forms on the Earth. When the Aboriginal people were cre-

ated, it was time for the Wandjina to depart. They left these

people the didjeridu as a gift. When the didjeridu sounded,

it created a sonic field, a sort of interdimensional window,

through which the Wandjina could travel to the Aborigines

and vice-versa./60

Another important branch of research done by the author is

the famous one-voice overtone chanting of Tibetan monks and

Mongolian shamans. The author relates his various meetings with

overtone-singing Tibetan monks both in the USA and Tibet and

references musicological and other research on this important sub-

ject that is still considered highly ‘esoteric’ in our own culture. The

Gyuto and other monks from Tibet namely chant a bass voice that

is entirely unknown to any, even professional, singer in the West.

Scientists formerly stated that it was impossible to produce a

sound of less than 150 Hz with the human voice. But these monks

prove the contrary. The author relates:

Musicologists later determined that the bass note which the

Gyuto monks chant is two octaves below middle C, vibrat-

ing at an astounding 75.5 cycles per second. The deepestrange of an opera singer is closer to 150 cycles per second,

nearly twice as high as the extraordinary bass of these

monks./67

In Tibetan tantric chanting the goal of the chanting is to in-

voke and then unite with a particular deity or being. The

monks literally become the gods and goddesses to whom

they are praying. It may be that the overtones which are

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

167



pronounced by the different Tantric Colleges are specific in-

vocations to particular entities./67

The major difference between the Tibetan chanting style and

Mongolian / overtone singing is that the Tibetans incorpo-

rate the use of sacred text in their chanting while the Mongo-

lians create wordless melodies with their harmonics./68-69

Before Buddhism became the religion of Tibet, the religion of

the country was an animistic shamanic practice known as

Bon (a Tibetan word meaning to chant). Little information

exists about the exact nature of the Bon chanting techniques,

but there are indications that it was similar to chanting styles

used by Mongolian shamans in which open vowels were

used to create harmonics./69

Tibetan chanting employs mantric formulas which make up

their sacred texts. These are mantras which are fundamental


168



to their spiritual practices. Each sacred scripture is an invo-

cation to a specific deity or a collection of deities. The chant-

ers visualize these deities while creating a mandala, a circu-

lar cosmological painting which they inwardly visualize in

archetypal symbols. These mandalas may involve over 150

deities and entities, all in specific placement. This combina-

tion of vocalization and visualization allows the monks to

become the embodiment of the energies they are invoking.

/70

Next, the author expands on the research of French doctor Al-

fred Tomatis who was already twenty years ago an authority on

sound research and healing with sound. The author relates:

Dr. Alfred Tomatis, an otolaryngologist from France who has

studied chanting throughout the world, believes that due to

the high altitude of Tibet it was necessary to chant in the ex-

tremely deep voice in order to create higher overtones./67

Alfred Tomatis … has been working with understanding the

functions of the human ear and the importance of listening

for forty-five years. He explains the three main functions of

the ear: (1) to assume balance (equilibrium, body tone and

integration of motor and sensory information); (2) to analyze

/ and decode movements from outside the body (cochlea)

and inside the body (vestibular) so that auditory-vocal con-

trol is established; and (3) to charge the brain. Tomatis be-

lieves that there are two kinds of sound: (1) sounds which

tire and fatigue the listeners, and (2) sounds which charge

the listener. In particular, Tomatis found that sounds whichcontain high frequency harmonics, such as those found in

Gregorian chants, are extremely beneficial. It is these high

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

169



frequencies (around 8000 Hz) which are capable of charging

the central nervous system and the cortex of the brain./75

Dr Tomatis believes that one of the basic functions of the ear

is to pro-vide, through sound, both a charging of the cortex

of the brain and 90-95 per cent of the body’s total charge.

The chants of the Gregorians, according to Tomatis, contain

all the frequencies of the voice spectrum, roughly 70 cycles

per second up to 9000 cycles per second’. These are also the

frequencies found in the One Voice Chord of the Tibetan

monks, as well as in many of the hoomi or vocal harmonic

techniques discussed in this book./76

Tomatis himself manages with a small amount of sleep, less

than four hours a night. He attributes this to his listening to

sounds which are rich in high harmonics./76

The Tomatis Effect states that the voice can only create and

duplicate those sounds which the ear is able to hear. This

means that until you are able to hear various overtones, you

will not be able to create them in your voice. Further, as you

begin to hear the various aspects of the sound spectrum, not

only does your hearing change, but your voice as well.

Therefore, as we begin to listen actively and open our ears

up to harmonics, we are not only charging the cortex of the

brain and energizing ourselves, but we are also able to actu-

ally change the quality of our voice./77

According to Dr Alfred Tomatis, nearly all the cranial nerves

lead to the ear. In particular, the ear is understood to be neu-

rologically involved with the optic and the oculomotor

nerves, and therefore is interrelated with the process of vi-

sion and movement. The ear is also related to the vagus, or


170



tenth cranial nerve. This nerve affects the larynx, the bron-

chi, the heart and the gastro-intestinal tract and thus our

voice, our breathing, our heart rate and our digestion are

affected by the ear. Is it any wonder then that on a purely

physiological level listening to the soothing music created by

the sacred sounds of vocal harmonics can and will help cre-

ate states of deep relaxation and meditation?/79

Goldman also teaches conflict resolution effected through em-

pathic listening that is completely immersed in sound, and distin-

guishes it from mere hearing. He points out that the activity of

active listening leads to deep understanding:

Listening is an active activity, as opposed to hearing which

may be understood as a passive activity. Listening involves

really using our ears as an organ of consciousness. Listeninginvolves really using our ears as an organ of consciousness.

When we hear, we do not discriminate between the sounds

around us. We may be unaware of them. This is why sitting

in silence / allows us to empower listening. There are many

levels of listening. The first level involves this enormous step

of going above the passiveness of hearing into the activeness

of actually listening and becoming aware of the multitude ofsounds that surround us. Through listening we can begin to

open up to sound. /81-82

That all life is coded in sound, we know from ancient times,

but it has been completely disregarded in modern science until

very recently. Now, based on this ancient understanding of the

human body as a resonance emitter and receiver, we can indeed

develop from this insight a genuine healing approach that Gold-

man traces out as a mapping of frequencies:

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

171



Every organ, bone, tissue and other part of the body has a

healthy resonant frequency. When that frequency alters, that

part of the body vibrates out of harmony and this is what is

termed disease. If it were possible to determine the correct

resonant frequency for a healthy organ and then project it

into that part which is diseased, the organ should return to

its normal frequency and a healing should occur./90

In this understanding of the human body as a creator of sound

and light, the pineal gland plays a very important role as it has

been seen by various researchers, such as Manly P. Hall:

Research by scientists such as Robert Beck suggest that the

pineal is an organic device which is tuned towards magnetic

north to give both humans and animals their sense of direc-

tion. Other scientists believe that the pineal is a biolumines-

cent organ which has the ability to create light./106

I highly recommend the present book especially for neophytes

in sound theory and sound healing, as the author understands to

carefully introduce in the matter, always alternating theory and

practical advice or personal experience so as to make the reading

lively and interesting.


172



Healing Sounds DVD

Principles of Sound HealingDVD, 90 min.

Sacred Mysteries, 2004

It was through the Healing Sounds DVD that I heard about Jonathan Goldman.

Only afterwards I ordered his books Healing Sounds and Tantra of Sound. From

the start of watching this DVD I was captivated.

Goldman understands to present a highly complex and rather

mathematical matter in an easy style, without losing depth. And

he artfully has interwoven practice and theory, as this DVD is not

just a lecture but spends about half of the time in pure practicaladvice. This production is good for everyone who wants to learn

the basics and even advanced techniques of sound healing. It is

also an excellent awareness-builder. Here is how the DVD is built

and what it contains over the one hour and a half of its really gen-

erous playing time. Part I gives a general introductory lecture

about the principles and the healing properties of sound. HereGoldman speaks to a small audience in an elegant, intimate set-

ting.

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

173



Part II is an interesting interlude about Cymatics and the expe-

riences of Dr. Hans Jenny in the 1970s that Goldman further refer-

ences in his book Healing Sounds. Goldman shows how with

Cymatics it was proved that sound creates patterns, very specific

and beautiful patterns, and that the form and size of the patterns

depends on the frequency of the sound.

Part III is an experiment with creating a sound that matches

the group oversoul of the audience. Jonathan Goldman creates an

overtone sound, using overtone singing, a technique used, inter

alia, by Tibetan monks, in order to project light into the luminous bodies of all people present in the audience, and the house where

he gave his presentation.

Part IV is a practical demonstration of Jonathan Goldman ap-

plying a healing treatment to a person by using vocal intonations

and sound created by a Tibetan bowl.

Part V is an overview of recordings by Jonathan Goldman that

he has realized using his expertise in overtone singing and project-

ing intent into sound for various purposes.


174



I highly recommend this DVD for everyone, professionals or

lay people, interested in sound healing, not only as a practitioner,

but also for personal awareness building on the importance and

omnipresence of sound in our life.

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

175



Tantra of Sound

How to Enhance IntimacyWith Andi Goldman

Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing, 2005

Tantra of Sound was really a discovery for me! On first sight, and compared to

Goldman’s earlier book Healing Sounds , this present book appears to be edited in

a more professional way, and in fact, it’s from a different publisher. The choice of

headers and font, all is perfect in the present publication, and I did not find one

single typo, while in Healing Sounds , I found several.

And this present volume has one big advantage: it comes withan Audio CD that contains 20 tracks over 60.34 minutes of playing

time, the first and last being Introduction and Conclusion and all the

others being vocal intonations. In addition, it is noteworthy that

this volume has been authored by both Jonathan Goldman and his

wife Andi Goldman, and this for good reason.

The book’s main intent to to apply sound to relationship, and

even to love and sexual union, in order to stimulate and broaden

the pleasure and joy of love within the couple—really an extraor-


176



dinary gift item after all. I can whole-heartedly recommend this

book. But not only for this purpose. In fact, I am myself in the

moment without a partner, and this fact did not reduce my inter-

est in the book. As the authors state themselves:

It is not necessary to have a partner in order to experience

tantra. In Tibetan Buddhism, tantra is normally practiced

alone, uniting the divine forces as one within you. Tradition-

ally, a tantric practitioner’s meditations incorporate the visu-

alizations of male and female deities./9

To begin with, what is of high interest in this present book is

the research that the authors have done on Tantra, a research that

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pretty much unveiled most of what is written on the Internet

about Tantra as folklore and imagination. Let me go into more de-

tail here, because it’s an important matter, and let the authors

speak for they have put the right words on the right things. In a

few short statements, they basically say it all, and this gives you

the framework of what this book is about, and what it is not about:

Tantra is Sanskrit, the ancient language of the Hindu tradi-

tion. As in other sacred languages such as Hebrew or Ti- betan, there is frequently no one single meaning that can be

applied in translation. Thus tantra is often translated as ‘con-

tinuum’ or ‘unbroken stream’ and indicates a flow of con-

sciousness from ignorance to enlightenment. The word also

translates as ‘web’ or ‘warp’ and encompasses all that is. /4

Tantra represents the interconnecting energies between allthings in this and other planes of existence. Other words

used to describe tantra are: leading principle, essential part,

model, system, framework, doctrine, rule, theory, scientific

work, order, chief part, rule, authority, science, mystic works,

magical formulas, means, expedient, stratagem, and medi-

cine. /Id.

The etymology of tantra points to the combination of two

words, tattva and mantra. Tattva is the science of cosmic

principles, while mantra refers to the science of mystic

sound and vibrations. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, tan-

tra is sometimes referred to as Secret Mantra. This may be to

distinguish it from Western concepts. A definition of Secret

Mantra from the Tibetan Buddhist standpoint is as follows:

‘Secret’ indicates that these methods should be practiced

privately; ‘mantra’ means ‘protection for the mind’ and often


178



utilizes sacred sound to provide this. Thus the function of

Secret Mantra is to enable us through the use of sound to

progress swiftly through the stages of the spiritual path by

protecting our mind against ordinary conceptions./5

Indeed, one of the highest levels of tantric practice involves

resonating and harmonizing oneself with the sound. This is

done in order to enhance and energize our physical, mental,

emotional, and spiritual essences. Hindu and Tibetan Bud-

dhist tantra both stress the power of sound. Sound, in fact is

the basis of much tantra – through working with advanced

sound techniques, tantric practitioners are able to harmonize

themselves in body, mind, and spirit./Id.

The model we present in Tantra of Sound is one that is bal-

anced and aligned with the harmonious integration of the

masculine and feminine energies within each person. When

these energies are embodied, they create an egalitarian rela-

tionship with the self and others. This relationship is not

controlling nor is it in competition with the participants in-

volved. It is cooperative and compassionate. It is balanced

and harmonious./6

So, to summarize, if you want to buy this book for strictly en-

hancing your sex life, and expect it to contain explicit sexual ad-

vice, you better buy any other book on the matter.

This book does not contain sexual advice. On the other hand,

the exercises are varied enough and thorough enough to impact, if

you do them correctly, on your emotional body, and that of yourpartner, and by so doing, you may experience a stronger fusion

and perhaps also a stronger sexual response. I would say that

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179



chances are higher for this to happen than not to happen. But the

book is not written with an intent that focuses on the sexual un-

ion, but is much broader in perspective and rather speaks of love,

instead of speaking of sex. And I personally think that this is the

right approach, as it is holistic. The authors explain and frame

their approach very well:

It is from the Hindu tradition that sex as a physical activity

has come into our awareness as being synonymous with tan-tra. Yet, in actuality, many true Hindu tantric practitioners

are celibate, focusing, like their Tibetan Buddhist counter-

parts, on the symbolic union of male/female energy. This

union of the male/female energy—the Shiva-Shakti current

—is metaphoric ritualistic, and meditational. It is only a spe-

cific variation of Hindu tantra that actually works with

physical sex between partners. This is the left-hand path oftantra, known as Vamacara, which has become the focus of

much Western awareness of tantra./9

I will not discuss the holy mantras that the authors very thor-

oughly present both in verbal explanation and as vocal intona-

tions because this may be considered by the authors as core mate-

rial and therefore might be considered as more tightly restricted

by copyright. I will thus not quote from these chapters that cover

20 pages of the book, so much the more as this information was

secret for hundreds of years.

Suffices thus to mention that the book elaborates in its Chapter

6 the ‘Sacred Vowels’ and in its Chapter 7 the ‘Bija Mantras’ andthat the CD contains vocal intonations of these mantras, which

may be very powerful. For what reason other than for that have


180



they been kept secret for so long? It’s because they are powerful

and therefore should be used responsibly. For the couple, Chapter

10 is of particular interest as it discusses and explains ‘Sounding

the Bijas with a Partner.’

Now, with this voluntary restriction, let me shortly mention

here what I myself found particularly useful in the book, while it

may be a byproduct of the author’s research. Indeed, I myself

found the authors’ explanation of the chakras, and of the brainwaves particularly useful. They write regarding the subtle bodies:

Knowledge of these subtle bodies first manifested thousands

of years ago in the ancient mystery schools of India, Egypt,

China, and Tibet. The understanding of our bodies as being

composed of different, interfacing energetic fields is one of

the core concepts of the / esoteric traditions found through-out the world. These energy bodies make up what is called

the ‘aura’, a word meaning atmosphere or light. It is a word

usually defined as a multidimensional energy field made up

of the emanations of each of the subtle bodies./22-23

In my research on the human energy field I found a stringent

incongruence of terminology in this respect; in fact, I found thatmost authors, when they speak about the aura only want to men-

tion the etheric body, and thus only one of the seven bodies we

possess as humans, and I find the authors’ very encompassing no-

tion of aura comprehensive and elucidating.

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

181



Stanislav Grof

Books Reviewed

Beyond the Brain (1985)

The Holotropic Mind (1993)

The Cosmic Game (1998)



Stanislav Grof was formerly Chief of Psychiatric Research at

the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and Assistant Professor of

Psychiatry at John Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is cur-

rently Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Cali-

fornia.

He is the author of Realms of the Human Unconscious , LSD Psy-

chotherapy , and Beyond Death (with Christina Grof). His edited

volume Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science is also published bySUNY Press.

—From: Beyond the Brain (Back Cover)

When I started reading Beyond the Brain, I was deeply touched

by the drawings of LSD subjects, and their remembrance of the

trauma of birth; further was I amazed about the parallels between

these drawings and sadistic violence.

Grof explains sadism, cruelty and violence as consequences of

the birth trauma. He argues that while birth is a natural process, it

is in most cases a terrible trauma that leaves deep scars in the hu-

man psyche and emotions and that is responsible for most of the

violence that mankind is suffering from. The book was written in

1985 and it goes back on 30 years of research.

Grof first successfully experimented with LSD therapy. When

LSD was forbidden, Grof and his wife developed holotropic breath-

ing. I looked up all I could find about it, but was surprised to learn

that it is simply hyperventilation. Their claim it can bring you back

into fetal memories is almost unbelievable. Generally, until I find

convincing proof, I do not believe in Grof’s theory that birth is the

culprit of all and everything, as he writes over hundreds of pages

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183



in Beyond the Brain. First of all, I cannot believe that something

created by nature, such as birth, should be traumatic per se. What

Grof sees in his research, in my opinion, is cultural distortion of

nature, but he generalizes and not with one word does he see his

cultural bias. The counter-proof would be the Cesarean cases, and

here he should have really insisted to bring forth his arguments.

That would have been logically and systemically sound. That

thousands of LSD subjects had such terrible birth trauma memo-ries proves only that our culture is a madhouse and that our birth

methods are wrong. But this, Frederick Leboyer, Michel Odent

and others have said since long and there are changes on the way.

Our birthing methods are wrong, the way mothers consider birth

is wrong, the preparation of mothers for birth is wrong, the impli-

cations of the father in birthing, namely his total absence, is wrong—all is wrong.

In his discussion of The World of Psychotherapy that together

with paradigmatic reasoning fills the first 197 pages of the book,

Grof writes that LSD subjects have basically proven both the

Freudian and Jungian theories as correct:

The psychosexual dynamics and the fundamental conflicts of

the human psyche as described by Freud are manifested

with unusual clarity and vividness even in sessions of naïve

subjects who have never been analyzed, have not read psy-

choanalytic books, and have not been exposed to any other

forms of explicit or implicit indoctrination. Under the influ-

ence of LSD, such subjects experience regression to child-hood and even early infancy, relive various psychosexual

traumas and complex sensations related to infantile sexual-

ity, and are confronted with conflicts involving activities in


184



various libidinal zones. They have to face and work through

the basic psychological problems described by psychoanaly-

sis, such as the Oedipus or Electra complex, the trauma of

weaning, castration anxiety, penis envy, and conflicts around

toilet training./154

The observations from LSD psychotherapy have repeatedly

confirmed most of Jung’s brilliant insights./190

As it’s notorious that Freud’s and Jung’s theories basically op-

pose one another, this observation seems to be of little value for

supporting the thesis that LSD research by and large confirms

psychoanalysis.

On the other hand, Grof lucidly analyzes how sexuality has

become ‘contaminated’ by non-sexual concerns in our culture.

Another important insight involves the fact that our present

definition of normal sex does not exclude even severe con-

tamination of the sexual situation by preoccupation with

dominance versus submission, use of sex for a variety of

nonsexual goals, and maneuvers that have more relevance

for self-esteem than for sexual gratification. In our culture

individuals of both sexes commonly use military concepts

and terminology in referring to sexual activities. They inter-

pret the sexual situation in terms of victory or defeat; con-

quering or penetrating the partner, and, conversely, being

defeated and violated; and proving oneself or failure. Con-

cerns about who seduced whom and who won, in this situa-

tion, can all but overshadow the question of sexual gratifica-

tion. Similarly, material gains, or pursuit of a career, status,

fame, or power can completely override more genuine erotic

motives. When sex is subordinated to self-esteem, sexual

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

185



interest in the partner may entirely disappear once the ‘con-

quest’ has been accomplished or the number of partners se-

duced becomes more important than the quality of interac-

tion. Moreover, the fact that the partner is not approachable

or is deeply committed to another person can become a deci-

sive element of sexual attraction. /207


186



Beyond the Brain

Birth, Death and Transcendence in PsychotherapyNew York: State University of New York, 1985

Beyond the Brain seriously challenges the existing neurophysiological models of

the brain. After three decades of extensive research on non-ordinary states of

consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs and by other means, Grof concludes

that our present scientific worldview is as inadequate as many of its historical

predecessors.

In this pioneering work, Stanislav Grof proposes a new model

of the human psyche that takes account of his findings. Grof in-

cludes in his model the recollective level, or the reliving of emo-

tionally relevant memories, a level at which the Freudian frame-

work can be useful.

Beyond that is the perinatal level in which the human uncon-scious may be activated to a reliving of biological birth and con-

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

187



frontation with death. Beyond this level, again, is the transpersonal

level.

How birth experience influences an individual’s later devel-

opment is a central focus of the book. The most serious challenge

to contemporary psychoanalytic theory comes from a delineation

of the transpersonal level, or the expansion of consciousness be-

yond the boundaries of time and space. Grof makes a bold argu-

ment that understanding of the perinatal and transpersonal levelschanges much of how we view both mental illness and mental

health.


188



The Holotropic Mind

The Three Levels of Human ConsciousnessWith Hal Zina Bennett

New York: HarperCollins, 1993

In The Holotropic Mind Stanislav Grof exposes his vision of a holographic uni-

verse, and he summons convincing amounts of data and evidence for his view.

Grof’s contribution is important especially right now as the holographic view of

the universe is one of several ‘theories of everything’ or integrative visions that

actually link back to ancient holistic science traditions.

Grof further references current research, thus blending ancient

and new cutting-edge science into something like a total synthesis.

With good reason and convincing arguments, he refers to David

Bohm’s theory of a constantly unfolding universe as one of the

first holistic science concepts in modern times:

For Bohm, holographic theory illustrates his idea that en-

ergy, light, and matter are composed of interference patterns

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

189



that carry information about all of the other waves of light,

energy, and matter that they have directly or indirectly con-

tacted. Thus, each part of energy and matter represents a

microcosm that enfolds the whole./10

Bohm reminds us that even the process of abstraction, by

which we create our illusions of separation from the whole,

are themselves expressions of the holomovement. We ulti-

mately come to the realization that all perceptions and

knowledge—including scientific work—are not objective

reconstructions of reality; instead, they are creative activities

comparable to artistic expressions. We cannot measure true

reality; in fact, the very essence of reality is its immeasurabil-

ity. /10

One of the most daring thinking habits to overcome, that are

connected with mechanistic science, is the illusion of separateness.

Grof writes:

The holographic model offers revolutionary possibilities for

a new understanding of the relationship between the parts

and the whole. No longer confined to the limited logic of

traditional thought, the part ceases to be just a fragment of

the whole but, under certain circumstances, reflects and con-

tains the whole. As individual human beings we are not iso-

lated and insignificant Newtonian entities; rather, as integral

fields of the holomovement each of us is also a microcosm

that reflects and contains the macrocosm./10

But apart from systems theory, in which he knows to excel,Grof is really the specialist for LSD-based psychiatry, and his two

decades of experience together with sound judgment of his many


190



observations have led to something like an integrated concept of

LSD-based psychiatry.

While all this research had been stopped because of the fact

that LSD, together with number of natural plant psychedelics, has

been forbidden by our administrative oversoul, the insights and

miracles remain an ecstatic outlook in a possible future of psychia-

try. Grof writes:

In sessions of LSD-assisted psychotherapy, we witnessed a

rather peculiar pattern. With low to medium dosages, sub-

jects usually limited their experiences to reliving scenes from

infancy and childhood. However, when the doses were in-

creased or the sessions were repeated, each client sooner or

later moved far beyond the realms described by Freud. /16

Many of the experiences reported were remarkably like

those described in ancient spiritual texts from Eastern tradi-

tions. I found this particularly interesting because most peo-

ple reporting these experiences had no previous knowledge

of the / Eastern spiritual philosophies, and I certainly had

not anticipated that such extraordinary experiential domains

would become accessible in this way. (...) When the process

moved beyond the biographical material from infancy and

childhood and the experiences began to reveal the greater

depths of the human psyche, with all its mystical overtones,

the therapeutic results exceeded anything I had previously

known. Symptoms that had resisted months or even years of

other treatment often vanished after patients had experi-

ences such as psychological death and rebirth, feelings of

cosmic unity, archetypal visions, and sequences of what cli-

ents described as past-life memories./16-17

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

191



Contrary to Freudian psychoanalysis, Grof, following a tradi-

tion created by Otto Rank, includes perinatal experiences in his

psychoanalytic exploration.

Exploration in non-ordinary states of consciousness has pro-

vided convincing evidence that we do store memories of

perinatal experiences in our psyches, often at a deep cellular

level. People with no intellectual knowledge of their births

have been able to relive, with extraordinary detail, facts /

concerning their births, such as the use of forceps, breech

delivery, and the mother’s earliest responses to the infant.

Time and time again, details such as these have been objec-

tively confirmed by questioning hospital records or adults

who were present at the delivery./28-29


192



The Cosmic Game

Explorations of the Frontiers of Human ConsciousnessNew York: New York State University Press, 1998

The Cosmic Game is perhaps Grof’s best book. It is written in fluent style, summa-

rizes the most important of his LSD research and his research with holotropic

states, and is not grappling with conceptual issues as the ones reviewed before.

It is a book that every intelligent person can read, written in

normal and descriptive language; it is clearly the book of an ex-

pert, a man who also has a clear literary talent and an incredible

knowledge of mythology, besides his sharp scientific perception

and reasoning that is always empirical first and conceptual sec-

ond.

The book is clearly structured and an overview of the contents

shows that it’s not a ‘research report’ of experiments but a subli-

mation of any such research, a retrospective that is contemplative

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

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and basically spiritual. I would even use the word ‘religious’ in

the sense that the book talks about our true ‘religio’, the link with

our source, our inner divinity.

1. Introduction

2. Cosmos, Consciousness, and Spirit

3. The Cosmic Creative Principle

4. The Process of Creation

5. The Ways to Reunion with the Cosmic Source

6. The Problem of Good and Evil

7. Birth, Sex and Death: The Cosmic Connection

8. The Mystery of Karma and Reincarnation

9. The Taboo against Knowing Who You Are

10. Playing the Cosmic Game

11. The Sacred and the Profane

Space allows me to only review parts of the book and sprinkle

in some quotations. In the Introduction, Grof explains that holo-

tropic states are not ‘delirant conditions’ (which are those in which

perception is grossly impaired), but an interference with a realm

that is outside of ordinary consciousness, a parallel reality.

Grof also writes that the content of holotropic states of con-

sciousness is often philosophical and mystical, often focused on

the ‘ground states’ of becoming and unbecoming, death, rebirth

and feelings of oneness with all-that-is. In the 2nd Chapter, Grof

makes some interesting remarks regarding Carl Jung’s theory of


194



the Universal Archetypes. He writes that these images do not have

to be limited to our own racial and cultural heritage but are rather

of a universal nature. He writes:

Particularly frequent in my work have been encounters or

even identification with various deities from different cul-

tures who were killed by others or sacrificed themselves and

later came back to life. These figures representing death and

resurrection tend to emerge spontaneously when the process

of inner self-exploration reaches the perinatal level and takes

the form of psychospiritual rebirth. (…) However, we have

also seen many powerful experiences of identification with

Jesus during our holotropic breathwork seminars in Japan

and India. They occurred in individuals whose background

was Buddhist, Shinto, or Hindu. Conversely, many Anglo-

Saxons, Slavs, and Jews identified during their psychedelic

or holotropic breathwork sessions with Shiva or Buddha, the

Egyptian resurrected god Osiris, the Sumerian goddess

Inanna, or the Greek deities Persephone, Dionysus, Attis,

and Adonis./23

Mistaking a specific archetypal image for the ultimate source

of creation leads to idolatry, a divisive and dangerous mis-

take widespread in the histories of religions and cultures. It

might unite the people who share the same belief, but sets

this group against others who have chosen a different repre-

sentation of the divine. They might then try to convert others

or conquer and eliminate them. By contrast, genuine religion

is universal, all-inclusive, and all-encompassing./24

JONATHAN GOLDMAN

195



J. Krishnamurti

Books Reviewed

Education and the Significance of Life (1978)

Krishnamurti was born on 11 May 1985, at Madanapalle, a

small hill town between Madras and Bangalore. His father, Jiddu

Narianiah, had married a cousin, Sanjeevamma, who bore him tenchildren, of whom Krishna was the eighth. This Telugu-speaking,

strictly vegetarian Brahmin family were not badly off by Indian



standards, Narianiah being an official in the Revenue Department

of the British administration, rising before his retirement to the

position of District Magistrate. Narianiah was a Theosophist and

Sanjeevamma a worshipper of Sri Krishna, himself an eighth child

after whom she called her own eighth child.

Mary Lutyens

Sanjeevamma had a premonition that this eighth child was

to be remarkable in some way and insisted, in spite of her

husband's protests, that it should be born in the puja room.A Brahmin writer has pointed out that this prayer room

could normally only be entered after a ritual bath and the

putting-on of clean clothes: ‘Birth, death and the menstrual

cycle were the focus of ritual pollution … that a child should

be born in this room was unthinkable.’ And yet it was so.

Unlike Sanjeevamma’s other confinements, it was an easy

birth. The next morning the baby’s horoscope was cast by awell-known astrologer who assured Narianiah that his son

was to be a very great man. For years it seemed unlikely that

his prediction would be fulfilled. Whenever the astrologer

J. KRISHNAMURTI

197



saw Narianiah he would ask ‘What of the boy Krishna? …

Wait. I have told you the truth; he will be someone very

wonderful and great.’

At the age of two Krishna almost died of malaria. Thereaf-

ter, for several years, he suffered from bouts of malaria and

severe nose bleeds which kept him away from school and

closer to his mother than any of her other children. He loved

to go with her to the temple. He was such a vague and

dreamy child, and so bad at school work, which he hated

that he appeared to his teachers to be mentally retarded.

Nevertheless he was extremely observant, as he was to be all

his life. He would stand for long stretches at a time, watch-

ing trees and clouds, or squat to gaze at flowers and insects.

He also had a most generous nature, another characteristic

which he retained throughout his life. He would often return

from school without pencil, slate or books, having given

them to some poorer child, and when beggars came to the

house in the mornings to receive the customary gift of un-

boiled rice and his mother sent him out to distribute the

food, he would return for more, having poured all the rice

into the first man’s bag.

—Mary Lutyens, The Life and Death of Krishnamurti, Chennai: Krishna-

murti Foundation India, 1990, pp. 3-4.

Rohit Mehta

When there is total attention to yesterday’s psychological

memory, than that memory comes to an end; the brain cells

and the mind then are free.’ Krishnamurti here speaks of a

total attention to yesterday’s psychological memory in order

to end it. If it ends, then there is no projection of an image onthat which is sought to be perceived. In the ending of the

psychological memory of yesterday there comes into being


198



naturally and effortlessly a state of / attention in which pure

perception of what is becomes possible. It has to be remem-

bered that in Krishnamurti’s Approach, total attention

means non-verbalized observation; it is perception without

naming. He says that in order to end the psychological

memory of yesterday, one must totally attend to it. Now, yes-

terday’s psychological memory exists neither as an object

nor as an event. It exists only as an image. It represents not

what is, but what was. It is this image which causes all the

projections of the mind; it is this which distracts from what

is.

—Rohit Mehta, J. Krishnamurti and the Nameless Experience: A Compre-

hensive Discussion of J. Krishnamurti’s Approach to Life, Delhi: Motilal Banarsi-

dass Publishers, 2002, pp. 328-329

In 1929, after years of questioning himself and the destiny im-

posed upon him, Krishnamurti disbanded the Order of the Star , the

theosophical organization he was elected to be the head and

chairman, turning away all followers.

Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any

path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. Truth, beinglimitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path what-

soever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be

J. KRISHNAMURTI

199



formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular spiri-

tual path.

From that time until his death in February 1986 at the age of

ninety, he traveled around the world speaking as a private person,

teaching and giving talks and having discussions. His aim was to

set people psychologically free so that they might be in harmony

with themselves, with nature and with others. K taught that hu-

manity has created the environment in which we live and that

nothing can ever put a stop to the violence and suffering that has

been going on for thousands of years except a total transformation

in the human psyche.

If only a dozen people are transformed, it would change the

world. Krishnamurti maintained that there is no path to this trans-

formation, no method for achieving it, no gurus or spiritual

authorities who can help.

He pointed to the need for an ever-deepening and acute

awareness in which the limitations of the mind could drop away.

K always was a universal and cosmopolitan mind. Although

born of Indian parentage, he stated repeatedly that he had no na-

tionality and belonged to no particular culture of group. What he


200



hoped his audience would learn, he was the living example for it,

which is in my view the only way a guru can legitimize himself as

a spiritual leader. Only what is brought over as ‘incarnated’ can be

shared, not what is merely preached or lectured, as true as it may

be.

Education has always been one of Krishnamurti’s chief con-

cerns. If a young person could learn to see their conditioning of

race, nationality, religion, dogma, tradition, opinion, etc., which

inevitably leads to conflict, then he might become a fully intelli-

gent human being able to live in a way that respects other beingsand nature as a whole.

During his lifetime K established several schools in different

parts of the world where young people and adults could come

together and explore the possibility of right relationships in actual

daily living. Krishnamurti said of his schools that they were places

where students and teachers can flower inwardly and become un-fragmented and whole humans. He wanted the schools to be real

centers of understanding, of real comprehension of life.

J. KRISHNAMURTI

201



Krishnamurti’s teaching had a strong impact upon my own

philosophical thinking, and in fact, when I first encountered it in

1985, as a member of a Krishnamurti study circle in Switzerland,

Shortly before I left Switzerland for my journey to the United

States in 1985, I met Raffaella Ida Sangiorgi, Princess of Liechten-

stein, the wife of Prince Alfred of Liechtenstein, a long-term mem-

ber of the group.

I was presented to her one afternoon, during a study session inthe splendid villa of entrepreneur Friedrich Grohe in Morges at

the Lake Geneva, where we met twice per month for our ex-

changes on K’s unique teaching. There was a spontaneous sympa-

thy and even enchantment on both sides and we separated from

the group soon and had some intimate discussions in another

room where we were undisturbed.

I was highly intrigued by the fact that the Princess and her

husband had known K for long years and hosted him often times

in their premises. And instead of talking about him as a venerated

saint and guru, she spoke about K affectionately, and told me little

anecdotes about his life. For example, she told me that once she

discovered that one of her precious diamonds had stopped to

shine, and had become dull. And K suggested in his habitual sim-

ple style she should leave the diamond ring with him for a few

days and then see the result. K put the ring and returned it after

three days, she explained, and the diamond had become so bril-

liant and was glowing with such tremendous luminosity that it

seemed to be a higher grade of stone than it actually was.

Yet the Princess, who spoke a very pure German, counted this

little anecdote in rather factual terms and without the glare that


202





Education and the Significance of Life

London: Victor Gollancz, 1978

Krishnamurti’s book Education and the Significance of Life is one of the most impor-

tant books on education. I will produce and discuss some quotes here that show

that K really had a radical and honest attitude toward child rearing.

His main argument regarding education was that it should not

condition the child, but build awareness of our inevitable condi-

tioning by society and social values. Here are some key quotes:

We are turning out, as if through a mould, a type of human

being whose chief interest is to find security, to become

somebody important, or to have a good time with as little

thought as possible./9

Conventional education makes independent thinking ex-

tremely difficult. Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be dif-


204



ferent from the group or to resist environment is not easy

and is often risky as long as we worship success./9

This fear of life, this fear of struggle and of new experience,

kills in us the spirit of adventure; our whole upbringing and

education have made us afraid to be different from our

neighbour, afraid to think contrary to the established pattern

of society, falsely respectful of authority and tradition./10

It is only when we face experience as it comes and do not

avoid disturbance that we keep intelligence highly awak-

ened; and intelligence highly awakened is intuition, which is

the only true guide in life./11

Though there is a higher and wider significance to life, of

what value is our education if we never discover it? We may

be highly educated, but if we are without deep integration of

thought and feeling, our lives are incomplete, contradictory

and torn with many fears; and as long as education does not

cultivate an integrated outlook on life, it has very little sig-

nificance. /11

The individual is made up of different entities, but to em-

phasize the differences and to encourage the development of

a definite type leads to many complexities and contradic-

tions. Education should bring about the integration of these

separate entities—for without integration, life becomes a

series of conflicts and sorrows./12

What K next stresses in education is self-knowledge. And rightlyso. Without self-knowledge we become automatons and ruthless

executioners in lifeless systems.

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We cannot understand existence abstractly or theoretically.

To understand life is to understand ourselves and that is

both the beginning and the end of education./14

When there is no self-knowledge, self-expression becomes

self-assertion, with all its aggressive and ambitious conflicts.

Education should awaken the capacity to be self-aware and

not merely indulge in gratifying self-expression./15

Systems, whether educational or political, are not changed

mysteriously; they are transformed when there is a funda-

mental change in ourselves. The individual is of first impor-

tance, not the system; and as long as the individual does not

understand the total process of himself, no system, whether

of the left or of the right, can bring order and peace to the

world./16

One of the main points of critique of current education by al-

ternative educational methods is the fact that modern-day educa-tion is mechanical and technology-based, and disregards the soul

and soul values. K writes:


206



Present-day education is a complete failure because it has

over-emphasized technique. In over-emphasizing technique

we destroy man. To cultivate capacity and efficiency without

understanding life, without having a comprehensive percep-

tion of the ways of thought and desire, will only make us

increasingly ruthless, which is to engender wars and jeop-

ardize our physical security. The exclusive cultivation of

technique has produced scientists, mathematicians, bridge

builders, space conquerors; but do they understand the total

process of life? Can any specialist experience life as a whole?

Only when he ceases to be a specialist./18

The man who knows how to split the atom but has no love

in his heart becomes a monster./19

Thus, K stresses the need for an integrated approach to educa-

tion, which necessarily also would be an approach that wisely is

drafted to activate and stimulate both brain hemispheres, and the

characteristics associated with them. K points out:

The right kind of education, while encouraging the learning

of a technique, should accomplish something which is of far

greater importance; it should help man to experience theintegrated process of life. It is this experiencing that will put

capacity and technique in their right place./21

An important, and often misunderstood problem in education

are ideals, heroes, and generally any kind of people worship. The

conditioning of children after national or social, or other heroes,

and the idealism connected with that quest in traditional patriar-

chal education cannot be overlooked. Krishnamurti never left a

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doubt that ideas are highly destructive for building intelligent

humans, and he boldly states:

Ideals have no place in education for they prevent the com-

prehension of the present./22

The right kind of education is not concerned with any ideol-

ogy, however much it may promise a future Utopia: it is not

based on any system, however carefully thought out; nor is

it a means of conditioning the individual in some special

manner. Education in the true sense is helping the individual

to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and good-

ness. That is what we should be interested in, and not in

shaping the child according to some idealistic pattern./23

Now, we often hesitate to talk about love, and it’s almost a

commonplace today, or even has a strange subversive note about

it to say that one must love children if one wants to be a good

teacher. K had the authority to say what had to be said, and it was

received positively because there was no doubt in his integrity:

Only love can bring about the understanding of another.

Where there is love there is instantaneous communion withthe other, on the same level and at the same time. It is be-

cause we ourselves are so dry, empty and without love that

we have allowed governments and systems to take over the

education of our children and the direction of our lives; but

governments want efficient technicians, not human beings,

because human beings become dangerous to governments—

and to organized religions as well. That is why governmentsand religious organizations seek to control education./24


208



And we are again confronted with the notion of conformity

that goes through the book like an Ariadne thread; in fact, ideal-

ism and conformity go hand in hand, and are sugared up by sen-

timentality.

Life cannot be made to conform to a system, it cannot be

forced into a framework, however nobly conceived and a

mind that has merely been trained in factual knowledge is

incapable of meeting life with its variety, its subtlety, its

depths and great heights. When we train our children ac-

cording to a system of thought or a particular discipline,

when we teach them to think within departmental divisions,

we prevent them from growing into integrated men and

women, and therefore they are incapable of thinking intelli-

gently, which is to meet life as a whole./24

K saw the difficult and challenging role of the dedicated edu-

cator, and he was very outspoken that such an individual cannot

reasonably be a conformist, but must be a person who is an inde-

pendent thinker, and mentally and emotionally sane:

Education is intimately related to the present world crisis,

and the educator who sees the causes of this universal chaosshould ask himself how to awaken intelligence in the stu-

dent, thus helping the coming generation not to bring about

further conflict and disaster. He must give all his thought, all

his care and affection to the creation of right environment

and to the development of understanding, so that when the

child grows into maturity he will be capable of dealing intel-

ligently with the human problems that confront him. But inorder to do this, the educator must understand himself in-

stead of relying on ideologies, systems and beliefs./25

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209



The right kind of education consists in understanding the

child as he is without imposing upon him an ideal of what

we think he should be. To enclose him in the framework of

an ideal is to encourage him to conform, which breeds fear

and produces in him a constant conflict between what he is

and what he should be; and all inward conflicts have their

outward manifestations in society. Ideals are an actual hin-

drance to our understanding of the child and to the child's

understanding of himself./26

Ideals are a convenient escape, and the teacher who follows

them is incapable of understanding his students and dealing

with them intelligently; for him, the future ideal, the what

should be, is far more important than the present child. The

pursuit of an ideal excludes love, and without love no hu-

man problem can be solved./27

The right kind of educator, aware of the mind's tendency to

reaction, helps the student to alter present values, not out of

reaction against them, but through understanding the total

process of life. (...) Without really inquiring into this whole

question, we assert than human nature cannot be changed,

we accept things as they are and encourage the child to fit

into the present society; we condition him to our present

ways of life, and hope for the best. But can such conformity

to present values, which lead to war and starvation, be con-

sidered education?/30

The next important point in the value discussion is discipline.

What place should discipline and self-discipline be given in theeducational framework of a non-repressive and consciousness-

based institution? K is very clear-cut in this respect. He is against


210



discipline, and stresses the need to educate children sensitively by

raising their self-respect and respect for one another, and for life as

a whole:

For political and industrial reasons, discipline has become an

important factor in the present social structure, and it is be-

cause of our desire to be psychologically secure that we ac-

cept and practise various forms of discipline. (…) Discipline

then becomes a substitute for love, and it is because our

hearts are empty that we cling to discipline./31

Sensitivity can never be awakened through compulsion. One

may compel a child to be outwardly quiet, but one has not

come face to face with that child which is making him obsti-

nate, impudent, and so on. Compulsion breeds antagonism

and fear. Reward and punishment in any form only make

the mind subservient and dull; and if this is what we desire,

then education through compulsion is an excellent way to

proceed./32

Implicit in right education is the cultivation of freedom and

intelligence, which is not possible if there is any form of

compulsion, with its fears. After all, the concern of the edu-

cator is to help the student to understand the complexities of

his whole being. To require him to suppress one part of his

nature for the benefit of some other part is to create in him

an endless conflict which results in social antagonisms. It is

intelligence that brings order, not discipline./33

The problem of discipline, K analyzes very succinctly, is that itcreates fear. And fear is not conducive to intelligence, and renders

people emotionally highly unstable. K observes:

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211



Fear perverts intelligence and is one of the causes of self-

centered action./34-35

The right kind of education must take into consideration this

question of fear, because fear warps our whole outlook on

life. To be without fear is the beginning of wisdom, and only

the right kind of education can bring about the freedom

from fear in which alone there is deep and creative

intelligence./35

And what place should religion have in education? Some find

it necessary that children receive a religious education, others find

that in a modern state the school system should refrain from con-

ditioning children spiritually. France has a special position here because of the French Revolution and the fact that in the French

Constitution, an explicit secularism is anchored that all schools


212



must respect. The most recent debate has been over whether any

religious apparel, such as the Hijab, the Sikh turban, large Crosses

or Stars of David should be banned from public schools? After

much political debate a law has been voted in France to ban all

those personal religious symbols in schools. K expresses himself

against any form of organized religion or ritual:

What we call religion is merely organized belief, with its

dogmas, rituals, mysteries and superstitions. Each religionhas its own sacred book, its mediator, its priests and its ways

of threatening and holding people. Most of us have been

conditioned to all this, which is considered religious educa-

tion; but this conditioning sets man against man, it creates

antagonism, not only among the believers, but also against

those of other beliefs. Though all religions assert that they

worship God and say that we must love one another, theyinstill fear through their doctrines of reward and punish-

ment, and through their competitive dogmas they perpetu-

ate suspicion and antagonism./38

Organized religion is the frozen thought of man, out of

which he builds temples and churches; it has become a sol-

ace for the fearful, and opiate for those who are in sorrow./40

The next important point in a sensitive education is how to han-

dle the child as an individual, while participating in a group?

How should the educator relate to the single child, and how to

react to children’s curiosity, and their often disturbing inquisitive-ness? How to handle their discontent in phases of adaptation they

invariable go through, and that leave traces of hurt through the

J. KRISHNAMURTI

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inevitable restriction of freedom? Krishnamurti gives very clear

answers here.

Most children are curious, they want to know; but their ea-

ger inquiry is dulled by our pontifical assertions, our supe-

rior impatience and our casual brushing aside of their curi-

osity. We do not encourage their inquiry, for we are rather

apprehensive of what may be asked of us; we do not foster

their discontent, for we ourselves have ceased to

question./41

The young, if they are at all alive, are full of hope and dis-

content; they must be, otherwise they are already old and

dead./42

Discontent is the means to freedom: but in order to inquire

without bias, there must be none of the emotional dissipa-

tion which often takes the form of political gatherings, the

shouting of slogans, the search for a guru or spiritual

teacher, and religious orgies of different kinds./43


214



A very intriguing point is K’s position on success. While

striving for success is something really natural for human beings,

Krishnamurti teaches that the very striving for success per se cre-

ates fear and is therefore not an ideal motivational factor:

As long as success is our goal we cannot be rid of fear, for

the desire to succeed inevitably breeds the fear of failure./44

To apply this approach means to let children see that the striv-ing for success, without being based on other values can be poi-

soned by greed and selfish gain. The art is not to suffocate the

child’s energy for progress, which requires from the teacher a bal-

anced attitude, sensitivity and tact. K says it in more general terms

that can be interpreted in many ways:

The school should help its young people to discover their

vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their

minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the

soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and

integrally./45

Another important value in any spiritual educational concept

is simplicity. K was a simple man all through his life. He was di-

rect and simple in his approach to people, and to children. He was

not afraid of direct exchanges, and he did not foster hierarchy

thinking. He was relating to a beggar and a king in basically the

same way, empathically and fearlessly. This is not the way of our

modern society, so how can we help children to develop simplicity

without however neglecting our duty to help them understand

the complexity of life? This obvious paradox requires to get deep

inside and see the metarational relationship between complexity

J. KRISHNAMURTI

215



and simplicity. Only a spiritually developed teacher can appear as

a simple human while fully understanding the complexity of life,

and of relationships. K. explains:

From innumerable complexities we must grow to simplicity;

we must become simple in our inward life and in our out-

ward needs./45

Krishnamurti schools had from the start a rather peculiar ap-

proach to teaching skills.

For example in a painting class, the teacher would only intro-

duce in the subject and then the main educational work would be

done by participation. There would simply be a painter around,

who would paint, around the children, for them to grow into it by

seeing it every day.


216



This philosophy is based upon the insight that no child can be

trained in anything that their soul is not ready to receive. So if you

‘teach’ art or music to a child whose soul has no affinity with art

or music, you not only confuse the child, but you also waste time,

and in some cases you even create a lifelong rebellion in the child

against what they felt was ‘imposed’ on them. This is why partici-

patory education solves many problems in that children who are

naturally gifted for art or music or literature or anything else will

pick that up when it’s around. That means, of course, that the

school really must be a cultural place, and not just an academy for

indoctrination. K explains:

Teaching should not become a specialist's profession. When

it does, as is so often the case, love fades away; and love is

essential to the process of integration. To be integrated theremust be freedom from fear. Fearlessness brings independ-

ence without ruthlessness, without contempt for another,

and this is the most essential factor in life./47

The integrated human being will come to technique through

experiencing, for the creative impulse makes its own tech-

nique - and that is the greatest art. When a / child has thecreative impulse to paint, he paints, he does not bother about

technique. Likewise people who are experiencing, and there-

fore teaching, are the only real teachers, and they too will

create their own technique./48

Many of us seem to think that by teaching every human be-

ing to read and write, he shall solve our human problems; but this idea has proved to be false. The so-called educated

are not peace-loving, integrated people, and they too are re-

sponsible for the confusion and misery in the world./52

J. KRISHNAMURTI

217





their ways of life are not conducive to tranquillity. They are

both responsible for the confusion and misery of the

world./63

Intelligence is not separate from love./64

There is a distinction between intellect and intelligence. In-

tellect is thought functioning independently of emotion,

whereas intelligence is the capacity to feel as well as reason;

and until we approach life with intelligence, instead of intel-

lect alone, or with emotion alone, no political or educational

system in the world can save us from the toils of chaos and

destruction./65

Wisdom comes with the abnegation of the self. To have an

open mind is more important than learning; and we can

have an open mind, not by cramming it full of information

but by being aware of our own thoughts and feelings, by

carefully observing ourselves and the influences about us, by

listening to others, by watching the rich and the poor, and

powerful and the lowly./65

Intelligence is much greater than intellect, for it is the inte-

gration of reason and love; but there can be intelligence only

when there is self-knowledge, the deep understanding of the

total process of oneself./67

As Krishnamurti has pointed out in his his book Beyond Vio-

lence (1973) , for overcoming violence we do not need to put up

ideals of peace, nor do we need tighter laws, but a better education,and better relationships. To get there, we need to understand our-

selves and at the same time, we need to learn relating, both to our-

J. KRISHNAMURTI

219



selves and others. This helps us to dissolve artificial boundaries

between humans that our ideologies, traditions and national pride

have created. K explains:

The problem of man’s antagonism to man can be solved, not

by pursuing the ideal of peace, but by understanding the

causes of war which lie in our attitude towards life, towards

our fellow-beings; and this understanding can come about

only through the right kind of education./68

If we avoid the responsibility of acting individually and wait

for some new system to establish peace, we shall merely be-come the slaves of that system./70

The constantly repeated assertion that we belong to a certain

political or religious group, that we are of this nation or of

that, flatters our little egos, puffs them out like sails, until we

are ready to kill or be killed for our country, race or ideology.

It is all so stupid and unnatural. Surely, human beings aremore important than national and ideological boundaries.

/71


220



Nationalism, the patriotic spirit, class and race conscious-

ness, are all ways of the self, and therefore separative. After

all, what is a nation but a group of individuals living to-

gether for economic and self-protective reasons? Out of fear

and acquisitive self-defence arises the idea of my country,

with its boundaries and tariff walls, rendering brotherhood

and the unity of man impossible./72

Our present social institutions cannot evolve into a world

federation, for their very foundations are unsound. Parlia-

ments and systems of education which uphold national sov-

ereignty and emphasize the importance of the group will

never bring war to an end./73

An important insight in this respect is that children are not per

se thinking in terms of nations, religions, races or any other dis-

tinctions that our fragmented and conditioned thinking comes up

with. Children are universal thinkers.

The child is neither class nor race conscious; it is the home or

school environment, or both, which makes him feel separa-

tive. /75

If life is meant to be lived happily, with thought, with care,

with affection, then it is very important to understand our-

selves; and if we wish to build a truly enlightened society,

we must have educators who understand the ways of inte-

gration and who are therefore capable of imparting that un-

derstanding to the child. Such educators would be a danger

to the present structure of society. But we do not really wantto build an enlightened society; and any teacher who, per-

ceiving the full implications of peace, began to point out the

true significance of nationalism and the stupidity of war,

J. KRISHNAMURTI

221



would soon lose his position. Knowing this, most teachers

compromise, and thereby help to maintain the present sys-

tem of exploitation and violence./79

As I pointed out above, a responsible attitude toward educa-

tion requires us to put the cards on the table, and we do live in a

world of violence, chaos, murder, hunger for many, but also in-

credible abundance, and unrivaled comfort for a few.

What is our relationship with all of this? Do we think that war

is outside only, or do we recognize that every war we bring to

birth was already there inside of us before we ever lifted our arm

to take a gun?

I have emphasized in my own writings that every act of vio-

lence done in outward life is a reflection of violence we have done to

ourselves, on an inward level, long before that particular event. By

the same token, every murder committed is preceded by a murder

that was committed inside of the murderer long before he mur-

dered. As long as we continue to murder so-called ‘perverse’ de-

sires, longings and fantasies, so long shall we have murder in this

world. Once we learn to embrace ourselves, and our selves, and

stop disowning parts of our inner whole that we disintegrate be-

cause of the schizoid split that all morality brings about, we learn

to handle our emotions. K says:

War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday

living. We precipitate war out of our daily lives; and without

a transformation in ourselves, there are bound to be nationaland racial antagonisms, the childish quarreling over ideolo-

gies, the multiplication of soldiers, the saluting of flags, and


222



all the many brutalities that to go create organized

murder./79

Finally, what is this psychological revolution that K. talks

about? What does it require? K explains:

True revolution is not the violent sort; it comes about

through cultivating the integration and intelligence of hu-

man beings who, by their very life, will gradually create

changes in society./89

For education to adopt a higher quality, instead of being fo-

cused upon quantity in the sense of educating masses of people, it

logically needs to focus on every single child rather than seeing

children as a quantifiable factor to be addressed:

The right kind of education is not possible en masse. To

study each child requires patience, alertness and intelligence.To observe the child’s tendencies, his aptitudes, his tem-

perament, to understand his difficulties, to take into account

his heredity and parental influence and not merely regard

J. KRISHNAMURTI

223



him as belonging to a certain category—all this calls for a

swift and pliable mind, untrammeled by any system or

prejudice. It calls for skill, intense interest and, above all, a

sense of affection; and to produce educators endowed with

these qualities is one of our major problems to-day./94

The following quotes are among the most revolutionary and

challenging sentences Krishnamurti produced in this book:

If parents really cared for their children, they would build a

new society; but fundamentally most parents do not care,

and so they have no time for this most urgent problem. They

have time for making money, for amusements, for rituals

and worship, but no time to consider what is the right kind

of education for their children./97

We say so easily that we love our children; but is there love

in our hearts when we accept the existing social conditions,

when we do not want to bring about a fundamental trans-

formation in this destructive society? And as long as we look

to the specialists to educate our children, this confusion and

misery will continue, for the specialists, being concerned

with the part and not with the whole, are themselves uninte-

grated. /98

The suffering of parents for their children is a form of pos-

sessive self-pity which exists only when there is no love./103

To be the right kind of educator, a teacher must constantly be

freeing himself from books and laboratories; he must ever be

watchful to see that the students do not make of him an ex-

ample, an ideal, an authority./110


224



For the true teacher, teaching is not a technique, it is a way of

life; like a great artist, he would rather starve than give up

his creative work./111

Creativity has many forms and expresses itself in many ways.

K. has repeatedly said in his talks that modern education suffo-

cates creativity, and I have seen this confirmed in my work in

schools and kindergartens in several countries. So what is creativ-

ity, and how do we nourish the creative flame inside of us?

Krishnamurti gives a quite original answer:

The intellect, the mind as such, can only repeat, recollect, it is

constantly spinning new words and rearranges old ones; and

as most of us feel and experience only through the brain, we

live exclusively on words and mechanical repetitions. This is

obviously not creation; and since we are uncreative, the only

means of creativeness left to us is sex. Sex is of the mind, and

that which is of the mind must fulfill itself or there is frustra-

tion. Our thoughts, our lives are narrow, arid, hollow, empty;

emotionally we are starved, religiously and intellectually we

are repetitive, dull; socially, politically and economically we

are regimented, controlled. We are not happy people, we are

not vital, joyous; at home, in business, at church, at school,

we never experience a creative state of being, there is no

deep release in our daily thought and action. Caught and

held from all sides, naturally sex becomes our only outlet, an

experience to be sought again and again because it momen-

tarily offers that state of happiness which comes when there

is absence of self. It is not sex that constitutes a problem, but

the desire to recapture the state of happiness, to gain and

maintain pleasure, whether sexual or any other./118

J. KRISHNAMURTI

225



Unless we investigate and understand the hindrances that

prevent creative living, which is freedom from self, we shall

not understand the problem of sex./119

I will come to an end now with this extensive review in the

hope that this overview over the topics of this book raises yourthirst to read it.

It is a difference to read some quotes from a book or to read

the integral book. Also, I am very clear about it, I have not hidden

my own bias, my own necessarily subjective participation in this

book, and in the subjects that go beyond it, such as education,

world peace, or spirituality.

I have my own philosophy and solutions to offer in my writ-

ings, and I cannot avoid that my way of seeing the world goes into


226



these book reviews. But this must be so, or I would be dishonest.

After all, what is of interest for you is your own relationship with

this book and its author, and not how it impacted upon my mind,

and my emotions! In this sense, I can only reflect it with my mir-

ror, not with yours.

But let me affirm that without any doubt, this book was one of

the most important I have read in my entire life. I have read it first

about twenty years ago and since then have re-read it severaltimes.

Krishnamurti is a thinker, a sage, a philosopher that you can-

not ‘store away’ in a library and forget, like we do it with so many

others! He and his teaching is alive, as alive as ever before.

J. KRISHNAMURTI

227



Charles Webster Leadbeater

Books Reviewed

Astral Plane: Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena (1894/1997)Dreams: What they are and How they are Caused (1903)

The Inner Life (1911/1942)





During an eclipse of the moon, he saw a shadow that was no-

ticeable before the eclipse fairly started, and wrote some paper as

to this, and it was found to be, in all probability, the shadow cast

by the Andes. At one point of time, Charles Leadbeater used to go

to a good few spiritualistic séances in London and met William

Eglinton, a famous spiritualistic medium and reported some of his

experiences with this medium. He also organized meetings in his

own cottage.

It is through Spiritualism and psychic phenomena that Lead-

beater came to discover Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and the Theo-

sophical Society after reading the book The Occult World by A. P.

Sinnett. He joined the Theosophical Society on November 21, 1883

at the same time as Prof. William Crookes, an eminent scientist,

and his wife.—From: Biographical Notes , by Maurice H. Warnon


230





clairvoyance, by meticulously and systematically exploring its phe-

nomena, building a scientific framework for explaining them in a

verifiable manner.

Today’s intelligent elite surely has less of a problem to accept

paranormal abilities than this was the case a hundred years ago,

and a person such as Leadbeater would probably not come over in

the same suspicious manner in the press than this was the case in

a time when these phenomena were to be seen only in circuses, but were seldom subjected to serious scientific investigation.

This being said, I will try, in this book review, to cast some

light on a number of quotes taken from this erudite booklet, so as

to show that it is a highly important item for the library of any

even moderately spiritual-minded scientist and any curious indi-

vidual open enough to look over the fence of ‘school wisdom’ toexplore a realm of existence that he or she will inevitably join one

day, after passing over, and for a certain time of transition: the as-

tral world. The author introduces in the topic in his concise, bril-

liant and lucid diction:

No one can get a clear conception of the teachings of the

Wisdom-Religion until he has at any rate an intellectual

grasp of the fact that in our solar system there exist perfectly

definite planes, each with its own matter of different degrees

of density, and that some of these planes can be visited and

observed by persons who have qualified themselves for the

/ work, exactly as a foreign country might be visited and

observed; and that, by comparison of the observations of

those who are constantly working on these planes, evidence

can be obtained of their existence and nature at least as satis-


232



factory as that which most of us have for the existence of

Greenland or Spitsbergen. /2-3

Very early in his book, Leadbeater comes up with the idea of

planes; he argues that the world consists of a set of layers that are

superimposed on each other, and that he calls planes—a very in-

teresting idea indeed! He develops some kind of theory that these

layers are all connected and behave interactively, and that our ex-

perience of them is not sequential, but simultaneous. Actually, the

idea of a sequential order of experiencing the present world and

the afterworld seems to be a myth given that we travel every night

into the afterworld or astral world, using the same astral energy

body that we use when we pass over to this realm of existence. So

it would be highly unscientific to speak about a sequential behav-

ior of these worlds or dimensions of existence.

There is now a huge body of evidence that shows that time

travel is possible both forward and backward in time, and this

would be impossible if the planes were sequential. The astound-

ing characteristic of our universe is that, while it is multi-layered

like an onion, it is interconnected and interacts simultaneously on

all levels at once. In addition, on the astral plane objects are not

definite but shapeshift constantly. Leadbeater explains:

The astral region which I am to attempt to describe is the

second of these great planes of nature—the next above or

within that physical world with which we are all familiar. It

has often been called the realm of illusion—not that it is it-

self any more illusory than the physical world, but because

of the extreme unreliability of the impressions brought back

from it by the untrained seer. This is to be accounted for

CHARLES WEBSTER LEADBEATER

233



mainly by two remarkable characteristics of the astral world

—first, that many of its inhabitants have a marvellous power

of changing their forms with Protean rapidity, and also of

casting practically unlimited glamour over those with whom

they choose to sport; and secondly, that sight on that plane is

a faculty very different from and much more extended than

physical vision. An object is seen, as it were, from all sides at

once, the inside of a solid being as plainly open to / the view

as the outside; it is therefore obvious than an inexperienced

visitor to this new world may well find considerable diffi-

culty in understanding what he really does see, and still

more in translating his vision into the very inadequate lan-

guage of ordinary speech./3-4

First of all, then, it must be understood that the astral plane

has seven subdivisions, each of which has its corresponding

degree of materiality and its corresponding condition of

matter. Now numbering these from the highest und least

material downwards, we find that they naturally fall into

three classes, divisions 1, 2 and 3 forming one such class, and

4, 5 and 6 another, while the seventh and lowest of all stands

alone./8

Now, there are certain laws of geometry, for example the law

of perspective, that are valid in our dimension, but that do not ap-

ply in the astral region, and yet we can say that the view of matter

on the astral plane is less of an illusion:

Looked at from the astral plane, for example, the sides of a

glass cube would all appear equal, as they really are, whileon the physical plane we see the further side in perspective –

that is, it appears smaller than the nearer side, which is, of

course, a mere illusion./9


234





magnifying power is enormously greater than that of any

microscope ever made or ever likely to be made./13-14

On the other hand, while the astral point of observation, ac-

cording to the author, offers a very minutely detailed view of ob-

jects, this view is limited to that very plane and a look ‘over the

fence’ seems to be excluded:

It must also be remembered that the regular inhabitant of the

astral plane, whether he be human or elemental, is under

ordinary circumstances conscious only of the objects of that


236



plane, physical matter being to him as entirely invisible as is

astral matter to the majority of mankind./15

That our ‘real’ existence here on earth is not a very high level

of evolution in our present cosmos can be seen in the fact that vi-

brationally or energetically it is related to the lowest of the seven

subdivisions of the astral plane. Leadbeater points out:

For the seventh and lowest subdivision of the astral plane

also this physical world of ours may be said to be the back-

ground, though what is seen is only a distorted and partial

view of it, since all that is light and good and beautiful

seems invisible. It was thus described four thousand years

ago in the Egyptian papyrus of the Scribe Ani: ‘What manner

of place is this unto which I have come? It hath no water, it

hath no air; it is deep, unfathomable; it is black as the black-est night, and men wander helplessly about therein; in it a

man may not live in quietness of heart’./16

The following explanation of the Akashic Records is uncanny

and unfortunately it is left open what the Akâsha is.

Fortunately we have arrived, as a culture, despite our initial

ignorance, at a point of bifurcation. Ervin Laszlo’s amazing ‘the-

ory of everything’ stands exemplarily for this fact and what me

miss out in Leadbeater we can look up, at least in principle, in

Laszlo’s book Science and the Akashic Field (2005) that I have re-

viewed in The New Paradigm in Science and Systems Theory (2014).

So far, Leadbeater states the principle:

An account of the scenery of the astral plane would be in-

complete without mention of what are commonly called the


237



Records of the Astral Light, the photographic representation

of all that has ever happened. These records are really and

permanently impressed upon that higher medium called the

Akâsha and are only reflected in a more or less spasmodic

manner in the astral light, so that one whose power of vision

does not rise above this plane will be likely to obtain only

occasional and disconnected pictures of the past instead of a

coherent narrative. But nevertheless pictures of all kinds of

past events are constantly being reproduced on the astral

plane, and form an important part of the surroundings of the

investigator here./18

The book now expands in various smaller entities that treat

the astral life of specific kinds of people, as in principle Leadbeater

stated that the astral body significantly differs according to the

spiritual development of the person. For the ordinary human, theauthor notes:

[The Ordinary Person] These extruded astral / bodies are

almost shapeless and very indefinite in outline in the case of

the more backward races and individuals, but as the man

develops in intellect and spirituality his floating astral be-

comes better defined and more closely resembles his physi-cal encasement. Since the psychical faculties of mankind are

in course of evolution, and individuals are at all stage of

their development, this class naturally melts by impercepti-

ble gradations into the former one./21-22

For clarification purposes, it is useful to see our recent ad-

vances in holistic research confirmed and preceded by more than

hundred years: death is not what it appears to be in popular cul-

ture. The author remarks:


238



To begin with, of course this very word ‘dead’ is an absurd

misnomer, as most of the entities classified under this head-

ing are as fully alive as we are ourselves; the term must be

understood as meaning those who are for the time unat-

tached to a physical body./23

Another fact that is hardly known is that emotions, and emo-

tional memories, and also our emotional scars are not stripped off

at death, but transported in their vibrational essence into the as-

tral, and here they can cause distress. And in this sense, death is

not the leveler it has been looked at by many poets. To summarize:

we are not born equal, and we don’t die equal either. Leadbeater

writes:

The average man has by no means freed himself from thelower desires before death, and it takes a long period of

more or less conscious life on the astral plane to allow the


239



forces he has generated to work themselves out, and thus

release the higher Ego./26

The poetic idea of death as the universal leveler is a mere

absurdity born of ignorance, for, as a matter of fact, in the /

vast majority of cases the loss of the physical body makes no

difference whatever in the character or intellect of the per-

son, and there are therefore as many different varieties of

intelligence among those whom we usually call the dead as

among the living./27-28

A very important rectification theosophy has brought forward

concerns the so-called heavenly punishment of ‘bad deeds’ that is

notoriously a constant theme in Catholic dogma—and that was

unveiled for the first time in religious history as a complete mis-

nomer, and even a blasphemy:

The horrible doctrine of eternal punishment, too, is respon-

sible for a vast amount of most pitiable and entirely ground-

less terror among those newly arrived in Kâmaloka, who in

many cases spend long periods of acute mental suffering

before they can free themselves from the fatal influence of

that hideous blasphemy, and realize that the world is gov-erned not according to the caprice of some demon who

gloats over human anguish, but according to a benevolent

and wonderfully patient law of evolution./28

Grief over departed family members and friends is not only

unwise but is to their detriment, a fact that is stressed now fre-

quently by channeled messages, and begins to be known in mod-

ern society. Leadbeater explains:


240



Apart altogether from any question of development through

a medium, there is another and much more frequently exer-

cised influence which may seriously retard a disembodied

entity on his way to Devachan, and that is the intense and

uncontrolled grief of his surviving friends or relatives. It is

one among many melancholy results of the terribly inaccu-

rate and even irreligious view that we in the West have for

centuries been taking of death, that we not only cause our-

selves an immense amount of wholly unnecessary pain over

this temporary parting from our loved ones, but we often

also do serious injury to those for whom we bear so deep an

affection by means of this very regret which we feel so

acutely./30

Not that occult teaching counsels forgetfulness of the dead -

far from it; but it does suggest that a man's affectionate re-

membrance of his departed friend is a force which, of for his

progress towards Devachan and his quiet passage through

Kâmaloka, might be of real value to him, whereas when

wasted in mourning for him and longing to have him back

again it is not only useless but harmful./31

Another important insight from astral knowledge is suicide.

There are in the West many people who suicide themselves for the

mere reason of ongoing depression, and most of them have not

the faintest idea what they are doing to their astral vehicle. Suicide

is the single most unintelligent act one can commit in one’s life. It

is clearly a form of harm to self, and thereby on the same level

karmically than harm done to others. But the reasons for this fact

have nothing to do with morality; they are scientific.


241



[The Suicide, or victim of sudden death] It will be readily

understood that a man who is torn from physical life hur-

riedly while in full health and strength, whether by accident

or suicide, finds himself upon the astral plane under condi-

tions differing considerably from those which surround one

who dies either from old age or from disease. In the latter

case the hold of earthly desires upon the entity is more or

less weakened, and probably the very grossest particles are

already got rid of, that the Kâmarûpa will most likely form

itself on the sixth or fifth subdivision of / the Kâmaloka, or

perhaps even higher; the principles have been gradually

prepared for separation, and the shock is therefore not so

great. In the case of the accidental death or suicide none of

these preparations have taken place, and the withdrawal of

the principles from their physical encasement has been very

aptly compared to the tearing of the stone out of an unripe

fruit; a great deal of the grossest kind of astral matter still

clings around the personality, which is consequently held in

the seventh or lowest subdivision of the Kâmaloka./39

The position of the suicide is further complicated by the fact

that his rash act has enormously diminished the power of

the higher Ego to withdraw its lower portion into itself, and

therefore has exposed him to manifold and great additional

dangers: but it must be remembered that the guilt of suicide

differs considerably according to its circumstances, from the

morally blameless act of Seneca or Socrates / through all

degrees down to the heinous crime of wretch who takes his

own life in order to escape from the entanglements into

which his villainy has brought him, and of course the posi-

tion after death varies accordingly. It should be noted that

this class, as well as the shades and the vitalized shells, are

all what may be called minor vampires; that is to say, when-


242



ever they have the opportunity they prolong their existence

by draining away the vitality from human beings whom

they find themselves able to influence./41

Leadbeater firmly contests folk wisdom in stating that it is

very difficult for even any villain to be villain enough to deprive

himself or herself of spiritual support in the afterlife. In fact, his

observations brought him to be convinced that human beings are

basically good, as the human nature is quite flexible, and very dif-ficult to be forced in one single direction. In so far, moral teachings

that attempt to divide humanity in ‘good souls’ and ‘bad souls’

are all basically flawed. Leadbeater points out:

All readers of Theosophical literature are familiar with the

idea that it is possible for a man to live a life so absolutely

degraded and selfish, so utterly wicked and brutal, that the

whole of his lower Manas may become entirely immeshed in

Kâma, and finally separated from its spiritual source in the

higher Ego. Some students even seem to think that such an

occurrence is quite a common one, and that we may meet

scores of such 'soulless men' as they have been called, in the

street every day of our lives, but this, happily, is untrue. To

attain the appalling pre-eminence in evil which thus in-

volves the entire loss of a personality and the weakening of

the developing individuality behind, a man must stifle every

gleam of unselfishness or spirituality, and must have abso-

lutely no redeeming point whatever; and when we remem-

ber how often, even in the worst of villains, there is to be

found something not wholly bad, we shall realize that the

abandoned personalities must always be a very small

minority./42


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Now, as Ervin Laszlo attempts to describe in Science and the

Akashic Field , the ether, zero-point-field , ch’i , orgone, prana, mana or

however you want to call it, is very difficult to grasp for the ob-

server. Not so for the clairvoyant for he can sense the fluctuant,

vibrational, flowing nature of this field. In fact, the field is so un-

predictable that the only prediction that can be made about it is

that it will change, and change again. Leadbeater gives a few de-

tails:

In spite of these manifold subdivisions, there are certain

properties which are possessed in common by all varieties of

this strange living essence; but even these are so entirely dif-

ferent from any with which we are familiar on the physical

plane that it is exceedingly difficult to explain them to those

who cannot themselves see it in action. Let it be premised,

then, that when any portion of this essence remains for a few

moments entirely unaffected by any outside influence (acondition, by the way, which is hardly ever realized) it is

absolutely without any definite form of its own, though even

then its motion is rapid and ceaseless; but on the slightest


244



disturbance, set up perhaps by some passing thought-

current, it flashes into a bewildering confusion of restless,

ever-changing shapes, which form, rush about, and disap-

pear with the rapidity of the bubbles on the surface of boil-

ing water./52

Another important matter that has been discussed by count-

less philosophers over the course of human history is the question

‘what is thought’?Leadbeater clearly states that we do not own our thoughts and

that we do not often think our own thoughts, as we pick up

thoughts from the quantum field that links us all together:

A question naturally arises in the mind here as to what intel-

ligence it is that is exerted in the selection of an appropriate

shape or its distortion when selected. We are not dealing

with the more powerful and longer-lived artificial elemental

created by a strong definite thought, but simply with the

result produced by the stream of half-conscious, involuntary

thoughts which the majority of mankind allow to flow idly

through their brains, so that the intelligence is obviously not

derived from the mind of the thinker; and we certainly can-

not credit the elemental essence itself, which belongs to a

kingdom further from individualization even than the min-

eral, with any sort of awakening of the mânasic quality. (…)

When we read of a good or evil elemental, it must always be

either an artificial entity or one of the many varieties of

nature-spirits that is meant for the elemental kingdoms

proper do not admit of any such conception as good and

evil, though there is undoubtedly a sort of bias or tendency

permeating nearly all their subdivisions which operates to

render them rather hostile than friendly towards man, as


245



every neophyte knows, for in most cases his very first im-

pression of the astral plane is of the presence all around him

of vast hosts of Protean specters who advance upon him in

threatening guise, but always retire or dissipate harmlessly if

boldly faced. It is to this curious tendency that the distorted

or unpleasant aspect above mentioned must be referred, and

mediaeval writers tell us that man has only himself to thank

for its existence. In the golden age before this Kaliyuga men

were on the whole less selfish and more spiritual, and then

the ‘elementals’ were friendly, though now they are no

longer so because of man’s indifference to, and want of

sympathy with, other living beings./53

On the same line of reasoning, Leadbeater stresses that we

should not judge a human being by their acts only; in fact, as

thoughts are much more important as an influence upon theworld than most of us know, when we go to laud somebody for

his achievements and judge him or her ‘a good person’, we may

be wrong, because that person may have exerted a ravaging influ-

ence on others and the world by his or her self-talk, by their way

of thinking about others, and by their way of judging others

harshly over years and years, in their mind. What this creates areelementals or thought-forms and these thought forms are more or

less permanent, and gain permanence over time and also depend-

ing on the emotional energy invested in those thoughts. I think it’s a

good thing that Leadbeater addresses this point so clearly here

because most people in our culture are ignorant about the impact

of thought on the world, on others and their own karma:

The fact that we are so readily able to influence the elemental

kingdoms at once shows us that we have a responsibility


246



towards them for the manner in which we use that influence;

indeed, when we consider the conditions under which they

exist, it is obvious that the effect produced upon them by the

thoughts and desires of all intelligent creatures inhabiting

the same world with them must have been calculated upon

in the scheme of our system as a factor in their evolution. In

spite of the consistent teaching of all the great religions, the

mass of mankind is still utterly regardless of its responsibil-

ity on the thought-plane; if a man can flatter himself that his

words and deeds have been harmless to others, he believes

that he has done all that can be required of him, quite oblivi-

ous of the fact that he may / for years have been exercising a

narrowing and debasing influence on the minds of those

about him, and filling surrounding space with the unlovely

creations of a sordid mind./54-55


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Now, regarding the elementals that are created through thought

and intent, and the gestation that is brought about by the repeated

fostering of a well-defined thought pattern, Leadbeater explains

that elementals are not autonomous in the sense that they can be-

gin to act on their own and trigger changes; they must be pushed

to do so:

But the ‘elemental’ must never be thought of as itself a prime

mover; it is simply a latent force, which needs an externalpower to set it in motion. It may be noted that although all

classes of the essence have the power of reflecting images

from the astral light as described above, there are varieties

which receive certain impressions much more readily than

others—which have, as it were, favourite forms of their own

into which upon disturbance they would naturally flow un-

less absolutely forced into / some other, and such shapestend to be a trifle less evanescent than usual./55-56

The spirits of nature, shunned so much by religious funda-

mentalism and reborn now in the course of the new age, and the

revival of the folk lore of fairies, as it was, for example, rediscov-

ered by Dr. Evans-Wentz in his remarkable study The Fairy Faith inCeltic Countries (1911/2002) , and observed by clairvoyant Dora van

Gelder in her book The Real World of Fairies (1977/1999) , have cer-

tain well-defined characteristics and they are quite distinct of hu-

man beings. Leadbeater explains:

We might almost look upon the nature-spirits as a kind of

astral humanity, but for the fact that none of them—not eventhe highest—possess a permanent reincarnating individual-

ity. Apparently therefore, one point in which their line of


248



evolution differs from ours is that a much greater proportion

of intelligence is developed before permanent individualiza-

tion takes places; but of the stages through which they have

passed, and those through which they have yet to pass, we

can know little. The life-periods of the different subdivisions

vary greatly, some being quite short, others much longer

than our human lifetime. We stand so entirely outside such a

life as theirs that it is impossible for us to understand much

about its conditions; but it appears on / the whole to be a

simply, joyous, irresponsible kind of existence, much such as

a party of happy children might lead among exceptionally

favourable physical surroundings. Though tricky and mis-

chievous, they are rarely malicious unless provoked by some

unwarrantable intrusion or annoyance; but as a body they

also partake to some extent of the universal feeling of dis-

trust for man, and they generally seem inclined to resent

somewhat the first appearances of a neophyte on the astral

plane, so that he usually makes their freaks, they soon accept

him as a necessary evil and take no further notice of him,

while some among them may even after a time become

friendly and manifest pleasure on meeting him./61

The Adept knows how to make use of the services of the

nature-spirits when he requires them, but the ordinary ma-

gician can obtain their assistance only by processes either of

invocation or evocation—that is, either by attracting their

attention as a suppliant and making some kind of bargain

with them, or by endeavouring to set in motion influences

which would compel their obedience. Both methods are ex-

tremely undesirable, and the latter is also excessively dan-

gerous, as the operator would arouse a determined hostility

/ which might prove fatal to him. Needless to say, no one


249





First, there are great etheric currents constantly sweeping

over the surface of the earth from pole to pole in volume

which makes their power as irresistible as that of the rising

tide, and there are methods by which this stupendous force

may be safely utilized, though unskilful attempts to control

it would be fraught with frightful danger. Secondly, there is

what can best be described as an etheric pressure, somewhat

corresponding to, / though immensely greater than, the at-

mospheric pressure. In ordinary life we are as little conscious

of one of these pressures as we are of the other, but neverthe-

less they both exist, and if science were able to exhaust the

ether from a given space, as it can exhaust the air, the one

could be proved as readily as the other. The difficulty of do-

ing that lies in the fact that matter in the etheric condition

freely interpenetrates matter in all states below it, so that

there is as yet no means within the knowledge of our physi-

cists by which any given body of ether can be isolated from

the rest. Practical occultism, however, teaches how this can

be done, and thus the tremendous force of etheric pressure

can be brought into play. Thirdly, there is a vast store of po-

tential energy which has become dormant in matter during

the involution of the subtle into the gross, and by changing

the condition of the matter [so that] some of this may be lib-

erated and utilized, somewhat as latent energy in the form of

heat may be liberated by a change in the condition of visible

matter. Fourthly, many striking results, both great and small,

may be produced by an extension of a principle which may

be described as that of sympathetic vibration. Illustrations

taken from the physical plane seem generally to misrepre-

sent rather than elucidate astral phenomena, because they

can never be more than partially applicable; but the recollec-

tion of two simple facts of ordinary life may help to make

this important branch of our subject clearer, if we are careful


251



not to push the analogy further than it will hold good. It is

well-known that if one of the wires of a harp be made to vi-

brate vigorously, its movement will call forth sympathetic

vibrations in the corresponding string of any number of

harps placed round it if they are tuned to exactly the same

pitch. It is also well known that when a large body of sol-

diers crosses a suspension bridge it is / necessary for them

to break step, since the perfect regularity of their ordinary

march would set up a vibration in the bridge which would

be intensified by every step they took, until the point of re-

sistance of the iron was passed, when the whole structure

would fly to pieces. With these two analogies in our minds

(never forgetting that they are only partial ones) it may seem

more comprehensible that one who knows exactly at what

rate to start his vibrations—knows, so to speak, the keynote

of the class of matter he wishes to affect—should be able by

sounding that keynote to call forth an immense number of

sympathetic vibrations. When this is done on the physical

plane no additional energy is developed; but on the astral

there is this difference, that the matter with which we are

dealing is far less inert, and so when called into action by

these sympathetic vibrations it adds its own living force to

the original impulse, which may thus be multiplied many-

fold; and then by further rhythmic repetition of the original

impulse, as in the case of the soldiers marching over the

bridge, the vibrations may be so intensified that the result is

out of all apparent proportion to the cause. Indeed it may be

said that there is scarcely any limit to the conceivable

achievements of this force in the hands of the Adept Who

fully comprehends its possibilities; for the very building of

the Universe itself was but the result of the vibrations set up

by the Spoken Word./89-91


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In the last, most interesting part of the book, Leadbeater ex-

plains phenomena such as disintegration, materialization, spirit

photographs, reduplication, precipitation, slate-writing, levitation,

spirit lights, handling fire, transmutation or repercussion. I shall

end my review here and let you order and fully read and under-

stand this uncanny book. The book is not an easy read, but a great

treasure for scientific minds.


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Dreams

What they Are and How they are CausedLondon: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1903

Kessinger Publishing Reprint Facsimile Edition

(Quoted Edition)

Dreams: What they Are and How they are Caused is a highly useful booklet that ex-

plains why we dream and what the spiritual reasons are for dreaming.

Now, at a time when science was far from admitting anything

beyond the five senses and when it was firmly believed that allsensations and emotions were processed in the brain, and when

the luminous body was strictly denied in science, Leadbeater pro-

vided clairvoyant scientific explanations that today we know are

true, but that at his time were considered as pure esoterism. Lead-

beater first introduces in the aura, or the etheric body, explaining

of what it consists and what its function is:

Now this etheric double has often been called the vehicle of

the human life-ether or vital force (called in Sanskrit prâna),


254



and anyone who has developed the psychic faculties can see

exactly how this is so. He will see the solar life-principle al-

most colorless, though intensely luminous and active, which

is constantly poured into earth’s atmosphere by the sun: he

will see how the etheric part of his spleen in the exercise of

its wonderful function absorbs this universal life, and spe-

cializes it into prana, so that it may be more readily as-

similable by his body; how it then courses all over that body,

running along every nerve-thread in tiny globules of lovely

rosy light, causing the glow of life and health and activity to

penetrate every atom of the etheric double; and how, when

the rose-colored particles have been absorbed, the superflu-

ous life-ether finally radiates from the body in every direc-

tion as bluish-white light./11

Leadbeater’s assumption that it’s the spleen that collects and

refines the human energy field is in accordance with the teaching

of numerous tribal peoples, and it’s also in alignment with ancient

Hermetic Tradition. The author has a funny way to explain how

the transmission of energy for healing works. Here, we have to

bear in mind that at his time what we today call the quantum field

was still called magnetism or life-ether:

When a finger becomes entirely numbed with cold, it is in-

capable of feeling; and the same phenomenon of insensibility

may readily be produced at will by a mesmerizer, who by a

few passes over the arm of his subject will bring it into a

condition in which it may be pricked with a needle or burnt

by a flame of a candle without the slightest sensation of pain

being experienced. Now why does the subject feel nothing in

either of these two cases? The nerve-threads are still there,

and though in the first case it might be contended that their


255



action was paralyzed by cold and by the absence of blood

from the vessels, this certainly cannot be the reason in the

second case, where the arm retains its normal temperature

and the blood circulates as usual./12

Explaining the mechanisms, without having even tackled the

subject of dreams, the author explains the astral body, or desire-

body, which is well different from the etheric body that he dis-

cussed above. The astral body serves us as a vehicle for the astralplane, the plane we are going in between lives. But usually we do

not stay very long in the astral plane, and move on to higher

planes. For the astral plane, we need the astral body, because it’s

the vibrational shell for this density of energies:

The astral vehicle is even more sensitive to external impres-

sions than the gross and etheric bodies, for it is itself the seat

of all desires and emotions—the connecting link through

which alone the ego can collect experiences from physical

life. It is peculiarly susceptible to the influence of passing

thought-currents, and when the mind is not actively control-

ling it, it is perpetually receiving these stimuli from without,

and eagerly responding to them./16

It becomes obvious why Leadbeater explained all of this, while

it was really the subject of his book The Inner Life , to be reviewed

below. For those who are not adepts of theosophy and who have

not read that other book, he did well to introduce these concepts,

because otherwise his explanations about dreams could not really

be understood. The first important fact about dreams that Lead-

beater reports is that they are not just ‘imagination’ as psychology

continues to believe, but another level of consciousness, another


256





power to judge either of their sequence or their lack of that

quality./26-27

It is anathema for mechanistic science to consider thought being

anything but ‘pictures in your mind’; and that is why it under-

stands little of the mechanism of mind. The first thing to learn in

holistic science is that thought is a movement of subtle energy that

triggers immediate effects, both for self and others. The fact is only

that most people have a low energy level in their thought process;

this results in little or no effects. But take a master, a yogi, a saint,

and you will see their thought triggers phenomenal effects, either

for good or for bad! This is what magic is all about, after all. A real

master only needs to focus their thought and can trigger any de-

sired effect. With saints and yogis, it has been reported that their

thoughts can do miracles, such as producing matter instantly,

shapeshift their bodies, levitate the person in the air, or heal others

virtually as quickly as they think of it. Leadbeater explains:


258



Students of occultism are well aware that it is indeed true

that thoughts are things, for every thought impresses itself

upon the plastic elemental essence, and generates a tempo-

rary living entity, the duration of whose life depends on the

energy of the thought-impulse given to it. We are therefore

living in the midst of an ocean of other men’s thoughts, and

whether we are awake or asleep, these are constantly pre-

senting themselves to the etheric part of our brain./30

Another daring hypothesis that Leadbeater presents in this

book is that we do not own our thoughts and that actually many

thoughts we have are really not our own because they are picked

up from other people, without our being conscious of this fact:

The vast majority of people, if they will watch what they are

in the habit of calling their thoughts closely, will find thatthey are very largely made up of a casual stream of this sort

—that in truth they are not their thoughts at all, but simply

the cast-off fragments of other people’s./31

Another interesting theme that Leadbeater expands about in

this uncanny booklet is the notion of time in dreams. In fact, time in

dreams is totally different from time in wake consciousness. In a

dream minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and even dec-

ades can have passed, while the subject was dreaming just one

second.

Unfortunately Leadbeater does not attempt to explain why

this is so. The reason may be that we are basically beyond relativ-

ity theory when we are in the astral, as relativity theory only is

valid for matter, not for energy-waves, and thought is wave-like

energy and moves with a speed that is approximately the speed of


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the light – which is why events are dilated in time, just as it would

be the case when astronauts fly in space with a spaceship that can

fly close to, or identical with, the speed of the light. Another sub-

ject that Leadbeater treats is the faculty of prevision in dreams.

Precognition has always given rise to questions of cosmic deter-

minism versus free will, and Leadbeater voices a clear credo for

human free will, but he adds an important precaution:

Man, however, undoubtedly does possess free-will; andtherefore … prevision is possible only to a certain extent. In

the affairs of the average man it is probably possible to a

very large extent, since he has developed no will of his own

worth speaking of, and is consequently very largely the crea-

ture of circumstances; his karma places him amid certain

surroundings, and their action upon him is so much the

most important factor in his history that his future coursemay be foreseen with almost mathematical certainty./43

Now, let’s compare this with what Leadbeater says about pre-

cognition in the life of a highly developed individual:

But when we come to deal with a developed individual—a

man with knowledge and will—then prophecy fails us, for

he is no longer the creature of circumstances, but to a great

extent their master. True, the main events of his life are ar-

ranged before-hand by his past karma; but the way in which

he will allow them to affect him, the method of which he will

deal with them, and perhaps triumph over them—these are

his own, and they cannot be foreseen except as probabilities.

Such actions of his in their turn become causes, and thus

chains of effects are produced in his life which were not provided


260



for by the original arrangement, and therefore, could not have

been foretold with any exactitude./44

The booklet ends already with page 69, and there are 34 eso-

teric illustration annexed, one on each page (Kessinger Edition).


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The Inner Life

Theosophical Talks at Adyar, Vol. IIChicago: The Rajput Press, 1911

Kessinger Publishing Reprint Facsimile Edition, 1942

(Quoted Edition)

The Inner Life is a door-opener to all worlds beyond the visible and the physical.

It’s a book that talks about things you perhaps won’t think can be true if you

have not done research about the author.

In fact, the insights of a clairvoyant into the reality of our uni-

verse are so strikingly different from what mainstream science and

school wisdom tells you that you may doubt this book is written

in a scientific intention? But when you read the first ten pages you

will perhaps arrest your hurried judgment because of the truly

scientific style of the author, a style that is so dry and unpreten-

tious that it’s not easy to read for non-academic readers. This book

has very little to do with the trials of theosophy. It’s the meticu-

lously honest account of a psychic who looks beyond the fence of


262



ordinary reality and who didn’t really care about being promoted

to ‘popular status.’ Much to the contrary, Leadbeater fostered a

rather elitist philosophy that I found very healthy by and large,

for not all truth is for all people:

To be psychic means to be able to bring through into the

physical consciousness something of the wider life; it is

therefore / in the condition of the physical vehicle that there

is an inequality between the psychic and the ordinary per-

son, but when the physical is dropped that inequality no

longer exists./4-5

There are many observations in the book that can neither be

verified nor falsified, except you are yourself a clairvoyant, and

not just a clairvoyant but one of the highest initiation.

Leadbeater was on level five which means a direct perception

of the aura, of the after-life through trance, and visions of the fu-

ture without needing to dream, but in the trance-state or in wake

consciousness. It is this level of perception that for example the

seer Nostradamus was gifted with. The trance state is superior to

dreaming because it can be brought about voluntarily by the sub-

ject, and it can be directed.

I think it’s important that you know this before reading the

book, because if you have never done studies in theosophy or in

esoteric religious teaching (such as Sufism, or the Cabbala, for ex-

ample), you may come to think that this man was an impostor or

that he had paranoid delusions. No, he didn’t have a deficient ego

nor was he insane. This is widely recognized by biographical re-

search, and I have studied several biographies of him, and also the

beneficial role he played in the life of the young Krishnamurti.


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As copyright has expired because of time reasons, I will be

able to publish all my quotes from the book here without further

commenting on them.

To be psychic means to be able to bring through into the

physical consciousness something of the wider life; it is

therefore / in the condition of the physical vehicle that there

is an inequality between the psychic and the ordinary per-

son, but when the physical is dropped that inequality no

longer exists./4-5

All the matter of the astral body is constantly in rapid mo-

tion from one part of it to another, so that it is quite impossi-

ble for any astral particles to be specialized in the same way

as certain nerve-ends are specialized in the physical body.

The senses of the astral body act not through special organs,


264



but through every particle of the body, so that with astral

sight a man can see equally well with any part of his body,

and can see all around him simultaneously, instead of only

in front of him. (…) It is, however, perfectly possible for him

to materialize a hand which, though invisible, can be felt just

as the ordinary physical hand can be, as may often be ob-

served at séances./6

If it is complained that … the departed does not see the

physical world exactly as it really is, we must answer that

neither the departed nor we on this plane every see the

physical world as it really is at all, for we (or most of us) see

only the solid and liquid portions thereof, and are altogether

blind to the far vaster gaseous and etheric parts; while the

departed does not see the physical matter at all, nor even the

whole astral counterpart of it, but only the portion of the

latter which belongs to the particular sub-plane upon which

he is at the time. The only man who gets anything like a

comprehensive view of affairs is he who has developed eth-

eric and astral sight while still alive in the physical body./8

The length of a man’s stay upon any sub-plane depends …

on the amount of matter belonging to that sub-plane he has

built into himself during earth-life./10

The length of a man’s astral life after he has put off his

physical body depends mainly upon two factors – the nature

of his past physical life, and his attitude of mind after what

we call death. During his earth-life he is constantly influenc-

ing the building of matter into his astral body. He affects it

directly by the passions, emotions and desires which he al-

lows to hold sway over him; he affects it indirectly by the

action upon it of his thoughts from above, and of all the de-


265



tails of his physical life (his continence or his debauchery, his

cleanliness or his uncleanliness, his food and his drink) from

below. If, by persistence in perversity along any of these

lines, he is so stupid as / to build for himself a coarse and

gross astral vehicle, habituated to responding only to the

lower vibrations of the plane, he will find himself after death

bound to that plane during the long and slow process of that

body’s disintegration. On the other hand, if, by decent and

careful living, he gives himself a vehicle mainly composed of

finer material, he will have very much less post-mortem

trouble and discomfort, and his evolution will proceed much

more rapidly and easily./13-14

The ordinary man has little will-power or initiative, and is

very much the creature of the surroundings which he has

made for himself, on the astral plane as on the physical; but

a determined man can always make the best of his condi-

tions and live his own life in spite of them. What has, after

all, been caused by his will can gradually be changed by his

will, if time permits. A man does not rid himself of evil ten-

dencies in the astral world any more than he would in this

life, unless he definitely works to that end./17

In the summer-land men surround themselves with land-

scapes of their own construction, thought some avoid that

trouble by accepting ready-made the landscapes which have

already been constructed by others. Men living in the sixth

sub-plane, upon the surface of the earth, find themselves

surrounded by the astral counterparts of physically existing

mountains, trees and lakes, and consequently are not under

the necessity to manufacturing scenery for themselves; but

men upon the higher subplanes, who float at some distance

above the surface of the earth, usually provide themselves


266



with whatever scenery they desire, by the method that I

have described. The commonest example of this is that they

construct for themselves the weird scenes described in their

various scriptures, and therefore in those regions we con-

stantly find ourselves in presence of clumsy and unimagina-

tive attempts to reproduce such ideas as jewels growing

upon trees, and seas of glass mingled with fire, and creatures

which are full of eyes within, and deities with a hundred

heads and arms to correspond. In this way, as a consequence

of ignorance and prejudice during their physical life, many

men do a great deal of valueless work when they might be

employing their time in the helping of their fellows./19

The dead man is the only absolutely free man, free to do

whatever he wills and to spend his time as he chooses, free

therefore to devote the whole of his energies to helping his

fellows./20

When a man dies, the etheric part of his physical body is

withdrawn from the denser part, and shortly afterwards

(usually within a few hours) the astral breaks away from the

etheric, and the man’s life on the astral plane is begun./23

The etheric body is only a part of the physical, and is not in

itself a vehicle of consciousness—not a body in which a man

can live and function./24

Here therefore is a possibility of making karma, and of mak-

ing it on a scale which is entirely out of his reach on these

lower planes, for every thought on those higher mental lev-

els has a force quite out of proportion to that of our limited

thought during physical life./46


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There is perfect continuity in the astral life. That life is in

many ways much more real than this, or at least much

nearer to reality, and this physical existence is only a series of

breaks in it during which our activity is greatly limited and

our consciousness but partially operative./58

The astral life is much more vivid and its emotions are far

stronger than any that we know down here./58

We must try to understand that as soon as we leave the

physical body at night we stand side by side with a departed

friend, exactly as we did when he was with us on the physi-

cal plane. One great thing to remember is the necessity of

curbing all sorrow for the so-called dead, because it cannot

but react upon them./60

The main object of the helper is to calm and encourage the

sufferer, to induce him to realize that death is a perfectly

natural and usually an easy process, and in no case a formi-

dable or terrible leap into an unknown abyss./62

In the mental world one formulates a thought and without

any expression in the form of words. Therefore on that plane

language does not matter in the least; but helpers working in

the astral world, who have not yet the power to use the men-

tal vehicle, must depend on the facilities offered by the astral

plane itself. These lie as it were half way between the

thought-transference of the mental world and the concrete

speech of the physical, but it is still necessary to formulate

the thought in words./67


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When a man functions in the mental vehicle he leaves the

astral body behind him in a condition of suspended anima-

tion, along with the physical./68

There is a special class of devas who respond to music and

express themselves through it, and sometimes they are will-

ing to teach people to whom music is the first and only thing

in life./69

The Theosophist will not allow this rearrangement, because

he intends to work, and therefore he must be free to move

through all the sub-planes. We cannot get rid of elemental

essence, but we can subdue the desire-elemental, draw in the

finer types of matter, and make the ego strong keep the up-

per / hand. The essence wants violent emotion, so as to

evolve downwards—which, it must be remembered, is its

proper and legitimate course of evolution. If it knew of our

existence, we should appear to it to be evil beings and

tempters, trying to prevent the evolution which it knows to

be right for it. If we steadfastly refuse to allow our astral

body to vibrate at the rate peculiar to the coarser matter, that

coarser matter will gradually be discharged from the body,

which will become finer in texture, and the desire-elemental

will be of a less active kind./69-70

At present there is a moment of unconsciousness between

sleeping and waking, and this acts as a veil. It is caused by

the closely-woven web of atomic matter through which the

vibrations have to pass./78

The joy of life on the astral plane is so great that physical life

in comparison with it seems no life at all./78


269



Astral pleasures are much greater than those of the physical

world, and there is danger of people being turned aside by

them from the path of progress. It is quite impossible to real-

ize while one is confined in the physical body the great at-

tractiveness of these pleasures. But even the delights of the

astral life do not present a serious danger to those who have

realised a little of something higher. After death one should

try to pass through the astral levels as speedily as possible,

consistently with usefulness, and not yield to its refined

pleasures any more than to the physical. One must not only

overcome physical desire by knowledge of the astral or the

heaven-life, but also go beyond even them, and this not

merely for the sake of the joy of the spiritual life, but in order

to replace the fleeting by the everlasting./79

If there are seven dimensions at all, there are seven dimen-

sions always and everywhere, and it makes no difference to

that fundamental fact in nature whether the consciousness of

any individual happens to be acting through his physical

body, his astral body or his nirvanic vehicle./80

Degrees in the feeling which prompts thought are expressed

by brilliance of colour. In devotional feeling, for example, we

may have the three stages of respect, reverence and worship;

in affection we may have the stages of good-will, friendship

and love. The stronger the thought the larger is the vibration;

the more spiritual and unselfish the thought the higher is the

vibration. The first produces brilliancy, the second delicacy

of colour./90

A thought shows itself as a vibration in the mental body of

man; that vibration is communicated to external matter, and

an effect is produced. Thought therefore is itself a real and


270



definite power; and the point of vivid interest about it is that

everyone of us possesses this power./98

If a man allows himself to begin to think evil of others, it

soon becomes easy to think more evil of them and difficult to

think any good of them. Hence arises a ridiculous prejudice

which absolutely blinds the man to the good points in his

neighbours, and enormously magnifies the evil in them. /

Then the thoughts begin to stir up his emotions; because he

sees only the evil in others he begins to hate them./98-99

We must not excuse ourselves, as so many do, by saying that

undesirable feelings are natural under certain conditions; we

must assert our prerogative as rulers of this kingdom of our

mind and emotions./99

We can accustom ourselves to look for the desirable rather

than the undesirable qualities in the people whom we meet;

and it will surprise us to find how numerous and how im-

portant those desirable qualities are. Thus we shall come to

like these people instead of disliking them, and there will be

at least a possibility that we may do them something ap-

proaching to justice in our estimate of them./100

A grumbling and fault-finding attitude towards others is

unfortunately sadly common at the present day, and those

who adopt it never seem to realise the harm that they are

doing. If we study its result scientifically we shall see that

the prevalent habit of malicious gossip is nothing short of

wicked. It does not matter whether there is or is not any

foundation for scandal; in either case it cannot but cause

harm. Here we have a number of people fixing their minds

upon some supposed evil quality in another, and drawing to


271





Make it a practice to set apart a little time each day which

shall be devoted to formulating good thoughts about other

people, and sending them to them. It is capital practice for

you, and it will unquestionably do good to your patients

also./104

There mere impulse has its birth in the astral body, while the

true intuition comes directly from the higher mental plane,

or sometimes even from the buddhic./106

Any sudden idea or vision which comes to you may be sim-

ply the thought-form of some person who is keenly inter-

ested in the subject in hand./107

It is easy to see that when one thinks of something a little

difficult, one may attract the thought of another person who

has studied the same subject, and even the person himself if

he be on the astral plane./108

The etheric double is the vehicle of vitality, the life-principle,

which is perpetually circulating through our bodies; and

when any part of our etheric double is withdrawn that life-

circulation is checked and its current broken. A terrible drain

on vitality is then set up, and that is why the medium is so

often in a state of collapse after a séance, and also why so

many mediums in the long run become drunkards, having

first taken to stimulants in order to satisfy the dreadful crav-

ing for support which is caused by this sudden loss of

strength./120

In cases of materialisation, dense physical matter, probably

chiefly in the form of gases or liquids, is frequently bor-

rowed from the body of the medium, who actually decreases


273



temporarily in size and weight; and when it takes place,

naturally that is a further source of serious disturbance to all

the functions./121

No one connected with any school of white magic would

think it right to interfere with the etheric double of any man

in order to produce a materialisation, nor would he disturb

his own if she wished to make himself visible at a distance.

He would simply condense, and build into and around his

astral body a sufficient quantity of the surrounding ether to

materialise it, and hold it in that form by an effort of will as

long as he needed it./121

There is no harm in using will-power to cure diseases, so

long as no money or other consideration is taken for what is

done. There are several methods; the simplest is the pouring

in of vitality. Nature will cure most diseases if the man can

be strengthened and supported while she is left to do her

work. This is especially true of the various nervous diseases

which are so painfully common at the present day. The rest-

cure which is often advised for them, is quite the best thing

that can be suggested, but recovery might often be greatly

hastened if vitality were poured into the patient in addition.

Any man who has surplus vitality may direct it by his will to

a particular person; when he is not doing that, it simply ra-

diates from him in all directions, flowing out principally

through the hands. If a man is depleted of strength so that

his spleen does not do its work properly, the pouring in of

specialised vitality is often of the greatest help to him in

keeping the machinery of the body going until he is able to

manufacture it for himself./122


274



One should take care not to be caught or entangled on the

astral plane, as a man easily may be, and that through his

virtues as well as his vices, if he be not exceedingly cautious.

For example, it is possible to affect others by thought, and

thus obtain whatever is wanted from them, and the tempta-

tion of his power to an ordinary man would be overwhelm-

ing. /123


275



Timothy Leary

Your Brain is God

Berkeley, CA: Ronin Publishing, 2001

Author Copyright, 1988

Your Brain is God by Timothy Leary is an unusual book. When pondering how to

characterize it, it came spontaneously to mind to call it a Manifesto. I can’t think

of another expression for describe the frantic speed of Leary’s diction, his highlyaffirmative style, his wit and colorful insights, but first of all the communication

of his unique worldview and philosophy.



The book was for years in my bookshelf—untouched. It fell in

my hands just last night, when I wanted to close this manuscript

for publishing. By a chance event I saw a documentary on You-

tube that showed Timothy Leary in prison, in California, a radiant

Leary, not as you would find inmates ordinarily, as I found them

myself in my years of prisoner care, as part of my work as a law-

yer. To keep one’s mind in high spirits in such circumstances is an

extraordinary, if not heroic, effort, and it shows the true innocence

of the man, psychologist and philosopher whom Ronald Reagan

notoriously had called ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America.’

The book is written in the spirit of the 1960s, while it was ac-

tually written in the much more repressive 80s, but the author had

not lost a bit of his lofty spirited style that distinguished him all

his life through from the common populace of ‘adapted’ citizens.The book, which I grabbed right away from my bookshelf, and

went through just this morning—it’s just 105 pages with a quite

large book font—, reminds me of my own youth, and the year

1968, the year of the student revolt. I was thirteen by then, and it

was a time of excitement for all of us. I will never forget that dur-

ing that year an issue of BRAVO, a youth magazine in Germany,published a joyful essay entitled ‘Jugend und Sex ’68’ (Youth and

Sex ’68) which retraced the ‘student liberation’ in quite open terms

including photos of nude teenager couples. And we were wearing

our jeans even in school only after lengthy ‘operations’, unique

kind of meditations during which we cut slices in our jeans and

shirts, or cut out the knees—some did it even with parts of their jeans’ bottom … which when the boy was rather ugly ended up in

a rather tragicomical outfit, reminding of something in between a

TIMOTHY LEARY

277



street peddler and Hamlet. Yet, despite this kind of freedom, our

teachers were stressing old-fashioned principles of discipline, an

attitude that even more accentuated the tension between the gen-

erations that was so much felt during these times of revolt versus

restoration.

All this would of course be outright impossible these days. Yet

I believe that despite a ‘straighter’ attitude in society today, a man

like Leary would be considered as harmless compared to the ‘newsocial enemies’ such as Julian Assange or Bradley Manning.

To begin with, the description of the book on Amazon reads as

follows:

This collection of essays, written by the poster boy of 1960s

counterculture, describes the psychological journey Timothy

Leary made in the years following his dismissal from Har-

vard, as his psychedelic research moved from the scientific

to the religious arena. He discusses the nature of religious

experience and eight crafts of God, including God as he-

donic artist. Leary also examines the Tibetan, Buddhist, and


278



Taoist experiences. In the final chapters, he explores man as

god and LSD as sacrament.

As the book can be ‘looked inside’ on Amazon I spare to reit-

erate the titles of the 20 chapters. These are actually 8 Questions,

which the author introduces with these very well written lines:

Religion, being personal and private, cannot produce an-

swers to the eight basic questions. The philosopher’s role is

to ignite the wonder, raise the burning issues, inspire the

pursuit of answers. It is science that produces the ever-

changing, improving answers to the haunting questions that

religious wonder poses. There are eight questions which any

fair survey of our philosophic history would agree are most

fundamental to our existential condition. /13

Here are the 8 Crafts (Eight Fundamental Questions):

1) Origins

How, when, where did life come from? How has it evolved?

2) Politics

Why do humans fight and compete destructively? What arethe territorial laws that explain conflict? How can humans

live in relative peace and harmony? How, when, where, and

why do humans differ (among each other and from other

mammalian species) in aggression, control, cooperation, af-

filiation?

3) EpistemologyHow, when, where, and why does the mind emerge (in the

individual and species)? And how, when, where, and why

TIMOTHY LEARY

279



do humans differ in their ability to process information,

learn, communicate, think, plan, and manufacture?

4) Ethics

How, when, where, and why do humans differ in their moral

beliefs and rituals? Who decides what is good and right?

5) Esthetics

How, when, where, and why do human devote their ener-

gies to decoration, hedonism, art, music, entertainment? And

how, where, when, and why do they differ in modes of

pleasure?

6) Ontology

How, when, where, and why do humans differ in the reali-

ties they construct and inhabit? How are realities formedand changed?

7) Teleology

What are the stages and mechanisms of evolution? Where,

when, how, and why has evolution occurred? Chance? Natu-

ral selection? Natural election? Creation? If life is created

and evolution blueprinted, who did it? Where is life going?

8) Cosmology

How, when, where, and why was matter-energy formed?

What are the basic units and patterns of matter/energy?

What are the basic forces, energies, and plans that hold the

universe together (or don’t) and determine its evolution.

Where are we going?


280



This list of inquiry is highly interesting and unique. It reminds

of the beginning of a Socratic discourse. In fact, we know from IQ

research that the highest evolved thinkers stand out not by the in-

telligent answers they give, but by the intelligent questions they

ask. And here we have such a smart question catalogue, that in my

view would be an ideal way to start a philosophy class for college

students. When you ponder these questions a bit, you will see that

they really cover all the essential questions man has been asking

over the course of human history, again and again. And while the

answers constantly changed, and change, the questions remain. Is

it, then, not true that questions are actually more important an-

swers given that all answers are temporary while questions, most

of them, remain valid over time?

It was really in the spirit of Zen, with its Dharmic rule to fulfill

any task ‘With a Beginner’s Mind’ that Leary wrote out this list. It

reminds me a bit of my own questions as a child and adolescent.

In this sense, these questions are ‘seeds’ and are full of potentialfor each and everyone of us could and would answer them differ-

TIMOTHY LEARY

281



ently, yet despite these differences, there would be something like

a consensus at the end.

This being said, I am not attempting to paraphrase any of the

content of this highly condensed book that is written in a perfectly

witty style that would contrast with my simple academia style as

a non-native English speaker and writer.

Despite many of the esoteric ideas of the author, the book is

highly readable, and for many a reader can possibly help dispelfears and doubts in the task of self-expression, because the bold-

ness of Leary’s approach to life is really refreshing and uplifting!

I will not comment a few quotes I have taken from the book:

Our political experiences at Harvard also pushed us in the

direction of the religious metaphor. When it became known

on campus that a group of psychologists was producing

revelatory brain-change, we expected that astronomers and

biologists would come flocking around to learn how to use

this new tool for expanding awareness. But the scientists,

committed to external manipulations, were uninterested.

Instead we were flooded by inquiries from the Divinity

School. /3

I find this highly uncanny. Leary, after long hesitation, and

with encouragement by his friend Ram Dass, approached religion

with a scientific mindset—which is, as we know today, not a bad

approach at all. What he calls ‘Do-It-Yourself Theology’ is today

embraced by authors like Thomas Moore who in his latest book A

Religion of One's Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a

Secular World (2014) advocates an approach to religion that is to-

tally personal and individual, in the sense that religion is a ques-


282



tion of the soul, and doesn’t need organization or dogma to unfold

for us, individually. This is so much the more compelling as Tho-

mas Moore spend twelve years in a monastery with all that this

implies.

—See my review of Thomas Moore’s previous book Care of the Soul (1994)

further down in this volume

Many of the observations Leary makes, for example as to our

origin as living cells, have in the meantime been corroborated byand large by systems research.

Sometimes it seems to me that Leary deliberately exaggerates

or rather amplifies his message, as for example when he depicts

the Mediterranean—which is after all the cradle of European cul-

ture and philosophy— as ‘a bunch of semi-illiterate Bronze-Age

Greeks, Italian and Semites.’ /24

His ‘Psychedelic Prayers’ are very highly original meditations

that are worth reading. Here is the first:

Sheathing the Self

The play of energy endures beyond striving

The play of energy endures beyond body

The play of energy endures beyond life

Out here float timeless beyond striving.

Finally, his famous motto Turn On—Tune In—Drop Out ex-

plained in chapter 18 which is entitled: ‘You are A God, Act Like

One.’ Turn On means to realize that we are not isolated, separate

TIMOTHY LEARY

283



social egos, but rather transient energy processes ‘hooked up with

the energy dance’ around us. Tune In means to shape our envi-

ronment according to our level of consciousness, in order ‘to har-

ness your internal energy to the flow around you.’ And Drop Out

means to ‘reflect the grandeur and glory of your vision’:

But this process must be harmonious and graceful. No

abrupt, destructive, rebellious actions, please start ‘tuning in’

through your body movements. Walk, talk, eat, drink like a joyous forest-dwelling god. /87

Despite the exuberant mindset of the author and his literary

skills, the book is not an easy read for its diction is rather dense.

Sometimes Leary says more in one sentence than other authors

convey on an entire page. Here is an example from the how-to-do

Tune In:

Let us consider a sad illumination. The Manhattan office

worker moves through the clutter of factory-made, anony-

mous furniture to a plastic, impersonal kitchen, to breakfast

on canned, packaged anonymous food-fuel; dresses hirself

in the anonymous-city-dweller costume, travels through

dark tunnels of sooty metal and gray concrete to a dark

metal room, foul with polluted air. All day s/he deals with

symbols that have no relevance to hir divine possibilities.

This person is surrounded by the dreary, impersonal,

assembly-line, mass-produced, anonymous environment of

an automated robot, which perfectly mirrors hir ‘turned-off’

awareness. /86-87

How to better describe, in one single paragraph, the misery of

a society that has lost its soul?! (By the way, s/he or hir are spell-


284



ings made up by Leary to convey he’s not willing to use sexist

language, thus forming a mix between ‘he and she’ and between

‘his and her.’

Reading this book in 2014, which was written in the spirit of

an epoch almost 60 years away is a refreshing experience. It shows

that the spirit of social rebel of grand style has not lost a bit of its

originality, not a bit of its juicy wit, not a bit of its large and intui-

tive wisdom. I leave this review with the motto printed in big and bold letters on the last page of the book:

Grow

With

the

Flow

—Timothy Leary

TIMOTHY LEARY

285



Alexander Lowen

Books Reviewed

Pleasure: A Creative Approach to Life (1970/2004)

The Language of the Body (1958/2003)

Alexander Lowen, M.D. (1910–2008) practiced psychotherapy

for more than five decades. He published twelve books on bio-

energetic healing, including Love and Orgasm (1965), The Language

of the Body (2006), Depression and the Body (1992), Love, Sex, and Your

Heart (2004), and Narcissism: Denial of the True Self (1983).









the reminders today for us that the social policies in place, with

their negativistic view of the human being, their tendency to de-

clare more and more of natural behavior ‘a crime’ and to sharply

control human behavior, together with the prohibition of psyche-

delic substances mark a turn in the wrong direction, away from

nature and toward more and more structural violence and state

control.

The media do a large part of the social brainwashing of theconsumer into believing governments and corporations were

more important than the human body; they make believe the citi-

zen that total consumption without reflection is the ‘ideal way of

life’—while about everywhere in the world there is conflict, pov-

erty and misery, virtually around the globe.

Wilhelm Reich’s social predictions were harmless against whatis really going on today, as the rise of fascism is clearly to be noted

everywhere. At the same time, the denial of the body, the body’s

needs, the denial of pleasure, the denial of intergenerational love,

the denial of border-expanding psychic experiences and a growing

general fear-complex that Lowen called ‘fear of life’ make that peo-

ple, especially in the modern world, have become rudely judg-mental overall when only certain forms of love are concerned or

mind opening and deconditioning drugs, and the like. The truth is

that paranoid leaders can only see a paranoid world, for they are

wearing paranoid glasses!

Lowen shows in the present book and actually in all his books

that the pleasure principle really is fundamental for human sanity

and at the same time, for world peace. In all our modern policy-

making, there is a strong turndown of pleasure to be seen and felt


290



throughout and all about. Pleasure is condemned when it is not

linked to consuming products; this is of course much more an im-

pact of the corporate world than it is the will or policy of any of

our political leaders.

The corporate world has obviously little interest in consumers

being self-contained and having their natural pleasures. People,

adults or children, who are content and satisfied with their sen-

sual and sexual lives are bad consumers! This is the reason why

multinational corporations always agree when governments apply

‘get tough’ policies, raise state control over the citizen, raise pun-

ishments and criminal fines and instill in the consumer populace

still more fear of life, so that people stop thinking because of the

fear barrier—which is, while it is mass hysteria, the ideal soil for

implementing total consumption without reflection!

When you read this book, you really feel it is written in an-

other epoch, a time when there was relatively more freedom for the

individual for experimenting with the limits and the borderlines, to

look over the fence using psychedelics, to think about parallel in-stitutions to the traditional family and to care for the body and its

beauty and health. All this is today relegated to a few ‘naturalist’

ALEXANDER LOWEN

291



fanatics who hold tight against the monition that we are sooner or

later going to end up with total and global fascism. It is for that

reason a very important book, a must-read for an intellectual to-

day, and for anybody who wants to have a real look at our social

problems and who asks, what’s going wrong and why is it going

wrong? It is an important book for any citizen who dares to ask

the question:

—Why, tell me, do our governments seem to suspect us beingcriminal virtually from birth? Why do they criminalize more and

more behaviors that over the whole course of human evolution

were considered as social and natural? Why are they building

every year larger prisons and even prison camps that can hold

millions of people?

The etiology of fascism was well analyzed by Wilhelm Reich.

The present book is more positive in nature. It is well-known that

Lowen, when he was asked why he thought Wilhelm Reich had

such a bad fate, used to reply:—Wilhelm Reich had many personal problems …


292



Hence, he was critical as to Reich’s assumption that only be-

cause he had been a maverick researcher, he was persecuted, slan-

dered and finally ended up in jail and died there.

Indeed, Lowen continued Reich’s research very diligently and

never faced any problems of the kind Reich was facing. Lowen

was a different character, he was a really positive person and the

present book is written in this positive and happy tone, and for

that reason, if it was only for that reason, it is easy to read. It isalso well structured and reasoned through. Lowen and Reich have

that in common that both were not only great scientists and doc-

tors but also good writers. Lowen’s diction is easy to read; he

doesn’t bombard the reader with medical vocabulary of any kind,

but writes in a tone that every intelligent reader can understand,

and even for those who may never have heard of bioenergetics.This being said, I would like to first just list the titles of the 11

chapters of the book for this gives already an excellent insight into

what can be expected from this masterpiece written by a bioener-

getic healer and also a great master of his personal life, that was,

as he said shortly before he died a centenary, a happy life through-

out.

• Chapter 1: The Psychology of Pleasure

• Chapter 2: The Pleasure of Being Fully Alive

• Chapter 3: The Biology of Pleasure

• Chapter 4: Power Versus Pleasure

• Chapter 5: The Ego: Self-Expression Versus Egotism

• Chapter 6: Truth, Beauty and Grace

ALEXANDER LOWEN

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• Chapter 7: Self-Awareness and Self-Assertion

• Chapter 8: The Emotional Responses

• Chapter 9: Guilt, Shame and Depression

• Chapter 10: The Roots of Pleasure

• Chapter 11: A Creative Approach to Life

The notion of power is flawed in our society, and for the dead

simple reason that power is so much abused. Every sexual abuseis a form of power abuse; all abuse is but power abuse, but who

are those big ‘perpetrators’ who most abuse of their powers? We

all know the answer.

In truth, what has been called ‘worldly power’ is indeed often

abusive, but the truly moral person knows that it is but decadence

and corruption, the betrayal of the citizen that brings about such

power. Genuine morality is linked to pleasure, not to the prohibi-

tions of pleasure; it is a morality that is non-compulsive and natu-

ral. This morality is not rooted in the personal ego, but in a space

beyond the ego.

In other words, the real power is the life force that streams

through our bodies and minds, and it is foremost in pleasure. In-

deed, this abusive power mechanism is defeated through pleasure

and shared pleasure. As long as pleasure is really shared, there

cannot be a power problem, it’s as simple as that. Lowen writes:

We must realize that we are all, like Dr. Faust, ready to ac-

cept the devil’s inducements. The devil is in each one of usin the form of an ego that promises the fulfillment of desire

on condition that we become subservient to its striving to

dominate. The domination of the personality by the ego is a


294



diabolical perversion of the nature of man. The ego was

never intended to be the master of the body, but its loyal and

obedient servant. The body, as opposed to the ego, desires

pleasure, not power. / Bodily pleasure is the source from

which all our good feelings and good thinking stems. If the

bodily pleasure of an individual is destroyed, he becomes an

angry, frustrated and hateful person. His thinking becomes

distorted, and his creative potential is lost. He develops self-

destructive attitudes. Pleasure is the creative force in life. It is

the only force strong enough to oppose the potential destruc-

tiveness of power. Many people believe that this role belongs

to love. But if love is to be more than a word, it must rest on

the experience of pleasure. /2-3

The truth is that our leaders consciously lead us astray so as to

easily control us. Body-conscious people are no good followers,

they are not blindly obedient, they do not believe in conspiracies,

and they are not filling the cash registers of gadget stores because

they have their satisfaction from body pleasure, not ersatz pleasure.

Hence Lowen’s idea that honoring the body is the beginning of

real wisdom is true, for it is shielding us from the corruption and

betrayal we are facing daily in our neofascist world of global con-sumerism that feeds at maximum one billion of the seven billion

people now on the globe, letting the others starve in misery and

die in poverty.

The patriarchal worldview with its credo to ‘control life’, ‘con-

trol relationships’, ‘control human behavior’ fails at all ends. This

is why we are worldwide in this mess today because controllinglife doesn’t bring about peaceful togetherness nor is it in any way

intelligent behavior. Nature has instituted self-regulation if only

ALEXANDER LOWEN

295



humans were ready to follow nature, that is, to follow the intelli-

gence of their bodies and their emotions. If we did this, collec-

tively, the world would quickly become a better place. But for this

to happen, we need to rebuild the lost trust with nature, as we, as

a civilization, have lost that continuum, that basic trust in nature.

Lowen refers to children and their play as a striking example

how the creative impulse works in the human being. I had to think

of Pablo Picasso when reading this as he was certainly one of the

most creative persons who ever lived, but also a peaceful man, a

lover.

It is widely recognized that in their games and play children

manifest the creative impulse at work in the human person-

ality. Often a high degree of imagination is involved in these

activities. The ease with which a child can pretend or make

believe indicates that his world is largely an inner one con-

taining a rich store of feelings upon which he can draw. Be-

cause he is relatively free from responsibilities and pressures,

his imagination can transform his surroundings into a fairy


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world that offers unlimited opportunities for creative self-

expression and pleasure./6

Indeed, most children’s inner reality is intact, their fantasy is

unbroken and it is from this inner life that true happiness results.

However, our culture has by and large replaced inner life with

outer consumption; it starves us through all the millions of images

it projects in our media, as when one’s mind is full of images that

are not coming from one’s inner reality, one has lost that inner life.

Lowen states:

The denial of inner reality is a form of mental illness./7

When we understand that, we see that we are collectively mad

in a consumer society; this may bring us back to focus inside again

and on our own body and its needs, as the point of departure for

developing our intrinsic creativeness.

Pleasure and creativity are dialectically related. Without

pleasure, there can be no creativity. Without a creative atti-

tude to life, there will be no pleasure. This dialectic stems

from the fact that both are positive aspects of life. An aliveperson is sensitive and creative. /19

When I talk about the ‘schizoid split’, I mean the split between

the mind and the body, or the left and right brain hemispheres, or

in other words, the splitting off of deductive and inductive logic.

While most adults think deductively, that is, from the mind to-

ward the body, the child thinks inductively, from the body toward

the mind. Lowen writes:

ALEXANDER LOWEN

297



Another simple truth that should be self-evident is that an

individual’s personality is expressed through his body as

much as through his mind. A person cannot be divided into

a mind and a body. Despite this truth, all studies of personal-

ity have concentrated on the mind to the relative neglect of

the body. /21

And here is the problem. As long as humans are split apart in

‘minds’ and ‘bodies’ and have lost their wholeness, their feeling

level doesn’t work, they are then living with a starved body and

starved emotions, and their emotional balance is out of order. This

is why then, these people become more and more violent. Here is

how this can be explained in bioenergetic terms:

The two functions that are most important in this regard are

breathing and movement. Both of these functions are disturbedin every person who has an emotional conflict by chronic

muscular tensions that are the physical counterpart of the

psychological conflicts. Through these muscular tensions

conflicts become structured in the body. When this happens,

they cannot be resolved until the tensions are released. To

release these muscular tensions one must feel them as a limi-

tation of self-expression. It is not enough to be aware of theirpain. And most people are not even aware of that. When a

muscular tension becomes chronic, it is removed from con-

sciousness, and one loses an awareness of the tension. /22

Feeling is determined by breathing and movement. An or-

ganism feels only that which moves within the body. For

example, when an arm is immobilized for a time, it becomes

numb and without feeling. To recapture the feeling its motil-

ity must be restored. The motility of the whole body is re-


298



duced when breathing is restricted. Thus, holding the breath

is the most effective way of cutting feeling. This principle

works in reverse, too. Just as strong emotions stimulate and

deepen one’s breathing, the stimulation and deepening of

respiration can evoke strong emotions. /22

Breathing cannot be dissociated from sexuality. Indirectly it

provides the energy for a sexual discharge. The heat of pas-

sion is one aspect of the metabolic fires, of which oxygen is

an important element. Since the metabolic processes provide

the energy for all living functions, the strength of the sexual

drive is ultimately determined by these processes. The depth

of respiration directly determines the quality of the sexual

discharge. Unitary or total breathing, a respiration that in-

volves the whole body, leads to an orgasm that includes the

whole body. /28

Hence, when the emotional flow is disturbed because the body

is armored and stiff, unable to fully breathe, both psychosomatic

disease and psychopathological behavior will set in.

This is why the contact with the body and natural pleasure is

so important, for it literally prevents violence as a ‘negative pleas-

ure function.’ Now, let me continue my reasoning on the patriar-

chal quest of ‘controlling life.’ Control brings about fear, and fear

restricts all bodily movements, it restricts freedom, free thinking,

and emotional vibrancy. The natural state is described by Lowen

in these terms:

A healthy personality is a vibrant personality. A healthy body is a pulsating and vibrant body. In the state of health

the body’s vibrations are relatively fine and steady, like the

hum of a smooth running automobile. When the motor in an

ALEXANDER LOWEN

299



automobile goes dead, we sense it by the absence of vibra-

tion. In a similar way, it can be said that individuals whose

bodies do not vibrate are emotionally dead. /34

It may seem surprising that spontaneity and self-control are,

despite their seeming contradiction, both facets of natural

motility. Self-control implies self-possession, which is the

attribute of a person who is in touch with his feelings and in

command of his movements. He has self-control because he

can choose how to express himself, since his motility is not

limited or constricted by chronic muscular tensions. He dif-

fers thereby from the controlled individual, the compulsive

personality, whose behavior is dictated by his tensions, and

from the impulsive individual, whose behavior is a reaction

to his tensions. It is a common experience in bioenergetic

therapy that the freer a person becomes in his movements,

the more self-control he gains. /40

Hence, inherent in nature is self-control; when we follow na-

ture, we do not need outside control, we do not need compulsive

morality and endless ‘sex laws’ to behave socially, without harm-

ing others. This is how building trust in life enhances this natural

self-control and restores pleasure and happiness.

Furthermore, Lowen explains that there is also a relationship

between pleasure and growth, which explains why youth is closer

to pleasure than old age; it’s because young people have a greater

capacity of excitement. He explains:

The secret of pleasure is hidden in the phenomenon of exci-tation. A living organism has the inherent capacity to hold

and increase its level of excitation; it does not change from

inertness to responsiveness, like a machine when its motor is


300



started or the current is turned on. There is a continuous

excitation in the living organism which increases or de-

creases in response to stimuli proceeding from the environ-

ment. Broadly speaking, an increase of excitation leads to

pleasure, a decrease to boredom and depression. /50

Lumination is also an aspect of excitation in living organ-

isms. We light up with pleasure, shine with joy, and glow

with ecstasy. /Id.

The lumination of the human body is surrounded by a ‘force

field’ which has been described as an aura or atmosphere. It

has been observed and commented on by many writers, in-

ALEXANDER LOWEN

301



cluding Paracelsus, Mesmer, Kilner, and Reich. My associate,

Dr. John C. Pierrakos, has made a special study of this phe-

nomenon for the past fifteen years. This field or aura can be

seen by the naked eye under certain conditions. It is shown

in early Renaissance paintings as a glow about the heads of

saints. /51

The field also pulsates, that is, it appears and disappears at

an average rate of fifteen to twenty-five times per minute

under normal conditions. The rate of pulsation, like the color

of the field, is related to the degree of excitation in the body.

When the body goes into involuntary vibratory movements

as a result of deeper respiration and more feeling, the rate of

pulsation may reach forty or fifty per minute: at the same

time, the width of the field extends farther, and its color be-

comes brighter. /51

Hence, the freedom of emotional flow is a bioenergetic fact as it

can be explained by a greater motility and vibrancy of the lumi-

nous energy field. Hence, when we follow nature and honor our

body and our desires, our luminous energy field will be strong

and vibrant, which means we are in a state of good health and our

body provides excellent immunitary response. But as our society

tries to direct us away from our bodies, we live in our egos and

are focused upon satisfying the needs of those blown-up egos,

through domestication and acquisitiveness, through ‘settling down’

in and switching, as it were, from dialogue to monologue—with

the result that our vibrancy declines.

Since the values of a mass society are success and power, the

person who accepts them becomes a mass individual and

loses his true individuality. He no longer thinks of himself as


302



a person apart from the crowd, since his primary interest is

to rise above the crowd. At the same time it is very impor-

tant to be accepted by the crowd. He abandons the discrimi-

nating attitude of the true individual in favor of conformity.

His behavior is oriented away from pleasure and toward

prestige; he becomes a status-seeker and a social climber.

What is worse is that these values infiltrate his home life.

They become the criteria by which he judges his children,

who must measure up by being both acceptable and out-

standing. /73

Power is antithetical to pleasure. It bears the same relation-

ship to pleasure that the ego does to the body. Pleasure stems

from the free flow of feeling or energy within the body and

between the body and the environment. Power develops

through the damming and control of energy. This describes

the basic distinction between the pleasure individual and the

power individual. Power develops from control and oper-

ates through control. It has no other mode of operation. /82

Parents use power to control their children because they

were similarly controlled when they were young. Having

been the objects of power, they are now determined to exer-

cise power even over their children, which is the easiest way

to exercise power. The exercise of power seems to restore, in

their minds the idea that they are individuals who have a

right to make demands and express them. /84

I haven’t discussed the whole of the book here as that would

go beyond the limits of a review. One thing is certain, without thebioenergetic way of thinking, which is the way nature itself ‘thinks’,

we wouldn’t be able to look behind the veil of our cultural distor-

ALEXANDER LOWEN

303



tions and we wouldn’t understand why we as a society are hyper-

violent and become more violent with each and every year. It is

that we turn down pleasure that we bring about violence, and for

no other reason.


304



The Language of the Body

Physical Dynamics and Character StructureHow the Body Reveals Personality

Alachua, Fl: Bioenergetic Press 1958/2003

It is noteworthy to see that Lowen wrote The Language of the Body before Pleasure:

A Creative Approach to Life , the book I discussed earlier. This present book is way

more theoretical. I admit it is also much more difficult to read. However, for

those who are interested in learning the mechanics of bioenergetic thinking, this

early work of a master healer is a must-read.

As Harris Friedman, PhD, writes in the Introduction:

For anyone wanting an in-depth exposure to the theoretical

underpinnings of bioenergetic analysis as a whole system,

ALEXANDER LOWEN

305



this is the book that I would unwaveringly recommend as a

starting place.

I have admittedly read Reich’s ‘Character Analysis’ already

back in the 1970s. Yet there is a difference between reading Reich’s

first attempts to build a characterological analysis, and this work

of one of his best disciples who has worked that early draft out

into a mature methodology. Here, as in my former review, I will as

well shortly outline the content headers of the chapters, for they

let us very clearly see the broad scope and the very systematic ap-

proach of the author to the topic.

! PART ONE

• Development of Analytic Techniques

• Somatic Aspect of Ego Psychology

! The Pleasure Principle

! The Reality Principle

! The Bioenergetic Concept of the Instincts

! Bioenergetic Principles in Analytic Therapy

! Character Analysis

! Character Formation and Structure

! PART TWO

• The Oral Character

• The Masochistic Character – 1

• The Masochistic Character – 2

• The Hysterical Character – 1


306



• The Hysterical Character – 2

• The Phallic-Narcissistic Character

• The Passive-Feminine Character

• The Schizophrenic Character

• The Schizoid Character

It may go without saying that I will not be able to discuss the

present book in the same depth as the former, because this would

be quite impossible to achieve, not only because I am not myself a

trained psychiatrist, but because most lay readers couldn’t see thelinking points between the different quotes, because of the concep-

tual barrier. It is for this reason that I have chosen to discuss here

only PART ONE, Point 5, ‘The Bioenergetic Concept of the In-

stincts’. This is of particular interest as Lowen draws a line to

Freudian psychoanalysis that is very important to observe. To be-

gin with, Lowen explains:

The impulse itself is an energy movement from the center of

the organism to the surface where it affects the relationships

ALEXANDER LOWEN

307



of the organism to the external world. This movement of

energy from center to periphery has two purposes or ends.

One is related to the function of charge, such as taking in

food, respiration, sexual excitement, etc. The other is related

to the function of energy discharge, the foremost expression

of which is the sexual discharge and reproduction. All activi-

ties can be classified according to this simple criterion; that

is, whether they fulfill the function of energy charge or

discharge./62

Hence, what Freud and early psychoanalysis called ‘the in-

stincts’ must not be confounded with the zoological definition of the

‘instinct’ in animals. It is a fallacy that Freud used the notion of

‘instinct’, while he defined it differently.

But only bioenergetic thinking made it possible that what

Freud wanted to express really became cognizable.

We are here confronting a simple dualism that marks all life

functions, it is charge and discharge , an energy metabolism in the

cell plasma. This is how we can cognize the energy nature of our

emotions and find ways to regulate them sanely, without blocking

them or replacing one emotion by another because we find the

latter ‘more acceptable’ than the former.

This metabolism also conveys that life is essentially a vibration

or oscillation where the constant balance of charge and discharge

creates a slightly waving ‘band’ on an oscillator. Now, to come

back at how Freud saw the ‘instincts’ and how he related the sex

drive to them, is controversial. Lowen bluntly states:

In … eros, Freud recognized the libido of the sexual instincts.

Originally the concept of libido was restricted to the energy


308







Our culture is very much influenced by Freud’s pseudoscien-

tific or outright mythical teaching, not by the real insights of bio-

energetics.

This is one of many reasons why the scientific achievements of

bioenergy research have not penetrated so far into our mass media

and remain a kind of hermetic professional knowledge. Lowen’s

books tear down the veil for those who want to know, how few

they may be …

ALEXANDER LOWEN

311



Terence McKenna

Books Reviewed

The Archaic Revival (1992)

Food of the Gods (1993)

The Invisible Landscape (1993)



Terence McKenna (1946-2000) spent twenty-five years in ex-

ploring ‘the ethnopharmacology of spiritual transformation’ and

is as a specialist in the ethnomedicine of the Amazon basin. He is

coauthor, with his brother Dennis, of The Invisible Landscape: Mind,

Hallucinogens, and the I Ching , and author of the forthcoming Food

of the Gods.

—From: The Archaic Revival (Back Cover)

Reviews of The Archaic Revival

Scholar, theoretician, explorer, dreamer, pioneer, fanatic, and

spellbinder, as well as ontological tailor, McKenna combines

an erudite, if somewhat original, overview of history with a

genuinely visionary approach to the millennium. The result

is a cyclone of unorthodox ideas capable of lifting almost

any brain out of its cognitive Kansas.

—Tom Robbins, from the Foreword

As wordsmith and logos laser [McKenna] stews his concep-

tional imagination in language so potent that doors open

into evolutionary destiny and possible worlds. A radically

innovative natural philosophy is offered here, one that in-

spires a new ecology of inner and outer space.

—Jean Houston, PhD, Director, Foundation for Mind Research ,

author of The Possible Human and The Search for the Beloved

[McKenna's] ideas are rare jewels discovered during expedi-

tions to the heights and depths of inner space. (…) The Ar-

chaic Revival is flammable to the drybrush and deadwood of

the intellect. In the twilight of human history, McKenna’s

prescription for salvation is just so crazy it might work.

—Alex Grey, artist, author of Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art

of Alex Grey

TERENCE MCKENNA

313



The three McKenna books I have chosen to review are jewels

both in their quality as literary oeuvres and their value as testimo-

nies of one of the greatest mind explorers of our times.


314



The Archaic Revival

Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFO’s,Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess and the End of History

San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1992

In The Archaic Revival, McKenna lays the groundwork for something like a psy-

chedelic culture, a society based on new values.

In the etiology of the group alienation that is so typical for our

culture, the author detects a basic denial of ecstasy.

McKenna’s views are deliberately political in the sense that he

claims nobody can develop a sane mind within an insane culture,

without rejecting that culture in the first place:

TERENCE MCKENNA

315



In addition to choosing to repress the strange abilities of the

shaman and the psychic potential of contact with the Other,

Western tradition has a built-in bias against self experimen-

tation with hallucinogens. One of the consequences of this is

that not enough has been written about the phenomenology

of personal experiences with the visionary hallucinogens./3

I am a political activist, but I think that the first duty of a

political activist is to become psychedelic. Otherwise you’re

not making your moves cognizant of the entire field of

action./13

There is a parallel here with Krishnamurti who had a similar

position with the difference only that he did not endorse psyche-

delics. But K is quoted to have said that ‘it is not a proof of mental

health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’ McKennasees no way around the citizen’s perversity than by ‘civilizing’

him or her psychedelically, while Krishnamurti sees the way out

through total attention:

So the issue finally comes down to the citizen versus the self.

The citizen is an extremely limited definition of human po-

tential. The self is a definition of human potential so broad

that it threatens the obligations of the citizen./12

When we give a primacy to the self, the individual, and hence

see society or the group as secondary, we still can build group

values from such a starting point, and we can build them with ec-

stasy as a primary value in place. This is exactly the outcome ofmy own shamanism research, and I have found no other author


316



who saw this with an even remotely similar lucidity as Terence

McKenna. He writes:

Shamanism is use of the archaic techniques of ecstasy that

were developed independent of any religious philosophy—

the empirically validated, experientially operable techniques

that produce ecstasy. Ecstasy is the contemplation of whole-

ness. That’s why when you experience ecstasy—when you

contemplate wholeness—you come down remade in terms

of the political and social arena because you have seen the

larger picture./13

When we ask what shamanism is we need to focus our re-

search on the shaman as the central figure. The shaman is a mind-

alterer, a reality-shifter, a magician, and at the same time, a healer.

But he’s an outcast nonetheless, and this is his crux:

So it is the form of the mind that the shaman works with: he

has a larger view because he is not really in his culture. (…)

The shaman may appear a member of the culture, but he’s

broader, deeper, higher, and wider than the culture that cre-

ated him./14

As a culture-founder and ‘psychedelic’ politician, McKenna

asked who or what is going to be supportive of his quest? He de-

cided that shamanism was part of this special branch of popular

culture he became the spokesman of. Then, he discussed why he

did not embrace Buddhism as a religion, and his answer is conclu-

sive and makes sense:

I think of Mahayana Buddhism, the multileveled, many-

inhabited, demon-haunted, Buddha-haunted realms of peace

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and joy. The insistence of Mahayana Buddhism that there is

really no center, that everything is a construct of time and

space, is the most sophisticated psychology. But I’m not will-

ing to climb aboard the Buddhist ethic because Buddhism

says suffering is inevitable. That’s not a psychedelic point of

view./17

I always thought that the Buddha was judging life instead of em-

bracing life, and this is pretty much a cultural bias in the whole of

Indian philosophy. The ‘psychedelic’ sage, and there is wide

agreement here, is definitely not somebody who judges life, but

who embraces life. But McKenna’s critical stance on religion is

more general than that:

Unfortunately, religion for the past five hundred years has

been a hierarchical pyramid at whose top were theologiansinterpreting dogma. This interpretation was handed down

through a hierarchy to the faithful. I think religious hierar-

chies are very unsettled by the idea of direct revelation.

Nevertheless, this phenomenon is certainly thriving in pre-

literate cultures all over the world. We discovered in dealing

with this that the only people you could talk to about it or

who seemed to have familiarity with it were shamans./28

Now, we got shamanism and the spirits of nature in our cul-

tural soup, and we got no religion besides nature’s religions, and

direct perception as our awareness paradigm. But what is miss-

ing? McKenna puts a unique stress on language, and the evolution

of language through psychedelics, as an essential characteristic ofhis new, and yet perennial, cultural paradigm.


318



And this is certainly part of what the psychedelics are about:

they force the evolution of language. And no culture, so far

as I am aware, has ever consciously tried to evolve its lan-

guage with the awareness that evolving language was evolv-

ing reality. (…) The social consequence of the psychedelic

experience is clear thinking—which trickles down as clear

speech. Empowered speech./21

McKenna’s detractors cunningly argue that his highly refined

use of language was not the result of psychedelics but of his Irish

tradition, and that he was using his obvious literary talent for mak-

ing up a cultural pretension, as a matter of show, and for establish-

ing his particular niche in popular culture.

It is true that McKenna had the ability to render complex and

convoluted speeches with a crystal-clear ‘premeditated’ logic, that,

as his voice is rather monotonous, suggests someone reading from

an invisible book in front of his eyes. I haven’t seen or heard any-

thing comparable in my life. This being said, it seems obvious that

McKenna, when molding his cultural Pygmalion cannot rely on

proven theories, but proceeds by drafting hypotheses, such as the

following one, that bears however some anthropological backup:

Anthropologists have commented on the absence of serious

mental disease in many preliterate cultures. I believe that the

mediation of the shaman and through him the contact to the

centering Logos, this source of information or gnosis, is

probably the cause of this ability to heal or minimize psycho-

logical disorders./29

The open question is if this ability of the shaman to seize the

‘Centering Logos’ for healing purposes requires a culture to be

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preliterate? The question hits home because in my unique experi-

ence with Ayahuasca in 2004, the plant intelligence communicated

to me that I was more or less unable to perceiving reality directly,

and that this atrophy had come about through the strong language

training I had received, so that language had become in my life an

obstacle to the real understanding of nature, and nature’s wisdom.

Thus, my psychedelic experience seems to confirm McKenna’s

view that language is in the way of understanding nature whenit’s not transformed, modulated ‘psychedelically’, and rendered a

philosopher’s stone through the unique alchemy of entheogens

impacting, over long periods of time, on our mindbody chemistry.

And this, in turn, is exactly what McKenna has summarized as

the essential in the Archaic Revival. It is his mind-boggling assump-

tion that only through psychedelics humankind was able to build

civilization, and that originally entheogens were really laid in our

cultural cradle, and have served over millennia their good pur-

pose, until exactly the moment when in the 20th century, our para-

noid leaders put them on the index of ‘forbidden plants.’ In his

book Food of the Gods , McKenna lucidly comments on this prohibi-

tion with the words that ‘the notion of illegal plants is obnoxious

and ridiculous in the first place.’ And he points to the degree of

barbarous misinformation and anti-cultural propaganda that this


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this cultural denial has brought us, with the result that civiliza-

tion, from that moment, was in a backward trend:

Psilocybin, in the minds of the uninformed public and in the

eyes of the law, is lumped together with LSD and mescaline,

when in fact each of these compounds is a phenomenologi-

cally defined universe unto itself. Psilocybin and DMT in-

voke the Logos, although DMT is more intense and more

brief in its action. This means that they work directly on the

language centers, so that an important aspect of the experi-

ence is the interior dialogue./36

Interestingly enough, McKenna shows a parallel of this 20th

century anti-psychedelic paranoia with the former worldview un-

der Christianity that regarded any wisdom from nature as diabolic

and abject, and that destroyed much of the direct knowledge thatancient civilizations possessed about life:

The Stropharia cubensis mushroom, if one can believe what

it says in one of its moods, is a symbiote, and it desires ever

deeper symbiosis with the human species. It achieved sym-

biosis with human society early by associating itself with

domesticated cattle and through them human nomads. Likethe plants men and women grew and the animals they hus-

banded, the mushroom was able to inculcate itself into the

human family, so that where human genes went these other

genes would be carried. But the classic mushroom cults of

Mexico were destroyed by the coming of the Spanish con-

quest. The Franciscans assumed they had an absolute mo-

nopoly on theophagy, the eating of God; yet in the NewWorld they came upon people calling a mushroom teo-

nanacatl, the flesh of the gods; yet in the New World they

came upon people calling a mushroom teonanacatl, the flesh

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of the gods. They set to work, and the Inquisition was able to

push the old religion into the mountains of Oaxaca so that it

only survived in a few villages when Valentina and Gordon

Wasson found it there in the 1950s./40

Our symbiosis with the Other , that unique intelligence which

speaks through psychedelic mushrooms, and that is accessible

through their ritualistic ingestion, McKenna argues, was cut, as

through still another cultural circumcision we were subjected to,on the basis of spiritual dominance taken as religion, and as a mat-

ter of power abuse and tyranny.

Ignorance burned the libraries of the Hellenistic world at an

earlier period and dispersed the ancient knowledge, shatter-

ing the stellar and astronomical machinery that had been the

work of centuries. By ignorance I mean the Hellenistic-Christian-Judaic tradition. The inheritors of this tradition

built a triumph of mechanism. It was they who later realized

the alchemical dreams of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuri-

es—and the twentieth century—with the transformation of

elements and the discovery of gene transplants. But then,

having conquered the New World and driven its people into

cultural fragmentation and diaspora, they came unexpect-edly upon the body of Osiris—the condensed body of Eros—

in the mountains of / Mexico where Eros has retreated at the

coming of the Christos. And by finding the mushroom, they

unleashed it./40-41

I have forwarded the point of view, and I am not the only one,

that psychoanalysis was meant to be, from the start, more than a

medical technique, but had, especially in its Freudian vintage, a

strong underlying idea of shamanism to it. The importance of the


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shaman as an integrative and sacred figure in a highly technologi-

cally alienated culture such as ours is obvious. McKenna writes:

The tragedy of our cultural situation is that we have no

shamanic tradition. Shamanism is primarily techniques, not

ritual. It is a set of techniques that have been worked out

over millennia that make it possible, though perhaps not for

everyone, to explore these areas. People of predilection are

noticed and encouraged. In archaic societies where shaman-

ism is a thriving institution, the signs are fairly easy to rec-

ognize: oddness and uniqueness in an individual. /45

Among aspiring shamans there must be some sign of inner

strength or a hypersensitivity to trance states. In traveling

around the world and dealing with shamans, I find the dis-

tinguishing characteristic is an extraordinary centeredness.

Usually the shaman is an intellectual and is alienated from

society. A good shaman sees exactly who you are and says,

Ah, here’s somebody to have a conversation with. The an-

thropological literature always presents shamans as embed-

ded in a tradition, but once one gets to know them they are

always very sophisticated about what they are doing. They

are the true phenomenologists of this world; they know

plant chemistry, yet they call these energy fields spirits./Id.

The integrative philosophy that McKenna’s Archaic Revival repre-

sents and that we are the inheritors of, after the passing away of

its creator requires us to build relationships between phenomena

we don’t usually think of as related.

McKenna teaches that this synthetic view of the universe is

immensely facilitated through what he calls the ‘mediation’ of the

plant teachers:

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A voice that gave guidance and revelation to Western civili-

zation has been silent for about seventeen hundred years.

This is the Logos and all ancient philosophers strove to in-

voke it. For Hellenistic / philosophy it was a voice that told

self-evident truth. With the passing of the Aeon and the

death of the pagan gods, awareness of this phenomenon

faded. However, it is still available through the mediation of

the plant teachers. If we could intelligently examine dimen-

sions that the psychedelic plants make available, we could

contact the Oversoul and leave behind this era where domi-

nance hierarchies must be disciplined by UFOs and messi-

ahs, and where progress is halted for millennia because cul-

ture cannot advance ethics at the same rate as technology.

/61-62

In fact, contrary to many who claim their Ayahuasca experi-

ence was but a spectacle of colorful visions, I can testify as a direct

witness of what McKenna writes about the Logos coming through

as an intelligence or plant teacher, manifesting in the psychedelic

state as an immediately present telepathic voice and response-giver that

teaches a wisdom not from this earth. And it has taught me a wis-

dom, not general, but very much tailored to my own needs, telling

me through direct insight that I needed to give love instead of

waiting to receive love from others, and that by doing so without

wavering in my attitude, I could overcome the pitfall of percep-

tion that my overindulgence of language-related thinking has

brought about. From 2004 to 2007, and thus within three consecu-

tive years, I have fundamentally changed not only concepts and

relationships, but also my daily life and habits, and there are no

more depressions, no more outbursts of hate and violence, no


324



more sad remembrances of my terrible childhood, and I have sim-

ply become wiser in all I think and do.

McKenna’s vision of the Archaic Revival targets at the creation

of nothing less but a psychedelic science, while he localized him-

self to be an avatar in the creation of that science, in similar ways

as our technological explorers some centuries back on the road of

technological progress, only that this progress will not be frag-

mented, but holistic:

The early approach with psychedelics was the correct one.

This is the notion that intelligent, thoughtful people should

take psychedelics and try and understand what’s going on.

Not groups of prisoners, not graduate students, but mature,

intelligent people need to share their experiences. It’s too

early for a science. What we need now are the diaries of ex-

plorers. We need many diaries of many explorers so we can

begin to get a feeling for the territory./69

And as a parallel movement with the creation of that psyche-

delic science that McKenna envisions, he predicts the ultimate en-

counter with the Other, whenever on a timeline of events this may

occur:

Eventually this contact will occur. We are now in the pubes-

cent stage of yearning, of forming an image of the thing de-

sired. This image of the thing desired will eventually cause

that thing come into being. In other words, our cultural di-

rection is being touched by the notion of / alien love, and it

comes to us through the rebirth of the use of plant hallu-cinogens. The shamanic vision plants seem to be the carriers

of this pervasive entelechy that speaks and that can present

itself to us in this particular way. (…) The appetite for this

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325



fusion is what is propelling global culture toward an apoca-

lyptic transformation. (…) But it could also slip away. We

could harden; there are dominator, hypertechnological fu-

tures that we could sail toward and realize. That would

eliminate this possibility of opening to the Other./73-74

While McKenna seems to see this encounter with the Other a

bit in the way of science fiction novels, as a spectacular one-time

event, described by some as the proverbial ‘UFO landing on theground of the White House’, he acknowledges, what can be called

a consensus now, that this Presence, this Other does not need to

come here, because the eternal present aligns all dimensions as

superpositions, and not in horizontal space. But what is the bar-

rier, then, between them and us? According to McKenna, it is lan-

guage, and it’s by the evolution of language that we are going toget over the fence and face the Other:

As human history goes forward, we develop the linguistic

discrimination to be able to recognize the extraterrestrials

that are already insinuated into the planetary environment

around us, some of which may have been here millions and

millions of years. In other words, space is not an imperme-able barrier to life; there is slow drift. There is genetic mate-

rial that is transferred through space and time over vast

distances./80

Let me come to the end of this rather extended book review

with a brief discussion of Novelty Theory, and what McKenna says

about it in this book. Timewave Zero or Novelty Theory is a graph-

based mathematical construct that depicts novelty in the universe

as an inherent property of time. The idea was initiated by Terence


326



McKenna in the 1970s and was worked out mathematically by the

Swiss mathematician Peter Meyer. It is a wild and unconfirmed

assumption when Wikipedia assumes that ‘the theory lacks any

credible basis in peer-reviewed science and is generally dismissed

as pseudoscience’. In personal correspondence with Meyer, I was

informed that the theory basically is to be explained with the frac-

tal nature of time; when novelty is graphed over time, a fractal

waveform known as Timewave Zero results. The graph shows at

what times novelty is increasing or decreasing. Now, this is what

McKenna comments on the theory in the present book:

What is happening to our world is ingression of novelty to-

ward what Whitehead called concrescence, a tightening

gyre. Everything is flowing together. The autopoietic lapis,

the alchemical stone at the end of time, coalesces when eve-rything flows together. When the laws of physics are obvi-

ated, the universe disappears, and what is left is the tightly

bound plenum, the monad, able to express itself for itself,

rather than only able to cast a shadow into physis as its re-

flection. I come very close here to classical millenarian and

apocalyptic thought in my view of the rate at which change

is accelerating. From the way the gyre is tightening, I predictthat concrescence will occur soon—around 2012 A.D. It will

be the entry of our species into hyperspace, but it will ap-

pear to be the end of physical laws accompanied by the re-

lease of the mind into the imagination./101

Novelty, then, is put forward as a primary term necessary to

a description of any temporal system much in the way thatspin, velocity, and angular momentum are primary terms

necessary to the description of any physical system. Syno-

TERENCE MCKENNA

327



nyms for novelty are degree of connectedness or complexity.

/109


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Food of the Gods

The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge:A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution

Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishers, 1993

Food of the Gods of perhaps the best book Terence McKenna has written, and I

have read it with an enthusiastic participation that I have rarely experienced in

my literary life. It was as if I was co-authoring the book while reading it.

And this book is much more coherent than The Archaic Revival,

and much less esoteric than The Invisible Landscape—the book I

shall review next. In fact, it treats a very important subject that israther obfuscated in modern times: food. When I say obfuscated I

really mean that most modern city dwellers have developed no

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consciousness of what they ingest on a daily basis; they are just

gnawing away their very juice of life, with all the toxics that mod-

ern processed food contains. While in ancient times food was medi-

cine. You still have this philosophy in the Chinese food tradition

where there are many dishes, for example a whole array of mush-

room dishes, that originally were concocted for medical purposes

but that today we eat just for enriching our daily diet. There is one

rather esoteric dish among them, that is called the ‘black chicken.’

The interesting thing about this dish is that while you can buy

these small black chickens in any supermarket in Asia, the other

ingredients you best don’t buy there, but in a Chinese medical

pharmacy. They will open a number of little drawers for you and

put on a sheet of paper a curious composition of mushrooms,

herbs, spices and dried plums that you take home for a few cents.Now, you brew this with water, and just put some salt. You

cannot imagine what this dish can do! It cures any cold, influenza

or cough—guaranteed! The taste is exotic, it really tastes like

medicine, and the red meat of this little black chicken really has a

good taste. This is the way to enjoy life as the ancients did: you eat

what you like, but you eat medicine at the same time.

McKenna’s mind was incredibly lucid for unveiling the machi-

nations of our negative oversoul, and I wonder if any of his predic-

tions are understood by a larger number of people, other than the

eternal adolescent-minded and hopelessly narcissistic baby boom-

ers that surrounded him like a plague all through his life, and that

surely will not have the necessary strength to assume his heritage.

He writes:


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Our culture, self-toxified by the poisonous by-products of

technology and egocentric ideology, is the unhappy inheritor

of the dominator attitude that alteration of consciousness by

the use of plants or substances is somehow wrong, onanistic,

and perversely antisocial. I will argue that suppression of

shamanic gnosis, with its reliance and insistence on ecstatic

dissolution of the ego, has robbed us of life’s meaning and

made us enemies of the planet, of ourselves, and our grand-

children. We are killing the planet in order to keep intact the

wrongheaded assumptions of the ego-dominator cultural

style. It is time for change./xxi

Food and mind do interact: this is the essential message of this

book. And there is one more link to it. Food acts on sexuality, and

sexuality acts in turn on the mind. This is not an insight unique to

McKenna’s food research but many studies have shown that alco-hol abuse has a particular effect on sexuality in that it renders the

sexual appetite more violent, more sadistic, or else leads to impo-

tence. McKenna speaks of an ‘alcohol culture’ and a little later he

also speaks of a ‘coffee culture’ so as to characterize, in terms of

food, our patriarchal tradition:

Dominator style hatred of women, general sexual ambiva-

lence and anxiety, and alcohol culture conspired to create the

peculiarly neurotic approach to sexuality that characterizes

European civilization. Gone are the boundary-dissolving

hallucinogenic orgies that diminished the ego of the indi-

vidual and reasserted the values of the extended family and

the tribe./148

On the other hand, the current demonization of the harmless

hallucinogenic Cannabis will in the author’s opinion cause us a

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particularly heavy price to pay for the surrender to dominator

values in that it will bring about the deterioration of the individ-

ual self, and selfhood:

Of all the pandemic plant intoxicants inhabiting the earth,

cannabis is second only to mushrooms in its promotion ofthe social values and sensory ratios that typified the original

partnership societies. How else are we to explain the unre-

lenting persecution of cannabis use in the face of over-

whelming evidence that, of all the intoxicants ever used,

cannabis is among the most benign. Its social consequences

are negligible compared with those of alcohol. Cannabis is

anathema to the dominator culture because it deconditionsor decouples users from accepted values. Because of its sub-

liminally psychedelic effect, cannabis, when pursued as a

lifestyle, places a person in intuitive contact with less goal-

oriented and less competitive behavior patterns. For these

reasons marijuana is unwelcome in the modern office envi-

ronment, while a drug such as coffee, which reinforces the

values of industrial culture, is both welcomed and encour-aged. Cannabis use is correctly sensed as heretical and

deeply disloyal to the values of male dominance and strati-

fied hierarchy. Legalization of marijuana is thus a complex


332





Sugar is culturally defined by us as a food. This definition

denies that sugar can act as a highly addictive drug, yet the

evidence is all around us. Many children and compulsive

eaters live in a motivational environment primarily ruled by

mood swings resulting from cravings for sugar./180

Then, eventually, we talk about tobacco and the myth of its

cancerogenous nature that not only McKenna has unveiled in the

meantime, but also a number of other researchers:

The tobacco of the Classical Maya was Nicotiana rustica,

which is still in use among aboriginal populations in South

America today. This species is much more potent, chemically

complex, and potentially hallucinogenic than the commercial

grades of Nicotiana tabacum available today. The difference

between this tobacco and cigarette tobacco is profound. This

wild tobacco was cured and rolled into cigars which were

smoked. The / trancelike state that followed, partially syn-

ergized by the presence of compounds that included MAO

inhibitors, was central to the shamanism of the Maya. Re-

cently introduced antidepressants of the MAO inhibitor type

are distant synthetic relatives to these natural compounds.

/196-197

Opium addiction was once the price paid for the prohibition of

tobacco, as addiction to gasoline has been seen to be one of the

consequences of alcohol prohibitions both in 1930s America and in

Iran under the reign of Ayatollah Khomeini. As a general rule, you

can observe in life that every denial brings about worse a condition

compared to the original desire that was denied to manifest. Only

that our decision-makers have so far not fully understood this law

of the psyche. McKenna writes:


334



It was the prohibition of tobacco smoking in China by the

last emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1628-1644) that led frus-

trated tobacco addicts to experiment with smoking opium.

Before that time the smoking of opium was not known. Thus

it is that the suppression of one drug seems inevitably to

lead to involvement with another. /201

So much depends on how we define food, or not define it as

food! Psychedelics were originally defined as food, and no one

had a problem with them. And the suppression of culture and the

suppression of food go hand in hand, as McKenna lucidly demon-

strates:

Psychedelic plants and experience were first suppressed by

European civilization, then ignored and forgotten. The

fourth century witnessed the suppression of the mysteryreligions—the cults of Bacchus and Diana, of Attis and Cy-

bele. The rich syncretism that was typical of the Hellenistic

world had become a thing of the past. Christianity tri-

umphed over the Gnostic sects—Valentinians, Marcionites,

and others—which were the last bastions of paganism. These

repressive episodes in the evolution of Western thought ef-

fectively close the door on communication with the Gaianmind./223

I would like to close this book review with a reproduction of

McKenna’s unique law draft, which he entitled ‘A Modest Pro-

posal’, and hope that the publisher will allow me to share this in-

formation here, which is surely not destined to preclude any book

sales, and in the contrary encourage the reader to buy the book:

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335



A drug policy of democratic values would aim to educate

people to make informed choices based on their own needs

and ideals. Such a simple prescription is necessary and sadly

overdue. / A master plan for seriously seeking to come to

terms with America’s drug problems might explore a num-

ber of options, including the following.

1. A 200 percent federal tax should be imposed on tobacco

and alcohol. All government subsidies for tobacco produc-tion should be ended. Warnings on packaging should be

strengthened. A 20 percent federal sales tax should be levied

on sugar and sugar substitutes, and all supports for sugar

production should be ended. Sugar packages should also

carry warnings, and sugar should be a mandatory topic in

school nutrition curricula.

2. All forms of cannabis should be legalized and a 200 per-

cent federal sales tax imposed on cannabis products. Infor-

mation as to the THC content of the product and current

conclusions regarding its impact on health should be printed

on the packaging.

3. International Monetary Fund and World Bank lending

should be withdrawn from countries that produce hard


336



drugs. Only international inspection and certification that a

country is in compliance would restore loan eligibility.

4. Strict gun control must apply to both manufacture and

possession. It is the unrestricted availability of firearms that

has made violent crime and the drug abuse problem so inter-

twined.

5. The legality of nature must be recognized, so that all

plants are legal to grow and possess.

6. Psychedelic therapy should be made legal and insurance

coverage extended to include it.

7. Currency and banking regulations need to be strength-

ened. Presently bank collusion with criminal cartels allows

large-scale money laundering to take place.

8. There is an immediate need for massive support for scien-

tific research into all aspects of substance use and abuse and

an equally massive commitment to public education.

9. One year after implementation of the above, all drugs still

illegal in the United States should be decriminalized. The

middleman is eliminated, the government can sell drugs at

cost plus 200 percent, and those monies can be placed in a

special fund to pay the social, medical, and educational costs

of the legalization program. Money from taxes on alcohol,

tobacco, sugar, and cannabis can also be placed in this fund.

TERENCE MCKENNA

337



10. Also following this one-year period, pardons should be

given to all offenders in drug cases that did not involve fire-

arms or felonious assault./269-270


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The Invisible Landscape

Mind Hallucinogens and the I ChingNew York: HarperCollins, 1993

The Invisible Landscape is the most esoteric of the three McKenna books reviewed

here. Many of the topics he treats in his other books, he treats here as well, but he

presents them under a slightly different light, or in more subtle language.

His standard theme psychedelics, for example, assumes a new

dimension, together with his regard upon science:

Psychedelic drugs have always been and remain the most

useful molecular probes available to science for exploringthe relationship between the subjective experience of mind

and neurobiological processes./Preface XIX

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Despite its pretensions to objectivity, science, like any other

human institution, places a certain vested interest in its own

self-preservation; thus it is likely to be less than enthusiastic,

if not openly hostile, toward any investigative strategy that

could potentially call its most basic assumptions in question.

/Id.

I have pointed out in my review of McKenna’s Archaic Revival

that he envisioned a future ‘psychedelic’ science which I believe

will be a holistic science that uses the psychedelic experience for

the progress and true spiritual evolution of the human. Presently,

he adds on another element to this broad vision, which is exactly

what I call the holistic direction this science will be going to take:

It may be that the psychedelic experience cannot be under-

stood using only the reductionist models of science, and thatonly by a conscious unification of the reductionist, analytical

methods of science with the holistic, nonanalytical approach

of the shaman can we hope to understand, appreciate, and

apply the lessons learned from such experiences./Id.

The next element in McKenna’s vision would be the applica-

tion of psychedelics to healing. The idea of psychoanalysis being a

potential adaptation of shamanism to modern society is not new,

and it does not originate from McKenna. It has been voiced by

Freud rather early in its creational process of psychoanalysis, and

by other psychoanalysts of the closer Freudian circle.

But McKenna smartly fits the idea into his holistic vision of an

‘enlightenment’ of modern culture through shamanism, at some

point in the future. He points out:


340





physics concerns the smaller processes, which are likewise

organisms, in that they experience a reference to things past,

immediate, and future. For the primary organisms, we ob-

serve this relation as a factor in its external aspects; for our-

selves, we observe it as an element of our psychological field

of awareness. But if we experience, in experiencing ourselves

as process, our essential relatedness to other processes in

other times and places, are we justified in denying this expe-

rience to other, primary organisms?/39-40

To stay with the subject of science philosophy, McKenna has

given in this book an important contribution to the present discus-

sion of what has been called the Holographic Universe (Talbot), the

Conscious Universe (Radin) or the Unfolding Universe (Bohm).

The holographic theory is only one of many ‘puzzles’ that are

concisely presented and commented by Ervin Laszlo in his study

Science and the Akashic Field (2005) which I have reviewed in The

New Paradigm in Science and Systems Theory (2014). I myself think

that there are many natural phenomena that are best explained

when we grasp the notion of hologram-like coding in nature.

The unformed archetypes of the collective unconscious may be the holographic substrate of the species’ mind. Each indi-

vidual and mind-brain is then like a fragment of the total

hologram; but, in accordance with holographic principles,

each fragment contains the whole. It will be remembered

that each part of a hologram can reconstruct an entire image,

but that the details of the image will deteriorate in propor-

tion to its fragmentation, while the overstructure will re-main. Out of this feature of holography arises the quality of

individual point of view and, in fact, individuality itself. If

each mind is a holographic medium, then each is contiguous


342



with every other, because of the ubiquitous distribution of

information in a hologram. Each individual mind would

thus be a representation of the ‘essence’ of reality, but the

details could not be resolved until the fragments of the col-

lective hologram were joined./51

Confronted with certain holographic qualities as a feature of

both mind and brain, it seems reasonable to ask whether

holographic principles are found on other levels of organiza-

tion. We can find this most apparently in the organismic

realm, in the fact of the ubiquity and redundancy of DNA.

We refer to the fact that DNA seems to store information

holographically, in that the nucleotide sequence of the mole-

cule is identical in every cell of a given organism. The DNA

from one cell theoretically contains all the information nec-

essary to regenerate the entire organism./52

TERENCE MCKENNA

343



Ralph Metzner (Ed.)

Ayahuasca

Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature

New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999

Ayahuasca is a fascinating reader presenting personal experiences with the sacred

Ayahuasca brew, and it’s a most valuable resource for both researchers and those

interested in a spiritual voyage.



In addition to this invaluable source material, the introduction

and comments by the editor of the book, Ralph Metzner, a widely

acclaimed authority on shamanism and entheogens, are precious

and well-written. The book throughout is very readable; there is

no ethnobotanic gibberish, and the editor has mastered the task to

unite different energies into a powerful laser.

I had an immense interest and pleasure reading this book, and

it captivated me page after page. It is an absolute must-have in apersonal growth library, in a spiritual library, in a library about

tribal peoples, in an ethnobotanic library, and in a specialized li-

brary about shamanism. Ralph Metzner writes in the introduction:

Ayahuasca is widely recognized by anthropologists as being

probably the most powerful and most widespread shamanic

hallucinogen. In the tribal societies where these plants andplant preparations are used, they are regarded as embodi-

ments of conscious intelligent beings that only become visi-

ble in special states of consciousness, and who can function

as spiritual teachers and sources of healing power and

knowledge (...) The plants are referred to as medicines, a

term that means more than a drug: something like a healing

power or energy that can be associated with a plant, a per-son, an animal, even a place. They are also referred to as

plant teachers and there are still extant traditions of many-

years-long initiations and trainings in the use of these

medicines./3

Some people, and among them many skeptics, ask why one

who is not part of such a culture and who is not an ethnobotanist

should have an interest in engaging in a plant-induced spiritual

quest? Ralph Metzner gives a clear answer:

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

345



A powerful resurgence of respectful and reverential attitudes

toward the living Earth and all its creatures seems to be a

natural consequence of explorations with visionary plant

teachers./4

Terence McKenna emphasized in all his books another impor-

tant aspect of psychedelics: their boundary-dissolving nature. Pa-

triarchy is unique in human history in its obsessional and neurotic

striving for setting boundaries, putting up limits, erecting fences,dividing naturally grown landscapes, dissecting bodies for ‘vivi-

section’, splitting the atom, dividing life and nature into ‘white-

god’ and ‘black-devil’, and so on and so forth. We won’t get rid of

our patriarchal tradition by a magic stroke of destiny nor by rebel-

lion. The way to go is to overcome the boundaries and gain access

to the whole.With erecting a divider between man and nature, our culture

has developed a schizoid and delusional fantasy of man being

‘superior’ in creation, having ‘dominion’ over nature, obviously

forgetting that we own our very existence to this nature that we

tend to condemn as low and unspiritual. In the run of patriarchy,

and thus since the last five thousand years, the really destructive

and life-denying ideology was not coming from Sumer, Babylon

or Rome, but from the suffocating ethics of puritanical fundamen-

talism. This cultural perversion lasted a few hundred years, and

perhaps we are now at a turning point? Metzner notes:

Over the past two millennia Western civilization has increas-ingly developed patterns of domination based on the as-

sumption of human superiority. The dominator pattern has


346



involved the gradual desacralization, objectification and ex-

ploitation of all nonhuman nature./5

And by doing so, to paraphrase Thomas Moore’s Care of the

Soul (1994)—which I am going to review next, we have created a

cultural narcissism without equal in human history. For the scien-

tist and explorer of consciousness, there are other values con-

nected with the quest of getting back in touch with the spirits of

nature. Metzner notes:

As a result of the conflict between the Christian church and

the new experimental science of Newton, Galileo, Descartes,

and others, a dualistic worldview was created. On the one

hand was science, which confined itself to material objects

and measurable forces. Anything having to do with purpose,

value, morality, subjectivity, psyche, or spirit, was the do-main of religion, and science stayed out of it. Inner experi-

ences, subtle perceptions and spiritual values were not con-

sidered amenable to scientific study and came therefore to be

regarded as inferior forms of reality—merely subjective as

we say. This encouraged a purely mechanistic and myopi-

cally detached attitude towards the natural world. Percep-

tion of and communication with the spiritual essences andintelligences inherent in nature have regularly been regarded

with suspicion, or ridiculed as misguided enthusiasm or

mysticism./6

Now, as to the question of how plant-derived psychedelics

work and what they do to human consciousness, Ralph Metzner

summarizes some of the current theories or metaphors:

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

347



Two analogies or metaphors for the drug experience have

been repeatedly used by writers both in the psycholytic and

psychedelic paradigms. One is the amplifier analogy, accord-

ing to which the drug functions as a nonspecific amplifier of

psychic contents. The amplification may occur in part as a

result of a lowering of sensory thresholds, an opening of the

doors of perception, and may in part be due to as yet not

understood central processes involving one or more neuro-

transmitters. The other analogy is the microscope metaphor:

it has repeatedly been said that psychedelics could play the

same role in psychology as the microscope does in biology—

opening up realms and processes of the human mind to di-

rect, repeatable, verifiable observation that have hitherto

been largely hidden or inaccessible. Both amplifier and mi-

croscope are technological metaphors for expanded percep-

tion and divination—the ability to see and hear more vividly,

to see into other, normally invisible worlds or dimensions,

and to obtain otherwise hidden knowledge./24-25

One aspect that ethnology may have overlooked in shamanic

cultures is their real—and not just fantasmatic—knowledge about

healing with plants, a knowledge so vast, and so deep that, with-

out having any technological instruments of inquiry at their dis-position, seemed a sheer impossibility to many researchers.

As a result, many of them brushed this knowledge off as non-

sense, exaggeration or myth. Now, modern research has shown

that all is real, but at the same time researchers became even more

strongly aware of the impossibility of it. The only hypothesis that

could explain it was the one actually forwarded by the natives

themselves: that they receive their knowledge directly from the


348



plant teachers, without using any further instruments or tools,

while being in psychedelic trance. Metzner notes:

Some of the indigenous healers and herbalists are veritable

walking encyclopedias of medicinal botanical knowledge.

They may have direct personal knowledge of hundreds,

even thousands of plants, and what illnesses or conditions

they can be used to cure; this knowledge was not acquired

by literate means, but by direct experience./29

For all their demonstrated knowledge of herbs and medi-

cine, the ayahuasqueros are unanimous in their assertion

that the knowledge is given to them by the spirits of the

plants, the forest, or the animals. Likewise, the healing is

done, not so much by the plant drug, but by the spirit or es-

sence invoked by the healer, via the use of the plant teacher,

and expressed in the songs. With this belief, which is com-

pletely at variance with the accepted medical model focused

on isolating and purifying the molecular compound, they

would agree with Samuel Hahnemann, the great eighteenth-

century German physician who founded homeopathy. In

this medical system, the plant drug extracts are repeatedly

diluted to such a degree that often not a single molecule of

the original substance is left. In addition they are shaken or

vibrated, a process referred to as succussion. Hahnemann

said that through the repeated dilutions and succussions the

spirit or essence of the plant was entirely released, or liber-

ated, from the plant substance, and was thus able to act on

the spiritual or essence of the patient. In this recognition of

the spiritual essences inherent in plant medicines and their

healing virtue, the homeopaths and the shamanic healers are

in accord. It is also, I would add, the underlying assumption

and understanding that I and my colleagues and collabora-

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

349



tors have come to and that is represented, explicitly or im-

plicitly, in the accounts in this book./32

I will come to an end with my review and refer the reader to a

few quotes from the contributions to the reader that I publish be-

low. I hope that this review and the further quotes will convince

you of the usefulness of this well-edited book and make it a part

of your library.

Contributions

Adamson, Raoul

C., Stefan

D., Raimundo

G., Eugenia

Callaway, J.C.

GaneshaGrob, Charles S.

H., Wahtola

L., Abraham

Lovetree, I.M.

McKenna, Dennis J.

Metzner, Ralph

S., Kate

S., Renata

T., Oregon

Raoul Adamson

Initiation into an Ancient Lineage of Visionary Healers, in:

Ayahuasca, Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature , New

York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999, pp. 46-57


350



I become aware of a morphic resonance between serpent and

intestines: the form of the snake is more or less a long intes-

tinal tract, with a head and a tail end; and conversely, our

gut is serpentine, with its twists and turns and its peristaltic

movement. So the serpent, winding its way through my in-

testinal tract was ‘teaching’ my intestines how to be more

powerful and effective—certainly a gut-level experience!/48

The visionary warrior is not just passively taking in the vi-

sions, as we do when watching a film or television, or during

most dreaming. The warrior is actively looking at them, ob-

serving the details, searching for the meaning behind the

appearances. (…) Painful or traumatic experiences are often

incomplete, sometimes because they are powerful prohibi-

tions on the third phase of communicating. Healing or re-

covery from trauma involves telling the story, so that it is

shared, believed and recognized./52

I had known that songs could heal before, but what was new

to my understanding here was that they could also function

in a protective manner against toxic emotional negativity./54

Stefan C.

Having So Recently Experienced My Death, It felt Miracu-

lous To Be Alive, in: Ayahuasca, Human Consciousness and the

Spirits of Nature , New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999,

pp. 64-70

As a physician, I commonly use and prescribe medication.

Until this experience of ayahuasca, I had never experiencedwhat a true medicine might be. It is a terrible shame that we

are unable to share the secrets and powers of this medicine

with the suffering people who come to us for help. I would

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

351



like to believe, however, that a strategy could be imple-

mented for the future which could facilitate such interven-

tion. If our society is unable to incorporate such a change,

however, it will be sad world indeed./68

Conveying that the collective Gaia-nature of this planet can-

not much longer sustain its health and vitality in the face of

escalating environmental destruction perpetrated by a world

culture dominated by greed and aggression, the essence of

this ayahuasca inspired communication was to wake up be-

fore it is too late and mobilize what forces are necessary to

prevent the annihilation of nature and the obliteration of the

life forces it nurtures./69

Knowledge and information, contained in the core of the

experience, has swept through me. I have been catapulted to

a domain of being other than my self, more akin to the True

Self. I have stood humbled in the face of its immense other-

worldly power, and have dissolved in the embrace of life-

affirming ecstasy. These encounters have provided a learn-

ing experience of extraordinary depth and profundity. /70

Raimundo D.

The Great Serpentine Dance of Life, in: Ayahuasca, Human

Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature , New York: Thunder’s

Mouth Press, 1999, pp. 129-131

The plumed serpent is masculine, involves outer impression

and show of power; the unplumbed serpent is feminine, in-

volving inner expression and statement of strength. (…) Iexperienced my entire body being reprogrammed and rear-

ranged, even reconstituted at the deep cellular level. This


352



resulted in an incredible feeling of openness, solidity, whole-

ness and openness./130

Eugenia G.

The Plant Spirits Help Me to Heal Myself and Others, in:



I left conventional pharmacy, and the plant kingdom pro-

vided me with a new profession as an herbalist-educator of

botanical medicines. (…) Besides being rich with verdant

fecundity and colorful wildlife, the rain forest holds secrets

that could change the course of medicine as we know it./127

Ayahuasca has allowed my everyday life to come more alive

—my skin became electric, and light was everywhere; lucid

dreams, messengers, birds, talking animals, and plant spirits

continue to teach me./128

J.C. Callaway, Ph.D.

Phytochemistry and Neuropharmacology of Ayahuasca, in:



DMT fits rather well into certain subsets of serotonin recep-

tor sites within the brain (Callaway and McKenna 1998),

where it is believed to modify the flow of neuronal informa-

tion. (…) Although a function for its presence in the brain

has not been demonstrated, the production of visions in

dream sleep has been suggested as a role for endogenousDMT (Callaway 1998)./262

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

353



Ganesha

A Vision of Sekhmet, in: Ayahuasca, Human Consciousness and

the Spirits of Nature , New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999,

pp. 76-85

Throughout this part of the session, I felt the balancing of

male and female energies, the dance of consciousness and

substance./81

As I read about Sekhmet and assimilated my experience

with her, the understanding that formed in my conscious-

ness was that Sekhmet is a Great Mother Goddess, one that

spans all time. With the sun disk at her head and the snake

around it, she symbolizes the serpent power of the root

chakra having risen to the crown. Thus, she encompasses

both heaven and Earth, and demonstrates the way to unite

the heaven and Earth of our own nature, Spirit and Form,

through the awakening of the kundalini power in the mulad-

hara chakra and its arising to the sahasrara chakra./83

Charles S. Grob, M.D.

The Psychology of Ayahuasca, in: Ayahuasca, Human Con-

sciousness and the Spirits of Nature , New York: Thunder’sMouth Press, 1999, pp. 214-249

The field of ayahuasca studies poses a challenge to main-

stream psychiatry and psychology. Long neglected by Euro-

American science, this Amazonian plant hallucinogen con-

coction known in native Quechua as the 'vine of the dead' or

'vine of the soul', has recently begun to attract increasingdegrees of interest. (…) The fields of psychiatry and psy-

chology have never had an appreciable comfort level with

the mind states of aboriginal peoples. Native peoples have


354



often been disparaged and the technologies designed to in-

duce ritual trance states either pathologized or ignored.

Years past, during a time of psychoanalytic preeminence, the

medicine men, or healers, of these aboriginal peoples were

judged to be mentally ill (Devereux 1958), their behaviors

variably attributed to diagnoses ranging from schizophrenia

to hysteria and epilepsy. The primitive medicine man, or

shaman, was often identified as a deranged aboriginal tyrant

and the wellspring of that psychopathology inflicting the

entire tribal group, preventing their elevation into civilized

society. Until quite recently the prevailing perception of the

aboriginal has been one of the ignorant, deluded and dan-

gerous savage, whose only salvation lay in abandoning the

traditions of his ancestors for the customs and beliefs of

modern culture. The proposition of taking seriously the

plant technologies underlying the collective belief system

found in native shamanism was given little credence by

mainstream science and medicine./214-215

Ethnobotanical explorations in diverse geographic regions

have yielded a surprising plethora of psychoactive plants,

some with no prior history of cultural identification. Knowl-

edge of potent psychochemical recipes have begun to dis-

seminate, often with the aid of the Internet. Use of plant hal-

lucinogens, in both underground and formal settings, is

growing. It is time for post-modern medical science to re-

awaken and be attentive to this rapidly emerging phenome-

non. Beyond the need to assess safety parameters, the full

implications to paradigms of healing and reality need to be

grappled with./215

The occupying Spaniards and Portuguese, possessors of now

of most of the New World’s rain forests, brutally persecuted

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

355



and exploited native cultures (Taussig 1987). Observing the

utilization of sacred plants to induce an ecstatic intoxication,

and identifying the central role they played in aboriginal

religion and ritual, these new European overlords harshly

condemned their use. Hernando Ruiz de Alarcon, an early

Spanish chronicler of native customs, described how the

plants ‘when drunk deprive of the senses, because it is very

powerful, and by this means they communicate with the

devil, because he talks to them when they are deprived of

judgement with the said drink, and deceive them with dif-

ferent hallucinations, and they attribute it to a god they say

is inside the seed’ (Guerra 1971). Condemned by the Holy

Inquisition in 1616, the ceremonial use of the plant hallu-

cinogens by aboriginal peoples of the New World survived

only by going deeply underground, remaining hidden from

the hostile and rapacious European-imposed dominant

culture./219

Wahtola H.

Teaching the Body Its Relationship to the Spirit, in: Ayahua-

sca, Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature , New York:

Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999, pp. 148-152

My lower centers, my thighs, pelvis, and abdomen became

the focus for the waves of fluid-like power that pulsed

through my spaces. This fluid power was metabolizing and

restructuring the consciousness of my body in relationship

to the power and awareness available to it. As the intensifi-

cation occurred, the purge was stimulated, without the deep

significance of the first time with ayahuasca./150

The guide gave clues that helped me greatly in re-

establishing a center of focus when the flooding effects of the


356



medicine would space out in directions that I didn’t want to

go. One set of instructions related to the four things useful to

remember on a journey, inner or outer: one is your intention

of purpose, two is your ancestors, three is your light or

awareness, and four is the Earth./Id.

Abraham L.

The Long, Multi-Faceted Journey of Jewish Experience, in:



I saw and felt these masses of Jews clinging to something in

their hearts. Clinging to grief, like an addiction. Holding

onto it as though it was something precious, something that

made them special or closer to God./146

This feeling of being attacked reinforces the defensive walls

that surround the heart. In truth, there is an inner battle that

Jews need to wage in order to become free of their present

conflict. Perhaps, like with me, there is a need to fight to lib-

erate the inner feminine./147

I.M. Lovetree

Liquid Plum’r for the Soul, in: Ayahuasca, Human Conscious-

ness and the Spirits of Nature , New York: Thunder’s Mouth

Press, 1999, pp. 116-123

After the ayahuasca sessions, I feel cleansed within,

throughout and all about. I have a sense of having been

healed at all levels, especially the physical. The ayahuascamedicine seems to have a special affinity for the gastrointes-

tinal system: it snakes its way through the body, seeking out

and eliminating obstructions to life energy flow. I sometimes

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

357



think of it as a form of kundalini, a Liquid Plum’r for the

soul. For cleansing and healing, for reconnecting with the

vegetable kingdom, ayahuasca is definitely my medicine of

choice./123

Dennis J. McKenna, Ph.D.

Ayahuasca: An Ethnopharmacologic History, in: Ayahuasca,

Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature , New York:


Ayahuasca is a symbiotic ally of the human species; its asso-

ciation with our species can be traced at least as far back as

New World prehistory. The lessons we have acquired from

it, in the course of millennia of coevolution, may have pro-

found implications for what it is to be human, and to be an

intelligent, questioning species within the biospheric com-

munity of species. Although we have no certain answers, the

question of the nature and meaning of the relationship be-

tween humanity and this visionary vine, and by extension

with the entire universe of plant teachers, persistently trou-

bles us. Why should plants contain alkaloids that are close

analogs of our own neurotransmitters, and that enable them

to ‘talk’ to us? What ‘message’ are they trying to convey, if

any? Was it purely happenstance, purely accident, that led

some early, experiment-minded shaman to combine the aya-

huasca vine and the chacruna leaf, to make the tea that

raised the curtain on the ‘invisible landscape’ for the first

time?/207


358



Introduction

by Ralph Metzner, in: Ayahuasca, Human Consciousness and

the Spirits of Nature , New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999,

pp. 1-45

They have been called psychotomimetic ('madness mimick-

ing'), psycholytic ('psyche loosening'), psychedelic ('mind

manifesting'), hallucinogenic ('vision inducing') and entheo-

genic ('connecting with the sacred within'). The different

terms reflect the widely differing attitudes and intentions,

the varying set and setting with which these substances have

been approached./2

Ayahuasca is widely recognized by anthropologists as being

probably the most powerful and most widespread shamanic

hallucinogen. In the tribal societies where these plants and

plant preparations are used, they are regarded as embodi-

ments of conscious intelligent beings that only become visi-

ble in special states of consciousness, and who can function

as spiritual teachers and sources of healing power and

knowledge./3

The plants are referred to as ‘medicines,’ a term that means

more than a drug: something like a healing power or energy

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

359



that can be associated with a plant, a person, an animal, even

a place. They are also referred to as 'plant teachers' and there

are still extant traditions of many-years-long initiations and

trainings in the use of these medicines./Id.

Kate S.

Breaking from the Bondage of the Mind, in: Ayahuasca, Hu-

man Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature , New York: Thun-

der’s Mouth Press, 1999, pp. 71-75

I had the thought that the reason certain cultural or ethnic

art forms appear is because of the planetary energy in the

location of the origin of that form, and that the music and

the art were intricately connected and reflective of the en-

ergy of the planetary location of their origin and the energies

which exist there./72

Renata S.

A most palpably Buddhist-like experience, in: Ayahuasca,

Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature , New York:


My experience with the ayahuasca (as was true of my expe-rience with LSD) put me in touch with an understanding of

these ideas experientially. It was as if my body accepted

ideas of oneness, duality, paradox, etc. on a cellular level.

/133

I understood the sad and frightening visions to be every bit

as wonderful as the most beautiful visions. The marvel wasthat I felt totally alive, open, responsive, and fearless! Ac-

cepting the fleeting nature of all, it was so simple to be fully

present for every moment. Perhaps for the first time ever, I


360



felt an implicit trust in my capacity to guide myself through

the incredible labyrinth of dark and light./Id.

I felt the medicine to be much like a snake, traveling from

my brain downwards, finally lodging in my groin. As I came

to the end of my experience, I felt rooted in some tangled,

steamy jungle, rich with the scent of death and rebirth,

slowly becoming one with the vines and the very earth

itself./Id.

Oregon T.

Knowledge Was Graciously Invoked in Me by the Plant

Teacher, in: Ayahuasca, Human Consciousness and the Spirits of

Nature , New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999, pp. 92-97

I saw the machinations of the ego-personality and its subtle

deceit of the Self, of the true Monad./95

The ayahuasca plant teacher, much like the entheogens

probably employed in the Eleusinian and other ancient mys-

tery religions, assists in the sought-after remembrance, what

Plato referred to as anamnesis./97

RALPH METZNER (ED.)

361



Thomas Moore

Care of the Soul

Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature


Care of the Soul is one of the most important books of our times. It really had a

bandwagon effect in that it pulled after it a whole train with similar productions.However, what all those who think they can write such a book from scratch over-

look is that soul is not built from scratch, but in an often painful and lengthy

process of birth or ascension.



Without the author having lived more than a decade of his life

in the monastic environment, this book would not have been born.

And without his lifelong studies of Renaissance art and literature,

the depth of the book would not have been reached.

The book is the ultimate no in the face of the positivist mania

of ‘getting everything fixed’ if only you buy the right book from

the right coach.

From my perspective, this book proves that ‘quick-fix’ coach-ing doesn’t work, because you can’t help somebody by bypassing

the soul, simply because there is no growth without soul growth.

And here the words ‘personal coaching’ and ‘personal power’ are

misleading insofar as personal, looking at the etymological root of

the word, means ‘related to the mask.’ It’s polish.

The recipe is clone a successful person, by modeling, as those

hero-coaches express themselves, and you more or less become

that person—which means for most people to become the wallet

of that person. This means in practice you become alienated from

your true self, and ultimately fail to realize your life’s mission. So

what is soul, and what are soul values? There is no better book as

this to find the answers. Thomas Moore writes:

Renaissance philosophers often said that it is the soul that

makes us human. We can turn that idea round and note that

it is when we are most human that we have greatest access

to soul. (...) By trying to avoid human mistakes and failures,

we move beyond the reach of soul./9

It seems obvious that without love there can be no cure, be-

cause love itself is healing. If this truth was known and the nature

THOMAS MOORE

363



of love understood in our culture, we would not have the high

amount of depression and schizophrenia that strongly marks our

society and shows that most people have a vacuum in their hearts,

there namely where they should have love. Moore writes:

The ultimate cure, as many ancient and modern psycholo-

gies of depth have asserted, comes from love and not from

logic. (…) Often care of the soul means not taking sides

when there is a conflict at a deep level. It may be necessary

to stretch the heart wide enough to embrace contradiction

and paradox./14

This is exactly what real coaching is about, showing options,

in order to help the person out of an either-or dilemma brought

about by judging and condemning. Fact is that millions of people

are trapped by either-or choices in life because the tertium is not

given (tertium non datur), and this is the abysmal and fatal conse-

quence of Aristotelian logic that has subsisted over the ages, like a

virus, until today. And it truly is a virus for it has perverted natu-

rally integrated humans into schizoid angel-demons who act from

a personal base paradigm of compulsion, and not from a sane and

integrated mind. Moore shows with striking clarity the pitfalls of

moralism:

Moralism is one of the most effective shields against the

soul, protecting us from its intricacy. (…) I would go even

further. As we get to know the soul and fearlessly consider

its oddities and the many different ways it shows itself

among individuals, we may develop a taste for the perverse.

We may come to appreciate its quirks and deviances. Indeed,

we may eventually come to realize that individuality is born


364



in the eccentricities and unexpected shadow tendencies of

the soul, more so than in normality and conformity./17

I would go as far as saying that moralism not only bypasses

the soul, it also bypasses life. It is the reaction of emotionally crip-

pled people, people who have from childhood been starved with

love and who have learnt only one thing: killing. They have learnt

to ‘kill perversity’ in themselves, thereby killing life in themselves,

and thereby creating the soil for abysmal violence within and with-

out. This is exactly how the hero culture works: it teaches people

to kill, by teaching them to kill off their emotions when they are

still in the cradle. Moore says that from the perspective of the soul,

perversity is meaningful, and has to be embraced instead of being

discarded out and wiped under the carpet:

Care of the soul is interested in the not-so-normal, the way

that soul makes itself felt most clearly in the unusual expres-

sions of a life, even and maybe especially in the problematic

ones. (...) Sometimes deviation from the usual is a special

revelation of truth. In alchemy this was referred to as the

opus contra naturam, an effect contrary to nature. We might

see the same kind of artful unnatural expression within ourown lives. When normality explodes or breaks out into cra-

ziness or shadow, we might look closely, before running for

cover and before attempting to restore familiar order, at the

potential meaningfulness of the event. If we are going to be

curious about the soul, we may need to explore its devia-

tions, its perverse tendency to contradict expectations. And

as a corollary, we might be suspicious of normality. A facadeor normality can hide a wealth of deviance, and besides, it is

fairly easy to recognize soullessness in the standardizing of

experience./18

THOMAS MOORE

365



Embracing perversity is one leg of the integrated human, em-

bracing suffering, or pain, or discomfort, is the other. Moore ex-

plains:

If you attend the soul closely enough, with an educated andsteadfast imagination, changes take place without your be-

ing aware of them until they are all over and well in place.

Care of the soul observes the paradox whereby a muscled,

strong-willed pursuit of change can actually stand in the

way of substantive transformation. (…) Renaissance doctors

said that the essence of each person originates as a star in the

heavens. (…) Care of the soul, looking back with special re-gard to ancient psychologies for insight and guidance, goes

beyond the secular mythology of the self and recovers a

sense of the sacredness of each individual life. This sacred

quality is not just value – all lives are important. It is the un-

fathomable that is the very seed and heart of each individ-

ual. Shallow therapeutic manipulations aimed at restoring

normality or tuning a life according to standards reduces—shrinks—the profound mystery to the pale dimensions of a

social common denominator referred to as the adjusted per-

sonality. Care of the soul sees another reality altogether. It


366



appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not

offer the illusion of a problem-free life. It sees every fall into

ignorance and confusion as an opportunity to discover that

the beast residing at the center of the labyrinth is also an an-

gel. The uniqueness of a person is made up of the insane and

the twisted as much as it is of the rational and the normal. To

approach this paradoxical point of tension where adjustment

and abnormality meet is to move closer to the realization of

our mystery-filled, star-born nature./19-20

In order to become whole inwardly and in our lives, we need

to embrace simplicity, and imperfection. Living in robotic culture,

we can resist becoming robots by embracing the ultimate truth that

we are always imperfect. Moore has found a tremendously wistful

tradition with the Renaissance saints and healers that warned,

more than five hundred years ago, of the pitfalls of perfectionism,

which has become, in the meantime, a real cultural disease in our

high-tech nations. More reminds Nicholas of Cusa:

Nicholas of Cusa, the great fifteenth-century theologian who

wrote a book about the importance of educated ignorance

says we have to find ways to unlearn those things that

screen us from the perception of profound truth. We have to

achieve the child’s unknowing because we have been made

so smart. Zen also recommends not losing the beginner’s

mind, so important for immediacy in experience./52

The two major problems young people experience in our

modern robot-society is narcissism and boomeritis. The first con-dition is marked by an almost total absence of soul, the second is

the inability to digest knowledge in a way that it becomes a part of

THOMAS MOORE

367



self, instead of building layers around the person. Moore shows

that there is more to narcissism, that modern culture is profoundly

narcissistic in its very setup as a ‘scientific’ society:

Narcissism has no soul. In narcissism we take away the

soul’s substance, its weight and importance, and reduce it to

an echo of our own thoughts. There is no such thing as the

soul. We say. It is only the brain going through its electrical

and chemical changes. Or it is only behavior. Or it is only

memory and conditioning. In our social narcissism, we also

dismiss the soul as irrelevant. We can prepare a city or na-

tional budget, but leave the needs of the soul untended. Nar-

cissism will not give its power to anything as nymphlike as

the soul./58-59

What the narcissist does not understand is that the self-

acceptance he craves can’t be forced or manufactured. It has

to be discovered, in a place more introverted than the usual

haunts of the narcissist. There has to be some inner question-

ing, and maybe even confusion./60-61

I suspect that this is a very concrete part of curing narcissism

—talking to the trees. By engaging the so-called ‘inanimate’

world in dialogue, we are acknowledging its soul. Not all

consciousness is human. That in itself is a narcissistic belief.

/61

Before reading this book, it was indeed my habit to talk to

trees that got me to be interested in shamanism. That was the trig-

ger of my spiritual quest to ingest the traditional sacred Ayahua-sca brew. I left this initiation completely transformed, regained the

whole range of magical beliefs I once fostered as a child, and be-


368



came whole again. This wholeness was precisely the cure of my

narcissistic fixation. Now, Thomas Moore, has put a particular

stress in this book on the danger of collective narcissism and he in-

vestigates the culture of the United States of America, to identify it

as a narcissistic culture par excellence. Moore writes:

Nations, as well as individuals, can go through this initia-

tion. America has a great longing to be the New World of

opportunity and a moral beacon for the world. It longs tofulfill these narcissistic images of itself. At the same time it is

painful to realize the distance between the reality and that

image. America’s narcissism is strong. It is paraded before

the world. If we were to put the nation on the couch, we

might discover that narcissism is its most obvious symptom.

And yet that narcissism holds the promise that this all-

important myth can find its way into life. In other words,America’s narcissism is its refined puer spirit of genuine

new vision. The trick is to find a way to that water of trans-

formation where hard self-absorption turns into loving dia-

logue with the world./62

Narcissus becomes able to love himself only when he learns

to love that self as an object. He now has a view of himself assomeone else. This is not ego loving ego; this is ego loving

the soul, loving a face the soul presents. We might say that

the cure for narcissism is to move from love of self, which

always has a hint of narcissism in it, to love of one’s deep

soul. Or, to put it another way, narcissism breaking up in-

vites us to expand the boundaries of who we think we

are./63

A neurotic narcissism won’t allow the time needed to stop,

reflect, and see the many emotions, memories, wishes, fanta-

THOMAS MOORE

369



sies, desires, and fears that make up the materials of the soul.

As a result, the narcissistic person becomes fixed on a single

idea of who he is, and other possibilities are automatically

rejected'./67

Peter Pan resisted to grow up. And astonishingly so, Thomas

Moore writes that growing-up is not a cure for narcissism, in the

contrary:

But the solution of narcissism is not growing up. On the con-

trary, the solution to narcissism is to give the myth as much

realization as possible, to the point where a tiny bud appears

indicating the flowering of personality through its narcis-

sism. (…) Narcissism is a condition in which a person does

not love himself. This failure in love comes through as its

opposite because the person tries so hard to find self-

acceptance. The complex reveals itself in the all-too-obvious

effort and exaggeration. It’s clear to all around that narcis-

sism’s love is shallow. We know instinctively that someone

who talks about himself all the time must not have a very

strong sense of self. To the individual caught up in this

myth, the failure to find self-love is felt as a kind of maso-

chism, and, whenever masochism comes into play, a sadistic

element is not far behind. The two attitudes are polar ele-

ments in a split power archetype./71

Anyway, from the soul perspective, and leaving political reali-

ties untouched, Thomas Moore writes:

The secret of healing narcissism is not to heal it at all, but tolisten to it. (…) I am stuff. I am made up of things and quali-

ties, and in loving these things I love myself./73


370



This is in accordance with a general soul-based healing ap-

proach that was the prevalent approach to healing during the

Middle-Ages and the Renaissance.

Robert Burton in his massive self-help book of the seven-

teenth century The Anatomy of Melancholy, says there is

only one cure for the melancholic sickness of love: enter into

it with abandon. Some authors today argue that romantic

love is such an illusion that we need to distrust it and keep

our wits about us so that we are not led astray. But warnings

like this betray a distrust of the soul./81

Interestingly enough, Krishnamurti’s approach to fear, pain,

humiliation and suffering is very similar. He often said in his talks

that we should not escape from pain or what we consider as nega-

tive, hurtful or humiliating in life, because if we do, there will bescars, while when we stay fully aware and do not escape the expe-

rience, there will be no scars.

I believe that the quotes suffice to give a taste of this unique

production of a real author-artist who walks his talk. I recommend

this book without hesitation and I recommend it also to young

people and elders. There is much spiritual water to draw from it,

for all members of our culture.

THOMAS MOORE

371



Jeremy Narby

The Cosmic Serpent

DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

2nd Printing (Originally published in 1998)

New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2003

The Cosmic Serpent is an extraordinary and refreshing book. Written from the per-spective of an anthropologist, the book unveils many myths in that science when

it goes out ‘to meet the other’, and return to declare the peoples it met as schizo-

phrenic, retarded or ‘possessed by the devil.’



But the author also reports how ethnology changed over time

and become more objective in its look on cultures that are mark-

edly different from our own.

Anthropologists discovered that their gaze was a tool of

domination and that their discipline was not only a child of

colonialism, it also served the colonial cause through its own

practices. The unbiased and supra-cultural language of the

observer was actually a colonial discourse and a form of

domination./14

From the early twentieth century onward, anthropologists

progressively extended the use of this Siberian term and

found shamans in Indonesia, Uganda, the Arctic, and Ama-

zonia. Some played drums, others drank plant decoctions

and sang; some claimed to cure, others cast spells. They were

unanimously considered neurotic, epileptic, psychotic, hys-

terical or schizophrenic./15

The change came abruptly. In 1949, Claude Lévi-Strauss

stated in a key essay that the shaman, far from being men-

tally ill, was in fact a kind of psychotherapist—the difference

being that the psychoanalyst listens, whereas the shaman

speaks. For Lévi-Strauss, the shaman is first of all a creator of

order, who cures people by transforming their incoherent

and arbitrary pains into an ordered and intelligible form./15

In this context of a critical review of Western science meeting

tribal cultures, Narby reveals a very important secret about tobacco,

and unveils the myths behind the current worldwide propagandaagainst tobacco, with its alleged cancerogenous effects.

JEREMY NARBY

373



Narby, who has done research on tobacco over several years,

has published in this book a good part of the research results, and

gives further references in the footnotes. His research indicates

that it’s not tobacco that causes cancer, but additives and preserva-

tives that are put in cigarettes in the process of industrial fabrica-

tion. He writes:

There are fundamental differences between the shamanic use

of tobacco and the consumption of industrial cigarettes. The botanical variety used in the Amazon contains up to eight-

een times more nicotine than the plants used in Virginia-type

cigarettes. Amazonian tobacco is grown without chemical

fertilizers or pesticides and contains none of the ingredients

added to cigarettes, such as aluminum oxide, potassium ni-

trate, ammonium phosphate, polyvinyl acetate, and a hun-

dred or so others, which make up approximately 10 percentof the smokable matter. During combustion, a cigarette emits

some 4000 substances, most of which are toxic. Some of these

substances are even radioactive, making cigarettes the larg-

est single source of radiation in the daily life of an average

smoker. According to one study, the average smoker absorbs

the equivalent of the radiation dosages from 250 chest X-rays

per year. Cigarette smoke is directly implicated in more than24 serious illnesses, including 17 forms of cancer. In the

Amazon, on the other hand, tobacco is considered a remedy.

The Ashaninca word for healer or shaman is sheripiári—lit-

erally, the person who uses tobacco. The oldest Ashaninca

men I knew were all sheripiári. They were so old that they

did not know their own age, which only their deeply wrin-

kled skin suggested, and they were remarkably alert andhealthy. Intrigued by these disparities, I looked through the

data banks for comparative studies between the toxicity of


374



the Amazonian variety (Nicotinia rustica) and the variety

used by the manufacturers of cigarettes, cigars, rolling to-

bacco, and pipe tobacco (Nicotinia tabacum). I found noth-

ing. The question, it seemed, had not been / asked. I also

looked for studies on the cancer rate among shamans who

use massive and regular doses of nicotine: again, nothing. So

I decided to write to the main authority on the matter, Jo-

hannes Wilbert, author of the book Tobacco and Shamanism in

South America , to put my questions to him. He replied: There

is certainly evidence that Western tobacco products contain

many different harmful agents which are probably not pre-

sent in organically grown plants. I have not heard of sha-

mans developing cancers but that may, of course, be a func-

tion of several things like lack of Western diagnosis, natural

life span of indigenous people, magico-religious restriction

of tobacco used in tribal societies. It seems clear that nicotine

does not cause cancer, given that it is active in the brain and

that cigarettes do not cause cancer in the brain, but in the

lungs, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, rectum, kidneys, and

bladder, the organs reached by the carcinogenic tars, which

are also swallowed. /120-121

But this general outline of shamanism and how the modern

world came to discover it is only a by-product of the book, so to

speak. The real topic is a very specific problem that Narby had

well defined in advance. He wanted to prove his hypothesis that

the visions and encounters psychedelic substances trigger are ac-

tually visions of the DNA, or the photons that irradiate from it. He

defines his research topic, first negatively, by demonstrating why

this link between entheogenic substances and the DNA could not

be discovered before by modern science:

JEREMY NARBY

375



It seemed that no one had noticed the possible links between

the myths of primitive peoples and molecular biology. No

one had seen that the double helix had symbolized the life

principle for thousands of years around the world. On the

contrary, everything was upside down. It was said that hal-

lucinations could in no way constitute a source of knowl-

edge, that Indians had found their useful molecules by

chance experimentation, and that their myths were precisely

myths, bearing no relationship to the real knowledge discov-

ered in laboratories./71

This meant that the gaze of the Western specialist was too

narrow to see the two pieces that fit together to resolve the

puzzle. The distance between molecular biology and

shamanism/mythology was an optical illusion produced by

the rational gaze that separates things ahead of time, and as

objectivism fails to objectify its objectifying relationship, it

also finds it difficult to consider its presuppositions./78-79

The outline of Narby’s research is the most daring I have en-

countered in my shamanism research so far, and despite his well-

written book, it seems that his theory was not picked up by the


376



scientific community so far. Narby had previously noted a de-

crease of interest in the subject, but his vision about a paradigm

change in science is hopeful in case that his hypothesis can be

confirmed by more in-depth research in the future:

From the middle of the 1970s onward, the connection be-

tween DNA and hallucinogens disappears from the scientific

literature. It would no doubt be interesting to reconsider it in

the light of the new knowledge established by molecular

biology./125

If my hypothesis is correct, and if ayahuasqueros perceive

DNA-emitted photons in their visions, it ought to be possi-

ble to find a link between these photons and consciousness. I

started looking for it in the biophoton literature. Researchers

working in this new field mainly consider biophoton emis-sion as a cellular language or a form of nonsubstantial bio-

communication between cells and organisms. Over the last

fifteen years, they have conducted enough reproducible ex-

periments to believe that cells use these waves to direct their

own internal reactions as well as to communicate among

themselves and even between organisms. For instance, pho-

ton emission provides a communication mechanism thatcould explain how billions of individual plankton organisms

cooperative in swarms, behaving like super-organisms.

/127-128

In addition, Narby made the discovery that quartz played a

decisive role in the biophoton research he went through for prov-

ing his hypothesis:

One thing had struck me as I went over the biophoton litera-

ture. Almost all of the experiments conducted to measure

JEREMY NARBY

377



biophotons involved the use of quartz. As early as 1923, Al-

exander Gurvich noticed that cells separated by a quartz

screen mutually / influenced each other’s multiplication

processes, which was not the case with a metal screen. He

deducted that cells emit electromagnetic waves with which

they communicate. It took more than half a century to de-

velop a photomultiplier capable of measuring this ultra-

weak radiation: the container of this device is also made of

quartz. Quartz is a crystal, which means it has an extremely

regular arrangement of atoms that vibrate at a very stable

frequency. These characteristics make it an excellent receptor

and emitter of electromagnetic waves, which is why quartz

is abundantly used in radios, watches, and most electronic

technologies./128-129

Now, succinctly speaking, what Narby wants to show is that

what the shamans perceive as ‘spirits’ are in reality biophotons

emitted by the cells of the human body:

What if these spirits were none other than the biophotons

emitted by all the cells of the world and were picked up,

amplified, and transmitted by shamans’ quartz crystals,

Gurvich’s quartz screens, and the quartz containers of bio-

photon researchers? This would mean that spirits are beings

of pure light—as has always been claimed. /129

I will leave it here with my review and let you discover this

exciting book that is often quoted in shamanism literature. How-

ever, I have not yet found an author who either corroborated the

theory, or else falsified it. So much the more the book should be

read and its daring hypothesis shared with as many minds as pos-


378



sible, so that a scientific agreement can be found to either corrobo-

rate or falsify this very interesting theory or hypothesis.

JEREMY NARBY

379



Michael Newton

Life Between Lives

DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

2nd Printing (Originally published in 1998)

New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2003

Dr. Michael Newton is a counseling psychologist, master hypnotherapist, and

teacher. He has been on the faculty of higher educational institutions and has

served as a group therapy director for community mental health centers andspiritual renewal organizations in cooperation with hospitals and social service

agencies. Now retired after forty years of private practice, he is considered a pio-

neer in uncovering the mysteries of our life between lives through the develop-

ment of his own hypnosis techniques.



Michael Newton is the author of the best-selling books Journey

of Souls and Destiny of Souls (winner of the most outstanding

metaphysical book award of the year at the annual Book Exposi-

tion of America in 2001), which have been translated into over

twenty-five languages. Dr. Newton received the annual award of

the most unique contribution by a hypnotherapist from the Na-

tional Association of Transpersonal Hypnotherapists. He has been con-

ferred as a Chevalier of Honor by the Order of Constantine for in-

ternational education. Dr. Newton is the founder of the Society for

Spiritual Regression (now called the Newton Institute for LBL Hypno-

therapy), which is an international organization designed for the

purpose of training experienced hypnotherapists in the techniques

of life between lives regression.

—Source: Life Between Lives (About the Author)

Life Between Lives is a fascinating door-opener not only for pro-

fessional hypnotherapists that it is actually written for, but also for

lay persons who wish to know more about the power of hypno-

therapy in its spiritual dimension, as life-between-lives regression

therapy.

In my review of this book I will however address the profes-

sional reader, simply because the quotes I shall provide from the

book are addressed to this target group. For the uninitiated, let me

put a precaution first.

As regression therapy seems to be very popular today, and as

there are today thousands of different regression therapies, let me

point out why LBL is not a regression therapy in the popular sense

of the word. Traditional regression therapy regresses the client

MICHAEL NEWTON

381



into a former life, or a series of former lives, but does not touch the

realm in-between lives. Dr. Newton explains:

The fact is that most past life regressionists merely jump

their subjects from one former life to the next. Some still be-

lieve the time between lives is a grayish limbo of no conse-

quence. This notion is changing and I have wondered if it

didn’t originate with the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead,

where people read that ‘the time between reincarnations in

the Bardo is a maximum of seven weeks.’/14

What is this realm of existence, and what is its vibrational na-

ture? Call it the Bardo with the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or call it

the ‘astral plane’ with Charles Webster Leadbeater, the word is not

the thing.

What is important here is to see that Dr. Newton has created a

totally new, daring and absolutely unthinkable way of hypnotic

regression that fills the gap between the already fashionable past-

life regression and standard hypnotherapy, which typically re-

gresses back to childhood and the realm between conception and

birth.

Dr. Newton is a twofold pioneer, he is a pioneer both regard-

ing the professional conduct of a hypnotherapist (who was for-

merly simply not supposed to engage in this kind of regression),

and he is a spiritual pioneer because he opened a new channel for

truly religious experiences.

To begin with, I was dumbfounded that Dr. Newton confirmedin at least one instance my research that concludes as to the exis-


382



tence of every human emanating a specific energy vibration that I

came to call Emotional Identity Code. Dr. Newton writes:

No two sessions are exactly the same because each soul has a

specific energy pattern for recovering stored immortal

memories and their own unique history of existence./4

I shall now provide and discuss a few pointed quotes so as to

demonstrate how Newton addresses the professional LBL hypno-

therapist and what advice he gives for the still quite esoteric prac-

tice of LBL hypnotherapy. Admittedly my quotes are rather lim-

ited, but this is due to the simple fact that this book addresses a

professional audience that will need much less guidance for pur-

chasing a book that might be of interest for them.

For Dr. Newton, the existence of the cosmic energy field that Iwas trying to conceptualize in my own research vocabulary is not

a matter of doubt, but a simple fact of life. He writes:

Your understanding and positive healing energy is vital as

you work to expose the client’s inner vision of their soul life.

In this way you also facilitate alignment of the subject’s vi-

brational soul energy to the rhythms of their human brains./6

And Dr. Newton confirms the perennial wisdom tradition that

may have inspired him when elaborating hypnotic regression to a

realm of life which was overlooked so far by almost all regression

therapists:

I have great respect for Taoist philosophy. The Taoists believe

that inspiration occurs when one’s conscious mind gets out

MICHAEL NEWTON

383



of the way of their natural unconscious energy. In a sense,

our cosmic chi (energy) is what brings harmony and clarity

to the body. Having a keen internal focus also makes you a

better therapist./11

Newton also affirms the existence of soul values by affirming

the higher reality of a soul-based continuum and karma that re-

veals itself during LBL hypnotic regression. His advice to practi-

tioners is to help the client find their own personal identity by get-ting the complete (lost) picture of their soul reality. Dr. Newton

explains:

Current truths are succeeded by a higher and acute aware-

ness of ourselves that is at the core of expressing our per-

sonal identity. As spiritual regressionists utilizing the power

of hypnosis, we are now blessed with a new medium of

therapeutic intervention. If you are able to assist people inseeing the light of divinity within themselves and foster self-

discovery, then you will have made a real contribution to-

ward the ultimate enlightenment of our race./6

With this statement, Dr. Newton actually fully describes my

own mission, and I felt grateful for the encouragement I received

through his book. Also regarding the bioenergy, his book delivers

practical information that is barely to be found anywhere else.


384



Please understand that prana is not the breath itself nor the

oxygen involved with breathing but the energy connected to

the breath. It is a connection to the energy of all living things

as a universal life force. I have worked to train myself to

seek energy pathways necessary to reach a particular client’s

mind while asking for help from my guide and my subject’s

guide. I begin by opening my mind and asking for guidance.

In this way I try to receive information and not send it. What

I do send to my clients are messages of confidence and reas-

surance. /12

In my research on sound and energy, I have learnt that the

human voice is a powerful musical instrument and vibrationally

very important, when used intently and ingenuously. Now, I was

wondering what the relationship was between sound and bio-

energy, and got some clues in Jonathan Goldman’s books HealingSounds (2002) and Tantra of Sound (2005) that I reviewed earlier in

this volume. Now, Dr. Newton writes on the subject of a hypno-

therapist modulating his or her voice, and thereby manipulating

vital energies:

I have mentioned how a subject’s own mental compass

within their higher spiritual self can assist them in reaching

the depth they require for specific soul memories. Also, that

one must always be aware of the two different magnetic en-

ergy fields which are activated between the minds of client

and facilitator working together. I bring this concept up

again to remind spiritual regressionists that the voice is an-

other means of reaching through the subject’s energy fieldand is useful in both removing emotional blocks and deep-

ening. /41

MICHAEL NEWTON

385



Carefully pacing a session and using different voice inflec-

tions involving the application of sharp, soft, encouraging,

and calming techniques takes on greater hypnotic impor-

tance during a long mental journey./42

I work to pitch my vibrational voice tones to match both the

sound and type of responses coming from my LBL subject.

/Id.

Before the arrival of my clients, I take a few minutes to exer-

cise my voice range and sustain certain notes, especially in

the lower registers. Calibrating my voice with that of the

client from time to time fosters the merging of vibrational

energy./Id.


386



Michel Odent

The Functions of the Orgasms

The Highway to Transcendence

London: Pinter & Martin, 2009

The Functions of the Orgasms is a cutting-edge study on the human pleasure func-

tion in its largest contextual framework, and with a special regard upon female

sexuality and the biological function of birthing and breastfeeding.



Odent’s [book] is a stylish polemic that mixes endocrinology, comparative

anthropology, philology, anecdotes from the author's own medical practice.

—Steven Poole, The Guardian

‘Fetus ejection reflex’, ‘milk ejection reflex’, ‘sperm ejection reflex’, ‘orgas-

mogenic cocktail’ . . . These are examples of terms used by Michel Odent in his

study of the ecstatic/orgasmic states associated with different episodes of human

sexual life. This book about male and female orgasms is an opportunity to con-

vince anyone that humanity is at a turning point. Due to the improved technique

of medically assisted conceptions and cesareans, the advances in anesthesiology

and pharmacology, and the development of the food industry, women can now

conceive a baby, give birth and feed their infant without relying on the release of

‘cocktails of love hormones’. Human intelligence and ingenuity have made love

hormones redundant. Let us think long-term and let us raise questions in terms

of civilization. The future of humanity is at stake.

—Backcover

The study confirms and fully corroborates the earlier psycho-

logical, neurological and sociological research conducted by Wil-

helm Reich, Herbert James Campbell, James W. Prescott, Ashley

Montagu, and others. The title of the book is deliberately coined to

allude to Wilhelm Reich’s pioneering study The Function of the Or-

gasm (1942) as the author expressly notes, saying that his intention

for writing the book had been to ‘rewrite The Function of the Or-

gasm in a new scientific context.’

Before I review this book in detail, providing some quotes, I

may say this as an introduction. It is natural that one ventures out

from one’s own pleasure continuum. In other words, the under-

standing of the whole of life, and the way we perceive life, is con-

ditioned by how we experience pleasure. But it is also a limitative

view when one ventures to know only about one’s particular emo-

tional or sexual addiction.


388



Michel Odent’s approach is comparatively larger. While the

focus in this book is primarily upon female sexuality and the sex-

ual nature of the process of birth, and breastfeeding, he is saying

that the experience of pleasure, in its ecstatic dimension, connects

us back with our source, and thus becomes an experience of tran-

scendence , an experience that is not just subjective and ‘personal’,

but essentially transpersonal. Odent links back to the oldest of

traditions, the times when women had freedom and power to live

the whole of their feminine erotic experience.

Odent’s main tenet in this book is that the female has been

disempowered to give birth autonomously, because there is a fetus

ejection reflex that is connected to the limbic system and the hypo-

thalamus, and that is overridden by the neocortex.

Hence, all kinds of procedures that ‘assist’ the mother in the birthing process are dysfunctional; all support, even midwifery, is

dysfunctional as it activates the neocortex in the laboring woman

and suppresses the fetus ejection reflex as a result.

The same is true for the orgasmic experience of breastfeeding

which was invaded by guilt and shame as a result of cultural con-

ditioning. Odent also reports that the rise in Cesarean birth led to

the fact that mothers do not want to breastfeed or only a short

time. He advances evidence for the fact that breastfeeding should

be a matter of years, not of months, with humans. He also reports

interesting details about certain apes and especially dolphins and

their non-reproductive sexual life, which is based, as with hu-

mans, exclusively upon pleasure and exchanging pleasure.

Besides, he speaks of a ‘cocktail of love hormones’ that is in-

volved in any kind of sexual experience and a special hormone

MICHEL ODENT

389



called oxytocin that triggers in the laboring woman an altered

consciousness that leads to the mother ecstatically embracing the

newborn with all her soul, making for deep bonding between

mother and infant.

Needless to add that because of all our birth assistance and

tons of machinery, the flow of those hormones has been largely

blocked in our culture, which is the ultimate reason why women

came to dislike breastfeeding their infants, nor really bond with

them in the first moments after birth, which makes, as my own

research demonstrates, for our society’s enormous problems with

co-dependence.

One of the key factors in this etiology is lacking mother-infantsymbiosis during the first eighteen months of the newborn, in-

cluding a lack of breastfeeding and tactile care for the child from


390



the part of the emotionally frigid mother. Generally speaking, it is

the inability of the mother to derive pleasure from the birthing ex-

perience. As a result of this blockage of the emotional flow, the

mother emotionally ‘clings’ to the child which is why she is un-

able to give to the baby a sufficient amount of autonomy to ex-

plore the world in freedom.

When one grasps the universality of pleasure in the higher

vertebrates and especially in the human, one’s personal addictionloses importance and one ventures into a larger realm of human

experience that is valid and experienced by many more people

than a tiny group. This then makes for a higher level of erotic in-

telligence and better overall judgment ability in matters of human

emosexual experiences and their cognitive, emotional and social

importance.To fully understand the similarities between orgasmic states

and other ecstatic states, we need to go far back in time, namely to

the Eastern Tantra , a culture that preceded the pleasure-hostile Ve-

danta by thousands of years.

While Vedanta is a relatively new religious paradigm in Hindu

culture, Tantra was much longer-lived, and for good reasons.

Odent also cites the ‘age of sacred prostitutes’ as being besides

Tantra one of the cultures that understood this hidden connection.

Generally, the author speaks about a distorted scientific world-

view in which the main paradigms were forged only by men:

It is as if there are female ways to evaluate the comparativeimportance of different perspectives in exploring human

nature. All scientific hypotheses are more or less based on

intuitive knowledge and intuitive knowledge is gender re-

MICHEL ODENT

391



lated. Until recently the scientific world was highly domi-

nated by men. We are entering a new phase in the history of

sciences, with a more symmetrical input from each gender.

/4

Based upon this insight into cultural bias, which is intrinsically

a bias of perception, the author explains how the fetus ejection re-

flex could be overlooked for so long:

There are several reasons why we’ll first look at the fetus

ejection reflex. The first reason is that after thousands of

years of culturally controlled birth very few people—includ-

ing the natural childbirth advocates—can imagine what it is

about. Another reason is that, in the current / scientific con-

text, when the fetus ejection reflex is understood, it is easier

to look at the other orgasmic/ecstatic states. We must addthat this climax probably corresponds to the top of the high-

est possible ladder human beings may have the opportunity

to climb. /4-5


392



In accordance with the oldest religious teachings of the world,

not only Tantra, but also Taoist doctrine and especially the teach-

ings of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu in China, Michel Odent advocates

the cultivation of sensuality and ‘orgasmic states’ as the ultimate

pathway to transcendence, and the realization of unity with all-

that-is. It is wonderful to see that a medical doctor, famous obste-

trician, scientist and author of our days has found this perennial

wisdom that I equally dug out of the cultural treasure of the an-

cient wisdom traditions.

And equally in accordance with these traditions, Odent warns

of the danger to overstimulate the neocortex through an exagger-

ated focus upon language, and concepts. In all natural processes

that require a let-go and an utmost of spontaneity, such as the sex-

ual embrace and particularly, as the author shows, the birthingexperience, the neocortex should be at rest, for otherwise it inter-

feres with the quite automatic processes that nature has set in

place for regulating and maintaining these processes.

An authentic fetus ejection reflex takes place when a human

baby is born after a short series of irresistible contractions, /

which leave no room for voluntary movements. In such cir-cumstances it is obvious that the neocortex (the part of the

brain related to intellectual activities) is at rest and no longer

in control of the archaic brain structures in charge of vital

functions such as giving birth. /9

Dr. Odent has summarized two decades of research done on

spontaneous birthing to demonstrate that in the case nature is re-

spected, there is neither excruciating pain involved in giving birth

to a child, nor any psychological symptoms that let birthing ap-

MICHEL ODENT

393



pear like a disease. We don’t need to look back very far; still re-

cently birthing was done in hospitals in pretty much the same way

as operating a tumor, in antiseptic rooms, under strong lights,

with metallic instruments making sharp noise, and with cameras

installed for monitoring the ‘operation.’

I may be allowed to report here what I saw in a documentary

in my younger years. It was showing how women from a moun-

tain tribe in Caucasia give birth under extreme conditions.The film showed a strongly built woman walking naked into a

mountain lake, at about –20ºC. At the shore, a crowd of people

was waiting in silence, her extended family and friends. In walk-

ing ahead, she had to break the ice with her hands and feet, until

she reached a spot that she found suitable for giving birth.

She broke the ice in a circle around herself, and was then took

a position with her feet firmly on the ground, and her legs slightly

bent, as if riding a horse.

Then she seemed to enter a state of trance or meditation, as

she suddenly was completely silent and immobile.

A few moments later her pelvis exhibited strong contractions

or convulsions that appeared to push the baby out. It took no

more than three of those major spams and the baby was falling

out of her womb, in her hands, that she had held wide open, while

bowing down with the last contraction. She took the newborn up,

smiling, and bate through the umbilical cord. Then she slowly and

gracefully walked back to the shore where the crowd attended her

in silence.


394







There are clear similarities between the immediate post or-

gasmic states following a fetus ejection reflex and an orgasm

of genital sexuality. During the hour following the birth,

when mother and newborn baby are in close skin-to-skin

contact and have not yet eliminated the hormones released

during the ejection reflex, each of these hormones has a spe-

cific role to play—natural morphine being a typical example.

Since all opiates have the properties necessary to create

states of dependency, it seems obvious that body-to-body

contact between two individuals who are under the effects of

endorphins can induce the beginning of a co-dependency, or

in other worlds of an attachment. /45

Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of extended

breastfeeding, which is not only a concern for bringing up infants

within a continuum of optimal tactile stimulation and nutrition, but also a concern of public sanity, for the turndown of breastfeed-

ing is one of the primary factors in the etiology of violence. The

author writes:

The duration of breastfeeding is undoubtedly influenced by

family structures. Since human societies organize mating

and create marriage rules, they also indirectly influence theduration of breastfeeding. Nobody knows exactly what the

physiological ideal for the duration of breastfeeding is

among humans. For any other mammal, the answer is sim-

ple—almost as simple as for the duration of pregnancy. For

example, after spending 230 days in the womb, the baby

chimpanzee is fed by its mother for two years; a bottle-nosed

dolphin is breastfed for 16 months. For human beings the

answer is much more imprecise, although a / physiological

ideal can be deduced as a reference point. Comparing hu-

MICHEL ODENT

397



man beings with other mammals and taking into account the

duration of our life in the womb, our degree of maturity at

birth, our lifespan, the special nutritional needs of our big

brain, tooth development, and so forth, we might conclude

that breastfeeding among humans was originally maintained

for a matter of years rather than a few months. /66-67

The author also clarifies that before the ‘lifelong strict monog-

amy,’ most babies were breastfed for two to four years, which was

a practice that started in ancient Greece and went along all the

way up until the 19th century.

Michel Odent gives conclusive samples out of the life of thehigher apes and dolphins that demonstrate that these animals,

that are genetically most related to the human race, enjoy a sexual

life that is non-reproductive.

This research is important for it shows the invalidity of the

view forwarded by fundamentalist religions that sexuality, if used

properly, was exclusively procreative in the whole of the animalrealm, and that only humans had ‘transgressed’ this ‘natural law’

by being ‘pansexual’ to the utmost degree.


398



Dolphins are known to have sex very frequently, in many

different ways, for reasons other than reproduction, and they

sometimes engage in acts of a homosexual nature. Copula-

tion takes place face-to-face and though many species of

dolphins engage in lengthy foreplay, the actual act is usually

only brief, but may be repeated several times within a short

time span. Various dolphin species have even been known to

engage in sexual behavior with other dolphin species. Occa-

sionally, dolphins will also show sexual behavior towards

other animals, including humans. /90

[Bonobos] often copulate face-to-face and the frontal orienta-

tion of the Bonobo vulva and clitoris both strongly suggest

that the female genitalia are adapted for this position. Dur-

ing sexual intercourse the females have been heard emitting

grunts and squeals that probably reflect orgasmic experi-

ences, which perhaps explains why sex, among bonobos, is

not just for reproduction—it is the key to their social life.

Bonobos become sexually aroused remarkably easily, and

they express this excitement in a / variety of mounting posi-

tions and forms of genital contact. Perhaps the bonobo’s

most typical sexual pattern is genito-genital rubbing be-

tween adult females. The two females rub their genital swel-

lings laterally together. Male bonobos, too, may engage in

pseudocopulation; they often perform a back to back varia-

tion, one male briefly rubbing his scrotum against the but-

tocks of another. These mammals also practice so-called pe-

nis fencing, in which two males hang face-to-face from a

branch, rubbing their erect penises together. /90-91

Michel Odent also emphasizes that humans have close genetic

relations with aquatic animals, a fact that has been overlooked by

scholars for thousands of years. It is significant in this context that

MICHEL ODENT

399



human babies can stay erect and walk in water before they are

able to walk on dry land. The author then concludes that ‘all chap-

ters of human anatomy, physiology, behavior, pathology, and evo-

lutionary medicine must be rewritten in the light of this so-called

‘aquatic-ape theory.’

I sincerely wish that this important book finds a large audience

beyond the circles of academia. This is a vital and noble cause

when we think of reformulating basic social policies that regulatehuman behavior, and sexuality. We must grant this research a

prime agenda for it unveils most of the myths that cultural condi-

tioning has brought up about the nature of pleasure, thereby belit-

tling or outright turning down the importance of pleasure of the

human race, and generally, all of life.

We also should keep in mind that cutting-edge consciousnessresearch demonstrated that even particles possess consciousness

and actually choose where they wish to be and in which orbits

they wish to circulate around the nucleus. We have good reasons

to assume that the pleasure function is not restricted to human

beings alone, but that all of creation basically ‘runs on pleasure,‘

which means that positive sensations are the stimulus for evolu-tion. It is deplorable that over the last five thousand years, and

with the turn of Tantra into Vedanta, the pleasure function was

demonized in human evolutionary history.

This namely led to forging so-called sex laws, which are pun-

ishing life, and that are countering the positive evolution of hu-

manity.

There cannot be any evolution of the human race as long as we

demonize and prohibit pleasure, and regard human sexuality as


400



basically dangerous and potentially aggressive. Our penal code

does not display much respect of the human nature; in fact our sex

laws seem to consider us to be an ‘impossible human’ instead of a

‘possible human’, which is why these laws need to be abolished.

For anyone who is engaged in law reform and reformulation

of our basic social policies, the scientific contribution Michel

Odent made in this book, and his other books, is substantial and

important. It is important because it shows that the natural pleas-ure function is in no way to be taken as a ‘potentially chaotic be-

havior’ but is regulated by nature so that no harm is done. When

harm is done, it is not the result of the natural pleasure function,

but exactly the denial of that function through the imposition of

compulsory sex morality.

MICHEL ODENT

401





Dr. Otto Carl Simonton (1942-2009) and his wife Dr. Stephanie

Matthews-Simonton criticized the usual ways of treating cancer.

Their account of an alternative cancer cure which became suc-

cessful is written in an honest and lively manner, not theory-based

but sanely experience-based.

I think that the Simontons have greatly helped to establish al-

ternative cancer cure in our today’s diversified medical servicing,

and thereby have done a great job for all of us. And yet, I have metso many people, even in recent years, who never heard of its exis-

tence! It seems that the common man and the common woman get

their knowledge from the mass media, and there you see same old

soup, even today, with death-blow doctoral injunctions of the kind

‘Your life expectancy is maximum six months’, chemotherapy, and

all the rest of it. And of course, you can find the Simontons on theInternet. Here is the address of the place and the reference to their

well-done web site about the Simonton Cancer Center.

—Simonton Cancer Center, Malibu, CA 90264. http://simontoncenter.com

OTTO CARL SIMONTON

403



That’s what conditioning is all about, and how the medical

system works—systematic disinformation about everything, life,

people, the world, resources, disease, hunger, war, death—while

health is never mentioned! And for good reason. It could disturb

worldwide medical business, for that’s what it is: a business, not

something even remotely concerned with healing. But the Simon-

ton approach is an approach to effective healing, and that’s why

this book is included in this volume and not in its sister volume

The New Paradigm in Science and Systems Theory (2014).

Fritjof Capra mentions in his book The Turning Point (1987)

that he was astonished to find out that the words healing and healer

have a pejorative meaning for most medical doctors. In fact, these

terms are associated with charlatanism and quackery. That is why,

among other things, the Simontons did not have an easy job. Their breakthrough were techniques today called ‘self-awareness tech-

niques’ that at the time when they started where called visualiza-

tion techniques or mental imaging. It was one of several approaches

they had tried out, but as these techniques were more successful

than others in helping their cancer patients, they stuck with them.

(By the way, there are many other alternative cancer cures; someare based on diet, some on bioenergetic treatment, some on ozone

inhalation, etc.).

The most important thing in the process of helping the patient

to collaborate in healing their cancer is to get them to learn that

they have a role to play in their healing. For they are conditioned by

traditional medicine to be mere injunction-receivers, and passivesufferers of a fate. The authors write:


404



Most of our patients, who come to us from all over the coun-

try, have received a ‘medically incurable’ diagnosis from

their doctors. According to national cancer statistics, they

have an average life expectancy of one year. When these

people believe that only medical treatment can help them—

but their physicians have said that medicine is no longer of

much avail and that they probably have only a few months

to live—they feel doomed, trapped, helpless, and usually

fulfill the doctor’s expectations. But if patients mobilize their

own resources and actively participate in their recovery, they

may well exceed their life expectancy and significantly alter

the quality of life./4

One of the most daring ideas that doctors ever came up with

was to offer patients placebo drugs, suggesting they got drug XYZ,

famous and tested, and proven to be effective according to phar-maceutical publicity. In truth, what they received was a sugar pill.

Well, it’s hard to believe that this works better than normal medi-

cine because it has no side effects. But it has been shown over and

over that it cures as effectively as a real drug. The authors relate a

dramatic case that vividly illustrates the power of the placebo ef-

fect:

A most dramatic case of the placebo effect has been reported

by Dr. Bruno Klopfer, a researcher involved in the testing of

the drug Krebiozen. In 1950, Krebiozen had received sensa-

tional national publicity as a ‘cure’ for cancer and was being

tested by the American Medical Association and the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration. Once of Dr. Klopfer’s pa-tients had lymphosarcoma, a generalized, far-advanced ma-

lignancy involving the lymph nodes. The patient had huge

tumor masses throughout his body and was in such desper-

OTTO CARL SIMONTON

405



ate physical condition that he frequently had to take oxygen

by mask, and fluid had to be / removed from his chest every

two days. When the patient discovered that Dr. Klopfer was

involved in research on Krebiozen, he begged to be given

Krebiozen treatments. Klopfer did so, and the patient’s re-

covery was startling. Within a short time the tumors had

shrunk dramatically, and the patient was able to resume a

normal life, including flying his private plane. Then as AMA

and FDA reports of the negative results of Krebiozen started

to be publicized, the patient took a dramatic turn for the

worse. Thinking the circumstances extreme enough to justify

unusual measures, Klopfer told his patient that he had ob-

tained a new, superrefined, double-strength Krebiozen that

would produce better results. Actually, the injections Klopfer

gave were simply sterile water. Yet the patient's recovery

was even more remarkable. Once again the tumor masses

melted, chest fluid vanished, and he became ambulatory and

even went back to flying. The patient remained symptom-

free for over two months. The patient's belief alone, inde-

pendent of the value of the medication, produced his recov-

ery. Then further stories of the AMA and FDA’s tests ap-

peared in the press: ‘Nationwide tests show Krebiozen to be

a worthless drug in the treatment of cancer.’ Within a few

days the patient was dead./26-27

Now regarding the much debated question what causes can-

cer, the authors review in the book the following etiologies: car-

cinogenic substances, genetic predisposition, radiation, diet and

the immune system.

Regarding carcinogenic substances, the authors note that there is

no simple cause--effect relationship between harmful substances,


406



chemicals, chronic irritants, and cancer, and that the matter is

rather controversial in the literature.

Regarding genetic predisposition, the authors note that a human-

based research was not yet available, the research being available

having been conducted on mice. They concluded that this research

left considerable doubt on any ‘it’s genetics alone’ theory.

Regarding radiation, the authors note that background radia-

tion, also called cosmic radiation, is too universal a cause to possibly contribute to the cancer etiology.

With regard to another possibility being discussed, as to fluoro-

carbons released from aerosol cans that destroy the ozone layer of the

atmosphere, leading to an increased exposure to ultraviolet radia-

tion from the sun, the authors admit that although this could cer-

tainly lead to potential health problems, high levels of ultraviolet

rays were associated only with skin cancer.

Regarding x-rays and other radiation used in medical diagnosis

and treatment, the evidence was still unclear because many peo-

ple who have been exposed to high levels of x-rays and other ra-

diation do not contract cancer.

Regarding diet as a possible cause of cancer, which is a relatively

recent etiology, the authors note the following quite remarkable

details:

For instance, Japan, where the diet is still predominantly

based on fish and rice and contains substantially less fat than

does the American or European diet, has both a lower / in-cidence of cancer and a substantially different profile in

types of cancers than the other industrialized countries.

Since the incidence of cancer goes up sharply among Japa-

OTTO CARL SIMONTON

407



nese living in the United States ... some researchers have set-

tled on differences in diet as a likely explanation./38-39

The authors argue that for understanding cancer, we need to

find out why some people have a stronger immune system than

others?

A great deal of time, energy, and resource have been poured

into the search for the causes of cancer, but one important

fact is often overlooked: When exposed to known cancer-

producing substances, most people still remain healthy. It is

quite clear, for example, that the incidence of lung cancer

goes up sharply with heavy smoking. But if all it took to get

cancer was exposure to nicotine and tars, then all heavy

smokers would contract the disease. Yet most heavy smokers

do not get lung cancer./40

As problems with organ transplantation showed, the body’s

immune system normally is strong. For example, a cancer-affected

organ would not be accepted by the receiver, and if forced to do

so, as was shown by experiments, the receiver would indeed con-

tract the cancer, but as soon as the organ was again removed, the

cancer would quickly disappear. This research, as the authors con-

clude, has led to a broad medical acceptance of what is called the

‘surveillance theory’ of cancer development:

External agents, radiation, genetics, diet—all four factors

may play a role in the causation of the disease, but none of

them is a full explanation without considering why particu-lar individuals, at particular points in their lives, contract

cancer./44


408



Now, the answer is of course, that the real causes of cancer are

related to emotional stress, in the sense that the suppression of

emotions, or certain emotions, clearly contributes to the causation

of cancer. Another factor is the inability noted in most cancer pa-

tients to express their emotions and thus release themselves at times

from pent-up emotional tension.

Dr. Simonton in discussion with Jeffrey Mishlove

For example in a research done by Dr. Thomas A. Holmes and

associates at the University of Washington School of Medicine, a

scale was designed that assigned numerical values (1-100) to cer-

tain stressful events: ‘Death of Spouse’, is rated 100, followed by

‘Divorce’, with 73 and ‘Marital Separation’ with 65. However,

even in Holmes’ study, 51 percent of the individuals with scores of

300 did not get sick during the period of the study, which let the

authors conclude that an event, even a stressful one, is construed

differently from person to person. A decisive study done in the

1920s by Dr. Hans Selye at the University of Prague gave conclu-

sive evidence for the stress-related etiology:

OTTO CARL SIMONTON

409



This evidence clearly demonstrates the very real physical

effects of stress. But it is still another effect that is of greatest

importance to the cancer patient. Selye has discovered that

chronic stress suppresses the immune system which is re-

sponsible for engulfing and destroying cancerous cells or

alien microorganisms. The important point is this: The

physical conditions Selye describes as being produced by

stress are virtually identical to those under which an abnor-

mal cell could reproduce and spread into a dangerous can-

cer. Not surprisingly, cancer patients frequently have weak-

ened immune systems. /53

Selye’s findings were confirmed by other research and it was

found that, for example, lymphocyte function, a critical measure

of the potency of the body’s immune system, ‘was significantly

depressed in those who had lost a wife or husband.’ (53) Anotherstudy the authors report points to mental factors leading to the

suppression of the immune system where it was demonstrated

‘that the body’s immunity to tuberculosis can be profoundly af-

fected by hypnotic suggestion,’ which leads to the conclusion that

mental and emotional stress impacts on the body’s defenses. The

authors conclude that there are major themes of research in theetiology of cancer that crystallized out:

High levels of emotional stress increase susceptibility to ill-

ness. Chronic stress results in a suppression of the immune

system, which in turn creates increased susceptibility to ill-

ness—and especially to cancer. Emotional stress, which sup-

presses the immune system, also leads to hormonal imbal-ances. These / imbalances could increase the production of

abnormal cells at precisely the time the body is least capable

of destroying them./54-55


410



But this is not yet the core of the book. The authors went fur-

ther in their research and found historical connections between

cancer and emotions, and that certain beliefs clearly trigger a pre-

disposition for cancer: it is not down the road that we got stress,

but how we cope with it what really is the subtle cause of cancer.

Most of the time, the ways in which we respond to the

stresses of life are habitual, dictated by our unconscious be-

liefs about who we are, who we ‘should’ be, and the way theworld and other people are and should be. These patterns of

behavior form a total orientation, or stance toward life./56

I always intuitively knew that compulsory morality is a strong

factor in the etiology of cancer, and the cancer patients I met in my

life have corroborated this insight. They were invariably people

who were thinking much more on the lines of ‘should be’ and

‘ought to behave’ than the average citizen who tends to think on

the lines of ‘Me first’. Quoting a researcher who published a book

in 1893 with the title Cancer and the Cancer-Process , and who stated

that ‘idiots and lunatics are remarkably exempt from cancer in

every shape’, the authors go on to examine an array of research

findings that corroborated their hypothesis of ‘emotional causa-

tion’. Among the factors that cause predisposition for cancer, the

authors examine the research of Dr. Lawrence LeShan, an experi-

mental psychologist who found evidence that co-dependence and

emotional abuse may contribute to the cancer etiology. He identi-

fied four recurring elements, something like a fatally coincidental

sequence, in the life stories of more than 500 cancer patients:

OTTO CARL SIMONTON

411





After reviewing some of their patient’s life stories, the authors

inquire into the psychological process of illness and come to stress

certain factors they have seen in all the life stories they reviewed,

such as, for example:

Experiences in childhood result in decisions to be a certain

kind of person.

The individual is rocked by a cluster of stressful life events.

These stresses create a problem with which the individual

does not know how to deal.

The individual sees no way of changing the rules about how

he or she must act and so feels trapped and helpless to re-

solve the problem. /

The individual puts distance between himself or herself and

the problem, becoming static, unchanging, rigid./74-75

For each of these categories, the authors forward conclusive

evidence from the case histories, which I will not discuss here be-

cause of copyright. I can only say that this part of the book is per-

haps the most important as it provides very concise evidence as to

the real causes of cancer, which can be summarized as being emo-

tional, behavioral, and belief-related. But this is not all there is in the

etiology of cancer. The authors also provide conclusive evidence

for the fact that also the expectations a patient fosters about cancer

as a disease contribute to the etiology, and that there is evidence

for the fact that the stiff neurotic adherence to a life-denying ide-

OTTO CARL SIMONTON

413



ology or religion or otherwise morality-imposing belief system

decidedly contributes to the causation of cancer.

After this first research part of the book, the authors present

their own approach in the second part, that starts at page 100, and

thus approximately after one-third of the book. I find that this was

a good balance to keep by the authors, and congratulate them, and

their publisher, for the good editing and composition of this book-

let, which comes with a 19-pages Bibliography and an Index.


414



Hal and Sidra Stone

Embracing Our Selves

The Voice Dialogue Manual

Novato, CA: New World Library, 1989

The Voice Dialogue Manual was my companion in the two years I practiced dia-

loguing with my inner selves. Let us first clarify what voice dialogue actually is

all about? It’s a synonym for the inner dialogue with all our inner selves.

The Voice Dialogue Manual accompanied me with valuable ad-

vice over these years; I highly appreciated its clarity and depth



that gives immediate credit to the authors’ immense expertise

with facilitating personal change and transformation. This is not

just a technical manual that teaches a method. It’s that also, but

much more. Here is how the authors introduce the book:

Voice Dialogue is not a school of psychotherapy, it is not a

substitute for psychotherapy, and it is not a profession in

and of itself. It is a technique for psychological exploration

and for the expansion of awareness. Although it can be a

highly effective tool for any psychotherapist it should be

clearly understood that it is not a complete and autonomous

therapeutic system./78

The authors appear to be beyond the mechanistic paradigm,

radiating a true and living spirituality. One of the objectives of

their unique and empathic approach to personal development andtransformational change is to help people develop their unique

vulnerability, their openness to the whole of life.

In my work, I have indeed become aware that vulnerability is

a sort of key word, and can be set as a destination in therapy. Vul-

nerability is our highest virtue, it’s the daringness, the courage,

the boldness to really embrace our destiny, to live fully and with-

out anxiety or fear of life.

Coping with this fear is a process, it cannot be brought about

through an instant, sudden insight but is the result of dissolving,

one by one, our shields, defenses, and projections.

Now, there is one pattern that is stronger than the others andwhich builds most of our character armor: it’s our inner controller.

The authors write:


416



The protector/controller is the primary energy pattern be-

hind many other selves. For example, it will utilize the ener-

gies of the rational self and the responsible parent as a way

of maintaining control over our environment. When most

people use the word I, they are in fact referring to their

protector/controller. For the vast majority of us, protector/

controller energy is the directing agent of personality. It is

what many people think of as an ego./15

The authors express some things better than any of the famed

psychologists I have been reading, Freud and Jung. They speak of

our psychic fingerprint, which is an expression that beautifully

wraps around our inner clarity, and cosmic identity, when we are

in the state of total awareness, when there are no defenses, when

there is peace, when our inner lake is reflecting life without rip-

ples. And beyond the scope of this book, I believe that this cosmic

identity is related not to our mind, but to our emotional identity. It’s

coded as a vibrational code, and it’s related to the flow nature of

our emotional body, the human aura. The authors write:

The problem is, of course, that we gradually begin to lose

track of our psychic fingerprint. This is a sad state of affairs,for our whole system of relationships is affected by this loss.

If we are no longer in touch with those qualities that make

up our unique psychic fingerprint, then it is not our deepest

and most vulnerable self that is involved in relationships.

Instead, it is a group if subpersonalities, watched over by the

protector/controller, that determines our feelings and

behavior./15

Another expression I find helpful for understanding our inner

life is the notion of disowned selves. The authors write:

HAL AND SIDRA STONE

417



We can be helpless victims to the multitude of relationships

in our lives that reflect our disowned selves, or we can ac-

cept the challenge of these relationships and ask: How is this

person, or this situation, my teacher? Asking this question in

itself represents a major shift in consciousness. A great deal

of the stress in our lives results from our tendency to attract

reflections of our disowned selves in our relationships, and

we continue to suffer as the same patterns are repeated in

our lives. Unfortunately, for most of us there is no support to

learn this lesson inherent in this process. Without this sup-

port the energy of our disowned selves grows stronger and

more twisted./32

Sigmund Freud was among the first psychologists who found

that the etiology of neurosis is primarily sexual, or with other

words, that when we repress sexual desire, we risk to become se-riously ill. Later, Wilhelm Reich found that not only neurosis, but

also psychosis, and especially schizophrenia are disturbances of

the vital energy flow that are the result of a distortion of body per-

ception. The same is true for the repression of ‘negative’ emotions

such as anger, hate or revengeful desires. What happens when we

are conditioned to repress our hot emotions is that they will bereplaced by depression. Thus, every time you would be angry at

somebody, you will ‘make’ a depression.

The depression will lead you back, through dreams and intui-

tion, to the original wound, which was inflicted upon you when

you were punished, as a child, for being angry. When you go deep

enough down the rabbit hole into your depression, you can trig-ger the therapeutic effect of remembrance! But what we do most

of the time when we are depressed is to seek distraction, else we


418



take anti-depressants, thus avoiding the catharsis that the depres-

sion would naturally trigger. And on it goes. Every time you get

angry because somebody interferes with your boundaries or lacks

respect toward you, instead of using your anger as it should to put

that person ‘straight’, you escape into your next depression.

Hal and Sidra Stone speak in such a case about disowning the

anger energy, which is a good terminology that vividly describes

the effect of the unhealthy repression of desire, which is unfortu-nately an integral part of our patriarchal tradition.

When natural instinctual energies such as the need for sur-

vival, sexuality, and aggression are disowned over time, they

cycle back into the unconscious and go through a significant

change. Energy cannot be destroyed; thus, these disowned

energies begin to operate unconsciously and attract addi-tional energy to themselves. They soon lose their natural

qualities and become malevolent./32

Emotional flow is the natural positive flow of the bioenergy.

Demonic and destructive energies are the result of a negative po-

larization, which in turn is the consequence of the repression of

the original desire and its biogenic expression as ‘emotion’:

The disowning of the seven deadly sins results in a particu-

lar blend-up of instinctual energies in the unconscious that

we call demonic energies. They are among the major dis-

owned energy patterns, and as a society we pay a particu-

larly heavy price for their negation./33

The subpersonalities also protect themselves by revealing

themselves only to a facilitator who has access to a similar

HAL AND SIDRA STONE

419



energy. Thus, the facilitator must be aware of and able to

locate the energy pattern within himself or herself that reso-

nates with the subject’s energy pattern./76

As an evaluation, this book clearly has merited the attribute

excellent , both in its addressing the intelligent lay reader and the

psychic health care professional. For both audiences, there is am-

ple information, which is not just theory, but practical and directly

applicable when actually doing the work of voice dialogue, withoneself or in a team, or else with a group, as a voice dialogue fa-

cilitator.

I may point you here to a more specific book by these authors

which is about handling the inner controller—which they call the

‘Inner Critic.’ You can find the book on Amazon.

—Hal & Sidra Stone, Embracing Your Inner Critic: Turning Self-Criticism

into a Creative Asset, New York: HarperOne, 1993


420



Dora van Gelder

The Real World of Fairies

A First-Person Account

Wheaton: Quest Books (Theosophical Publishing House), 1999

The Real World of Fairies is one of a few really mind-opening books I found in my

life. When I say mind-opening, I do not just mean brilliant, excellent, daringly

novel or outstanding in terms of intellectual achievement. I mean nothing less

daring than my entire worldview suddenly shifting, widening, leading me up toa higher level of conscious awareness.



There are not many studies about the fairy world. While nov-

els and short stories, especially the romantic sort, indulge in the

mystical theme, this would never have attracted my interest. Ac-

tually I did buy Irish fairy stories by William Butler Yeats, but that

is something entirely different. We are talking about a poetic real-

ity here, and about folklore. We also talk about good literature.

My interest in fairies, however, is scientific. Evans-Wentz’s fa-

mous study The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries (1911/2003) left mecold compared to the present book. (See the review further up in

this volume). Why was it so? Because that study presents hearsay

evidence, to use a legal expression, it substantially consists of in-

terviews with all kinds of people from Brittany, Ireland, Scotland

and England who say they have heard of fairies, seen fairies or

fairy paths, or know about the existence of fairies, but the authorhimself resides in a distant intellectual chamber, as it were, to re-

port all this from an alien world he himself was seemingly never

in touch with. Our science perversely attributes more credit to the

‘disentangled’ researcher, who strictly speaking knows nothing

about the subject he researches about, compared to a clairvoyant

who actually saw the fairy world and actively communicated withfairies over the whole course of her life. Modern science, while it

knows that the observer is always entangled with the object of ob-

servation, argues that evidence is biased when a person reports

events from her own life that are not peer-reviewed and replicated

by other individuals. While quantum physics of course shows that

there is no science at all without entanglement between observerand object of observation, many scientists still discard more of life

than they actually embrace in their residue science paradigm.


422



Generally speaking, I would go as far as saying that if you are

not entangled with the subject of your research, to a point to have

sleepless nights about it, one the one hand, and experience mo-

ments of euphoria on its account, on the other, you will not be a

brilliant researcher, and your publications will not really convince

others. It’s is a parallel observation you may accept or not, but fact

is that Dora van Gelder’s book about the existence of fairies is

more scientific, and provides more tangible evidence for the exis-

tence of the fairy world than all of Evans-Wentz’s epic and sophis-

ticated tales that make at best for a nice and elegant book cover in

your home library.

To begin with, Dora van Gelder implores the fact that our sci-

ence tends to overlook the underlying structures that are for the

most part invisible to the senses, yet absolutely substantial for liv-ing systems, and which consist of vibrations, and vibrational pat-

terns. It is the role of the clairvoyant to sensibilize her perception

apparatus to these vibrations:

The fact is that there is a real physical basis for clairvoyance,

and the faculty is not especially mysterious. The power cen-

ters in that tiny organ in the brain called the pituitary gland.The kind of vibrations involved are so subtle that no physi-

cal opening in the skin is needed to convey them to the pitui-

tary body, but there is a special spot of sensitiveness just be-

tween the eyes above the root of the nose which acts as the

external opening for the gland within./4

I found the book really starts with the second chapter entitled

A Typical Fairy, in which van Gelder meticulously describes as it

were a ‘standard’ fairy, an exemplary of a variety of varieties, so as

DORA VAN GELDER

423



to give the reader a taste of the high vibrational and etheric nature

of these creatures. She writes:

The material of his body is a loosely knit as the vapor from

the spout of a boiling teakettle and is somewhat of the na-

ture of a cloud of colored gas. In fact it is exactly that, only

the gas is finer than the lightest we know and is less readily

detected even than helium or hydrogen. But this does not

prevent it from being held together in / a form, for it is not a

chemical but a living substance which life saturates and

holds together. In truth, his power of this matter as a living

creature is shown by the fact that his body is composed of

two distinct densities of material. The body proper is a true

emerald green and fairly dense, considering the stuff of

which it is made; around this on all sides, both front and

back, is a much thinner cloud of the same matter in which he

is not so vividly alive. This thinner portion, which extends

from all sides of this body proper, is a lighter green./32-33

Van Gelder explains that fairies are essentially beings made of

energy. The material they are built of is feelings, vital matter, emo-

tions, streaks of energy which are modulated by their emotions,

their movements, and their desires.

The matter, then, they are made of is pure emotional streams,

not veins, muscles or nerves; when they feel an emotion, their

body directly responds and transforms itself according to the emo-

tion. They have a heart which is a glowing and pulsating center

and that emanates golden light and that the secret of fairy life is

rhythm. While we have sensations, she explains, fairies are sensa-

tion, all sensation, and they do not perceive life like we do,


424



through special organs, but with their whole highly electric organ-

ism.

There are some very interesting and important details here be-

cause some of what van Gelder says confirms my research on

emotions and the vital energy.

The secret of the fairy life is rhythm. Each kind of fairy

(whether water, land, air, or fire) comes into the world with a

limited and definite range of rhythmic power, according tohis / species and his own personal nature. Within this range,

he controls the rhythm of vitality by his desires and feelings.

/34-35

As I said, they have a heart center like other fairies, but in

addition, the surface of their bodies is covered with scores of

luminous points that are subcenters connected with theheart. When the fairies move, a sort of suction is set up in

these spots of light; thus vitality is drawn into their bodies.

There are at least two kinds of energy involved, one from the

sunlight and the other from the water. The fairy’s heart cen-

ter is in the nature of a mixing place for these two sorts of

vital energy. Now, in the sea itself, at more or less fixed posi-

tions relative to one another, there are centers like vortices,probably magnetic, which are, of course, super-physical. At

times when the fairy has absorbed far more of this mixed

energy than he needs, he pours it out of his / surface centers,

and it is swept into the nearest of these vortices. There it is

swirled around and distributed from one vortex to another

by way of equalizing the charge. The fairies do this uncon-

sciously all day long, and in this way the sea is charged with

magnetism, thus helping all the creatures that live in it.

/130-131

DORA VAN GELDER

425



Another highly interesting detail in this context is the way fair-

ies establish relationships with other fairies, with plants and ani-

mals, and at times also with humans. There is a unique way they

do this, namely by adapting their vibration to the vibration of the

being they want to relate to. Van Gelder explains:

When he wants to respond to a plant, he makes his heart

beat at the same pulse rate as the plant. This synchrony

makes him unified./34

Apart from the form fairies present themselves in, which

greatly varies, and which they can deliberately alter, here is more

about how they handle and wistfully manipulate the energy they

are made of:

In this exchange of energies, those from the earth and thosefrom the sun, the fairy plays a definite part. He has power

over both these currents, especially the vitality from the sun.

He can retard them here and accelerate them there, and he

can add some extra vitality from himself at such points as he

desires./41

I am convinced that if humanity had not developed into patri-

archy about five thousand years ago, thus developing into evolu-

tionary retardation through moralism—which effectively prevents

love—, we would not be so different after all from fairies. We

would be on a higher level, the level two steps above fairies, as the

step immediate above them is the level of the angels. But humans

are made to be above angels. In this sense, we humans are fallen

angels, and this is how we need to understand the story of Gene-

sis in the Bible and the totally misunderstood idea of original sin.


426



It is not technology that provides us with the evolutionary ad-

vantage over native peoples around the world. It can only be, if

ever, a true evolutionary advantage on the level of the total hu-

man.

Most native peoples around the world are able to see spirit

beings as their extrasensorial perception is more developed than

ours. They also, like van Gelder, see the fairy world. Last not least,

they also behave similarly, in their carefree joy, while it is of coursewistful behavior, and a functional attitude in the face of life’s con-

stant changes and its unpredictability.

The fairy has an immense power of mimicry and a sense of

drama. He is an emotional artist of rare ability, and a group

of them will put on a show for mutual entertainment. I must

explain again that a fairy has the power not only to changehis form but also to clothe himself in marvelous garments, a

process that is carried out by drawing the denser part of the

material about him by means of his will power or desire into

a thought garment. This requires effort and concentration

and takes a few minutes to achieve, especially if he desires to

change his form. The thought garment will last as long as he

sustains the effort at transformation. Most fairies are defi-cient in concentration, and thus they do not keep up the

show for any length of time./44

Between the human point of view and that of a fairy, or any

member of the angelic kingdom, one of the main differences

is that we live in a world of form, and they live in a world of

life. Our thoughts are primarily concerned with the formthings have, and we seldom go further than that. But fairies

are mainly concerned with the energy and life flowing

around and within the form—life that is everywhere. /47

DORA VAN GELDER

427



For example, if we look at a tree we respond to its size, its

shape, its color, its leaves, and fruit. These things combine to

create its beauty for us. But when one comes to think of it,

this is rather a limited way of seeing the world in which we

live. In contrast, the fairy first beholds the spirit of the tree

and responds to its vital energy. To a fairy, the tree is a living,

breathing personality which is expressing itself in the form

we see. There is then an exchange of feeling, a mutual re-

sponse, between the fairy and the tree./47

And in fact, natives do not possess that strict code of morality

that patriarchy has instituted with its monotheistic religions, and

compulsory morality. To prevent being misunderstood here, I do

not talk about genuine morality, but what I would call ‘fake mo-

rality’ which is the morality in our modern society, for it’s hypoc-

risy by and large. If we were having true morality, we wouldn’t

have crime, wars, civil wars, and genocide around the world; we

wouldn’t know the torture of humans and animals, and we would

eat healthy food, not processed food which is after all no food at

all, but corporate chemistry, and in order to watch television we

would develop true vision, true foresight—which is clairvoyance.

Van Gelder explains, in a similar spirit:

Humans have a system of morality, which embodies a very

serious attitude toward life—a moral code based upon rules

and involving fear of penal ties. Of course the fairies have

not the vaguest conception of what all that means. They are

the truest illustration of those lovely words of Jesus: Con-

sider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin.

Yet Solomon in all his glory / was not arrayed as one of

these. [Matthew 6:28-29]/52-53


428



Our vision becomes thus limited, because our direct experi-

ence is bound to be small; and thus we age prematurely, and

life grows monotonous./79

Again, the energy-nature is emphasized in the author’s de-

scription of fairies and how they feed upon the sun, and as they

do not eat, this is their unique form of nourishment.

The fairies think of the sun as a tremendous life-giving globe

of light which is the source of all life, as they derive their

nourishment principally from the sun’s rays. They seem to

draw the rays of the sun through their bodies. This is the

nearest they come to eating. Apart from deriving energy for

the maintenance of their own bodies, they help to guide the

energy from the sun for the plants’ growth./87

Dora van Gelder’s classification of fairies is highly original as

she aligns them with the angelic realm, as a sub-realm actually, and

I think her observations are in alignment with theosophical teach-

ings. She reports that fairies are under the direct order and obser-

vation of angels, and the way she describes these angels is intrigu-

ing, and scientific. I haven’t found it in any other book thus far:

Over all, an angel is brooding—over the fairies, the trees, the

hills, and streams which are part of his life and are his trust.

He is a powerful personality, and the valley is just as much

part of his body as the trunk of a tree is the body of a tree

spirit, except that in this case, the angel has intelligence and

emotions as powerful as our own, and he is as much a being

as we are, if not more so. When he takes form he looks like a

beautiful human being, a clean-shaven youth with fine dark

hair and a powerful aquiline face, his body enveloped in a

DORA VAN GELDER

429



lovely apple green. His presence permeates the life of the

forest and valley./106

The most extraordinary chapter to be found in the book is the

last: how hurricanes are created by angels and what purpose they

serve. The author summarizes her very intriguing observations

with an ethical consideration:

Human beings will inevitably think that the water fairies,

sea angels, and especially the angel of the hurricane himself

are bad or evil, because for us they have been destroying life.

But this is not so. They have destroyed forms, but they have

not destroyed the life within the forms, for life cannot die.

Moreover, these beings have performed their function in ac-

cordance with natural law./167

I shall provide here the Roster of Fairies the author outlines at

the end of her book, because it is something like an extended table

of contents and refers to the various chapters of the book. It gives

you a concise overview over the contents of the book, and is in

itself very informative.

ROSTER OF FAIRIES

AIR FAIRIES are of three general types. First are those sylph-

like beings who inhabit the clouds and work with them.

These are the sculptors of the fairy world. Next are the air

fairies who are associated with the wind and storms. These

air fairies are generally some four or five feet high, very

shapely and beautiful. And last are the immense air spirits

who live at very high altitudes, who resemble great dragons

with huge heads, long bodies, and long tails. They are cen-


430



ters of energy and power of some sort. All three of these

types are described in Chapter 11.

ANGELS OR DEVAS are radiant beings with great intelli-

gence who help to guide nature by their understanding of

the Divine Plan. They direct the energies of nature and over-

see the lesser fairies under their care, such as tree spirits and

those who might be in charge of wind or clouds.

EARTH FAIRIES consists of four main types, two of which

live on the surface of the earth and two underground. On the

surface, these fairies / range from the physically embodied

tree spirits to the small common garden or woods fairies.

Rock fairies, or gnomes, are one of the underground types.

More specific information is given in Chapter 5.

ELEMENTALS are, as their name indicates, spirits of the

elements. These creatures are evolved in the four kingdoms

of elements - air, earth, fire and water—according to Kabbal-

ists. They are called gnomes (of the earth), sylphs (of the air),

salamanders (of fire), and undines (of the water). H.P.

Blavatsky, in The Theosophical Glossary, explains that all the

lower invisible beings generated on the fifth, sixth, and sev-

enth planes of our terrestrial atmosphere are called elemen-

tals and include fairies, peris, devas, djins, sylvans, satyrs,

fauns, elves, leprechauns, dwarfs, trolls, kobolds, brownies,

nixies and pixies, goblins, moss people, manikins, and others

who belong to this classification.

FAIRIES are of four major divisions - air, earth, fire, and wa-

ter. Fairies range in size from the tiny butterfly-size, to

twelve-inch and two-foot ones, up to the great sylphs and

tree spirits.

DORA VAN GELDER

431



FAIRE FAIRIES are also called salamanders.

GARDEN FAIRIES are a common kind of earth fairy. /

GNOMES are another kind of earth fairy who inhabit rocks.

NATURE SPIRITS are those creatures of the devic kingdom

who care for the different categories in nature such as the air

and wind, the growing plants, the landscape features, the

water, and fire.

ROCK FAIRIES are sometimes called gnomes. Such fairies

are to be found both above and below ground. The great

rock fairies of the Grand Canyon are mentioned in Chapter

10 and elsewhere in the book.

SALAMANDERS are also known as fire fairies. Chapter 10

has information on one class of these who inhabit the under-

ground volcanic regions as well as those involved in light-

ning and fires above ground.

SYLPHS are a form of air fairy. They are large in size, though

not as evolved as those other great beings, devas. Cloud

sylphs are described in Chapter 11 and also mentioned in the

chapter on the hurricane, Chapter 12.

TREE SPIRITS, treated in Chapter 7, are larger than wood

fairies and have a more physical body.

UNDINES (a classical or Kabbalistic name) are also calledwater spirits or water fairies. /


432



WATER BABIES are small, happy creatures who are found

near the seashore and in the surf. They are a type of water

fairy, but different from both those who live farther out in

the deep ocean and those who dwell near streams, lakes, or

ponds./178-180

DORA VAN GELDER

433



Alberto Villoldo

Books and Media Reviewed

Healing States (1984)

Shaman, Healer, Sage (2000)

The Luminous Body, DVD (2004)

The Four Insights (2006)

Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., a psychologist and medical anthro-

pologist, has studied the healing practices of the Amazon and Inka

shamans for more than 25 years. While at San Francisco State Uni-



versity, he founded the Biological Self-Regulation Laboratory to study

how the mind creates psychosomatic health and disease.

Villoldo directs the Four Winds Society, where he trains indi-

viduals throughout the world in the practice of energy medicine

and soul retrieval. He has training centers in New England, Cali-

fornia, the UK, Holland, and Park City, Utah. The author of the

best-seller Shaman, Healer, Sage, Villoldo now draws on his vast

knowledge to bring us a practical and revolutionary way to dis-cover the source of an original wound that may have occurred

during childhood or in a former lifetime, and that derailed our

destiny. He then shows us how to track forward along our time

lines to find our best and highest future.

—From: Inlay of Mending the Past and Healing the Future with Soul

Retrieval.—Website: www.thefourwinds.com

I should mention that I was attracted to these books through

the beautiful DVD entitled Healing the Luminous Body that was

produced by Sacred Mysteries , and which I am going to review fur-

ther down. Dr. Villoldo, besides the phenomenal cultural gap that

his teaching closes and the amazing perspectives for soul retrieval

in the future, stands out by his remarkable pedagogical talent; in

fact he is able to convey the complex matter in relatively simple

words and with many examples and excerpts from his personal

journal.

Besides, he writes a poetic style, and irradiates warmth, com-

passion and empathic understanding of human suffering; he also

stands out by his sometimes childlike inquisitiveness that led him

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

435



win the sympathy and support of people and peoples who are, for

reasons that we all know, rather hostile toward our culture.

His popularity is growing presently. A documentary has been

released as his web presence informs and many interviews with

him can be found on Youtube. Besides, his ‘shamanic healing’

seminars are popular throughout the United States.

I am not surprised about his success given the void in our cul-

ture in the domain of genuine and personal spirituality, and theneed for non-mechanistic healing. Villoldo’s books are among the

most important books I have ever read in my life.


436



Healing States

With Stanley KrippnerA Journey into the World of Spiritual Healing and Shamanism

New York: Simon & Schuster (Fireside), 1984

Healing States is a research volume that Alberto Villoldo co-authored with Stanley

Krippner, and it’s a glorious onset of his own career in spiritual healing. The re-

search presented in this book is highly thought-provoking if not mind-boggling,

and it’s well presented.

The point of departure of the author’s scientific journey was

his research on psychosomatic medicine. He was interested what ex-

actly makes the soma follow the psyche, or why the spirit imprints

itself on the soma, thus causing either health or disease. The

authors write:

A growing number of allopathic physicians believe that as

much as 80 percent of all illness may contain a psychoso-matic component. Allopathic medical science, which does

not publicly acknowledge the psychic realm, is still at a loss

to explain the origin and treatment of many of these psycho-

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

437



somatic disorders, often merely referring to ‘unconscious

conflicts’ that can trigger disease./19

The phenomenon of contact with spirits is highly uncanny and

unusual for the modern mind. The authors, well aware of this cul-

tural bias or denial, have found that in fact, it may be a question of

terminology as psychotherapists talk about ‘complexes’ and ‘sub-

personalities’ when they refer to the same causal agents as for ex-

ample a medium refers to. In fact, in my own research on what

transactional analysis calls our inner selves , I have found that here

we encounter just another of those hidden key formulas that open

windows to other, wider, and deeper realms of insight.

—See Hal and Sidra Stone, The Voice Dialogue Manual (1989), reviewed

further up in this volume

My research on Huna, the ancient religion of the Kahuna na-

tives in Hawaii, brought to daylight and gave me evidence for the

assumption that inner selves are not just psychic modalities but

inner spirits, real entities that are part of our multidimensional psy-

che. And in my practice of the inner dialogue and spontaneous art,

I had at least in once instance, a real encounter with a spirit, and I became acutely aware of the fact that many of our thoughts and

ideas are not entirely our own but that we can, consciously or in-

voluntarily, benefit from the ideas sent to us by guiding spirits. Yet

for the authors, the idea of encountering spirits seemed novel and

daring and they write:

But as we prepared to leave São Paolo we were struck with

the thought that communications from the spirit world

could be happening all the time, and that we might simply


438



not be aware of them. Is it possible that many of our intui-

tions and creative thoughts come from outside ourselves?

Although most scientists believe that contacts with spirits

are fantasies of the unconscious mind, a small but growing

number of investigators believe that the human brain may

behave like a complex transmitting and receiving apparatus,

which under certain conditions can pick up thoughts from

other minds, and even across space and time./18

The first landmark research described in the book regards The

Spiritual Psychiatry of Dr. Mendes , a Brazilian spiritual healer lo-

cated in the suburbs of São Paolo and specialized on healing epi-

lepsy, schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. The inter-

views with this phenomenal natural healer revealed that it’s by

following the natural principle of self-regulation that healing states

are realized. The authors summarize their interviews with Dr.

Mendes as follows, fully quoting his reply to their questions:

You could say that we encourage the full expression of mad-

ness and of epilepsy. We then give them bioenergetic and

psychic exercises that correct their improper use of altered

awareness. After many years of observation, we have come

to the conclusion that epilepsy, schizophrenia, and multiple-

personality disorders can all result from inappropriate states

of consciousness. Therapeutic exercises help to organize the

guest/patients’ psychic energies and teach them to manage

their highly developed yet poorly trained mediumship and

trance abilities./41

On the same line of reasoning, the healing state is triggered

not by exerting control over the sickly condition, but by giving the

psychosomatic unity of the organism the opportunity to regulate

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

439



its own healing, which in Dr. Mendes’ experience always leads to

the original wounding. It is by allowing this regression to take

place that full healing of the condition is achieved.

When we asked if learning to control the seizures constituted

the basis of the treatment, Mendes explained that control is

not the issue—as the basis of his therapy is hypnotic regres-

sion. This regression can take the patient back to childhood,or to a prenatal state when the person was still inside the

womb, or even to former lifetimes. Mendes believes that, to

cure themselves, most epileptics must discover and resolve

the highly charged emotional events that contribute to their

illnesses. But, unlike conventional psychotherapists, he feels

that these traumatic events may have happened in another

lifetime./43


440



The healing would be accomplished by having one of the

clinic's mediums incorporate the former personality and

help her psychologically integrate and discharge that experi-

ence, just as if it had happened in this lifetime./44

Alberto Villoldo, long before he was famous as an alternative

spiritual healer, already had grasped the importance of bringing

self-regulation into healing; it was namely before he had departed

to the Andes that he was directing the Biological Self-RegulationLaboratory at San Francisco State University. One of the motiva-

tional triggers for this doctor’s extraordinary journey was his re-

search experience with Dr. Mendes.

Stanley Krippner reported that he was especially struck, in the

discussions with Dr. Mendes, by ‘the likelihood that the treatment

encourages a type of self-regulation.’ He explains:

All the various types of epilepsy involve dramatic alterations

of consciousness, some of them quite spectacular. An epilep-

tic may see auras before a seizure, may have a sense of déjà

vu, or may have sensory alterations which indicate that a

seizure is about to occur. Through biofeedback, some epilep-

tics have been able to exert some type of control over theepisode, thus minimizing its symptoms. Perhaps Mendes’

successful clients are doing something similar by shifting

their epileptic episode into a mediumistic experience./53

In The Shaman’s Journey , the authors come to an important con-

clusion about shamanism, which points to the important fact that

shamanism, at its very core, is basically non-judgmental and does

not steer toward any fixated position in terms of morality. It’s thus

free of the all-pervasive moralism that is part of the cultural bias

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

441



inherent in all monotheistic religions and their respective cultural

incarnations (such as, mainly, Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

The authors conclude:

If we were to become polarized toward either the light or the

dark we would become trapped by that aspect of reality and

our spiritual development would be crippled./89


442



Shaman, Healer, Sage

How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the AmericasNew York: Harmony Books, 2000

Shaman, Healer, Sage is perhaps Villoldo’s best book. It was anyway the book thatmade him famous, a real bestseller. It has given me an ultimate peak of reading

enjoyment and illumination, and it has also emotionally touched me.

The author comes over in this book as a really honest, compe-

tent, emotionally mature, wistful and empathetic person who

went through a personal transformation that only few people in

these times can say to have accomplished. This book is not only

highly recommended lecture; it can perhaps be considered as one

of the best books so far in the century on the issues of shamanic

healing and the challenging task to render an outlandish practice

of Inka shamans comprehensive to the modern mind!

The literary abilities of the author, besides his expertise, are

out of question, and the book is an easy read despite the complex

and unusual subject. This might be due to the author’s penetra-

tion of the subject and his sense for vivifying theoretical content

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

443



by practical and often uncanny experiences, and because of his

highly developed sense for poetic language and expression.

This being said, I would like to start the discussion of this

book with the term infinity. Dr. Villoldo explains that infinity is not

eternity and that it is not a stretching of time but as it were a realm

of ‘no time’, a sort of transliteration of another vibrational dimen-

sion, that is reigned by laws more majestic and more complex than

our own, and of which our space-time reality forms only a tinypart. One of the intentions of the author in this book was to render

comprehensive the fact that being in touch with shamanic healing

means to be in touch with infinity. This appears to be the key to

understanding the miraculous effectiveness of shamanic cures.

And the experience of infinity shatters the illusion of death,

disease, and old age. This is a not a psychological or spiritual

process only; every cell in our body is informed and re-

newed by it. Our immune system is unbridled, and / physi-

cal and emotional healing happen at an accelerated rate.

Miracles become ordinary, and spontaneous remissions,

those mysterious and baffling cures that confound medicine,

become commonplace. And a spiritual liberation or illumina-

tion takes place. In the presence of infinity we are able to

experience what we were before we were born and who we

will be after we die./22-23

And as he went through traditional medical training in the

United States at first, Dr. Villoldo then was going to look at that

medical science tradition he was coming from, and that he had leftwhen departing to the Andes in order to learn with the Inka sha-

mans. And he concludes:


444



Many years later I understood that Western medicine, in an

effort to change the physical body, was merely moving the

iron filings around the glass. Surgery and medication often

brought about violent, traumatic change on the body. This

approach struck me as crude and invasive, like scattering the

iron filings with my hand, rather than moving them by

shifting/45

The other main purpose of the book is to explain to the inter-

ested reader what the Luminous Energy Field represents, what it

does in natural healing and how the shaman can access it for alter-

ing its energetic vibration in certain areas that contain so-called

imprints. The author explains:

We all possess a Luminous Energy Field that surrounds our

physical body and informs our body in the same way thatthe energy fields of a magnet organize iron filings on a piece

of glass. Our Luminous Energy Field has existed since before

the beginning of time. It was one with the unmanifest light

of Creation, and it will endure / throughout infinity. It

dwells outside of time but manifests in time by creating new

physical bodies lifetime after lifetime./42-43

This reservoir of vital force is a sea of living energy as indis-

pensable to our health as the oxygen and nutrients carried

by the bloodstream. They are the energies of the Luminous

Energy Field, the purest and most precious fuel for life./43

Indian or Tibetan mystics who documented the existence of

the Luminous Energy Field thousands of years ago de-scribed it as an aura or halo around the physical body. At

first it seemed odd to find the same concept of a human en-

ergy field among the jungle and mountain shamans in the

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

445



Americas. Once I grasped the universality of the human en-

ergy field, however, I understood that every culture must

have discovered it. In the East, mandalas depict the Buddha

enveloped by blue and gold bands of fire. In the West, Christ

and the apostles are shown with luminous halos around

them. In the mystical literature, the Apostle Thomas is said

to have glowed with the same radiance as Christ. Native

American legends speak of persons who shimmered in the

night as if lit by an inner fire. The Andean storytellers recall

the ruler Pachacutek, considered to be a Child of the Sun,

who sparkled with the light of the dawn./43

In view of our cutting-edge science revelations over the last

two decades, and the insights we gained from quantum physics

about the quality of light, and of universal memory, the teaching

Dr. Villoldo received from the Laika shamans becomes compre-

hensive in a larger context, and is actually corroborated by newest

scientific insights. The author writes:

Every living thing on Earth is composed of light. Plants ab-

sorb light directly from the sun and turn it into life, andanimals eat green plants that feed on light, so that light is the

fundamental building block of life. We are light bound into

living matter./43


446



In the light of Integral Theories of Everything, and especially

the revealing book by Ervin Laszlo, Science and the Akashic Field

(2005) , what the author reports about the Akashic memory does

not sound so esoteric after all:

The Luminous Energy Field contains an archive of all of our

personal and ancestral memories, of all early-life trauma,

and even of painful wounds from former lifetimes. These

records or imprints are stored in full color and intensity of

emotions. Imprints are like dormant computer programs

that when activated compel us toward behaviors, relation-

ships, accidents, and illnesses that parody the initial wound-

ing. /46

What Dr. Villoldo writes about the earth’s magnetic field, and

how the luminous energy field connects us to the luminous matrixof the entire universe, reminds the extraordinary research by Dr.

Wilhelm Reich on what he called the orgone , which he described

equally both as a bioplasmatic energy and as cosmic orgone , being

responsible, inter alia, for the changes in weather.

—See also my reviews of Reich’s books in The New Paradigm in Science and

Systems Theory (2004). It must be seen that Reich was one of the first systemsresearchers in modern history, at a time when this kind of knowledge was not yet

embraced by science, which is why Reich had to suffer a lot of hardship through-

out his career as a medical doctor, psychoanalyst and bioenergetic healer

It is a well-known fact that Reich, on the basis of these discov-

eries, was able to bring about rain in desert regions and under

conditions of severe drought. Dr. Villoldo writes:

Although the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field drops off

very rapidly the farther it travels from the planet, it never

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

447



actually reaches zero. It extends for hundreds of miles into

space before diminishing in strength, and travels at the

speed of light, at about 186.000 miles per second, to the edge

of the Universe. The human energy field appears to extend

only a few feet beyond the body since, like the magnetic field

of the Earth, it diminishes in strength very rapidly. Yet it also

travels at the speed of light, connecting us to the luminous

matrix of the entire Universe, known to the Inka as the tex-

emuyo or all-pervading web./49

Over the years I developed the ability to perceive the

streams of light that flow through the luminous body, and

read the imprints of health and disease. I believe that this is

an innate ability that we all possess but either do not de-

velop or lose after the age of seven or eight because we are

taught to believe that the material world is the only ‘real’

world. Shamans throughout the Americas rely on their abil-

ity to perceive the energetic realm./50

Now, what happens when for example we have been suffering

trauma in early childhood? Dr. Villoldo explains that in such a

case an imprint is formed in the luminous energy field.

Unresolved psychological and spiritual traumas become en-

graved like scratch marks in our luminous fields. Positive

experiences do not leave a mark in our luminous body./55

The blueprint that shaped and molded us since we were in-

side our mother’s womb contains the memories of all of our

former lifetimes—the way we suffered, the way we loved,how we were ill, and the way we died. In the East these im-

prints are known as karma, forces that sweep through our

life like a giant tide that we cannot swim free of. These im-


448



prints contain instructions that predispose us to repeating

certain events from the past. We want to learn where these

energy imprints are located in the Luminous Energy Field

and how to erase them so that the body, mind, and spirit can

return to health./56

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

449



Healing the Luminous Body


Healing the Luminous Body was my first access to Dr. Villoldo’s unique healing

methods that he exposes in more detail in his books. This DVD is very well done,

a calm and peaceful introduction into the philosophy, the development and the

effectiveness of healing the luminous body..

Dr. Villoldo expresses himself fluently, and he is able to inform

about the unusual subject in a competent and poised manner. It

becomes clear that he speaks of experience, not of theory. The

video also retraces his professional way, how he got to the knowl-edge that today benefits so many people in the West, and how, at

the start, he was really a pioneer. In this sense, despite enlighten-

ing new openings presented to a greater public in the film ‘What

the Bleep Do We Know!?’ , people like Alberto Villoldo swim against

the stream. For the enlightenment, as in all times of turmoil and

change, does not seem to reach the small oligarchy that handle thelevers and push the buttons, and that use red telephones and se-

cret services. I say this to prevent you from falling in an unreal


450



new age enthusiasm that deprives so many people today of their

feet and lets them float in the pure air of meditation, spirituality

and angels. Villoldo is not one of those lofty spirits! His teaching is

grounded, and therefore helps us connect with the not so lumi-

nous forces in us, our inner shadow, or all the shadows that are

the results of the imprints in our luminous body, which are for the

most part the consequences of early abuse suffered as children, or

that go back to former lifetimes.

Villoldo is not only a fabulous author, who is able to wrap his

teaching in a beautiful and wistful poetic style, but he’s also a

great orator, and his way of talking triggered in me pure hope,

love, and enthusiasm. I am thankful for this wonderful DVD as ithelps to introduce in his teaching which is not as easy to apply as

it seems on first sight. After all, it is taken from a culture almost

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

451



opposite to ours, a culture that is psychologically and spiritually

much higher evolved than ours.

In this fascinating and informative video, Alberto Villoldo,

Ph.D., introduces viewers to the luminous energy field that

surrounds and informs our physical body like a blueprint of

life. Unveiling the secret of ancient shaman-healers, he

teaches us that many of our physical and psychological

problems stem from imprints within our luminous body. Dr.

Villoldo reveals the nature of this luminous field, how it acts

as a blueprint for our physical body and how by under-

standing its nature, we can actually heal ourselves and each

other. Once the luminous body is cleared, Dr. Villoldo ex-

plains, physical and emotional healing can begin.

Trained as a Medical Anthropologist, Dr. Villoldo left the

academic world behind twenty years ago to study among

the Inka shamans. It was in the Andes Mountains of South

America that he discovered the wisdom of the luminous

body from the indigenous shamans. This ancient knowledge

reveals the secret of true health and happiness.

To aid Dr. Villoldo explaining the luminous energy field, the

paintings of visionary artist Alex Grey are presented. No

other artist has depicted the luminous energy form in all of

its intricacies as clearly as Alex Grey. Dr. Villoldo's presenta-

tion, together with Alex Grey’s images help all of us under-

stand the nature of our spiritual and physical being.

Many of our illnesses, physical disorders, addictions and

failed relationships can be traced to faulty imprints in our

luminous body. In this video, Dr. Villoldo unveils how to

heal and recover from these destructive imprints and regain


452



our physical, mental and spiritual well-being. Join us as we

travel to the Andes Mountains to learn the secret of the an-

cient shamans, a secret that can lead all of us to health, hap-

piness and beauty.

—From: DVD Back Cover

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

453



The Four Insights


The Four Insights chronologically is the last of the three books by Dr. Villoldo that

I review here, as it was the most recent at the time I drafted these reviews.

The book is structured very differently from the preceding

ones, in that it condenses the teaching into Four Insights.

Part One: Understanding the Energy of Perception

The Four Levels of Perception

Your Energetic Anatomy

Part Two: The Four Insights

Insight One – The Way of the Hero

The Practice of Nonjudgment

The Practice of Nonsuffering

The Practice of Nonattachment

The Practice of Beauty


454



Insight Two – The Way of the Luminous Warrior

The Practice of Fearlessness

The Practice of Nondoing

The Practice of Certainty

The Practice of Nonengagement

Insight Three – The Way of the Seer

The Practice of Beginner’s Mind

The Practice of Living Consequently

The Practice of Transparency

The Practice of Integrity

Insight Four – The Way of the Sage

The Practice of Mastering Time

The Practice of Owning Your Projections

The Practice of No-mindThe Practice of Indigenous Alchemy

In a way, and perhaps logically so, this book is much more

condensed than any of the former books by the author. Every sen-

tence, and every word counts, and is full of meaning, and you are

not going to read this in the same speed as, for example, Shaman,

Healer, Sage. This indicates perhaps that this book is more concep-

tual than the earlier books, and that the author has in the mean-

time created a concise framework for his teaching. To give an ex-

ample of this density that reminds the highly focused content of

theosophical writings, the author writes in the Introduction:

The Earthkeepers teach that all of creation—the earth, hu-mans, whales, rocks, and even the stars—is made of vibra-

tion and light./x

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

455



Thanks to the discoveries of quantum physics, we’ve come

to understand that all matter is densely packed light. But the

Laika have known about the luminous nature of reality for

millennia - they know that vibration and light can organize

themselves into a thousand shapes and forms./xiii

There is another elucidation forwarded by the author about

his teaching that I consider extremely important—and that he

should perhaps have provided in earlier publications. It’s the factthat the Laika tradition he was initiated in is not to be confounded

with mainstream Inka tradition.

All those who know about the Inka tradition are aware of the

fact that it was a Sun God cult, what Joseph Campbell came to call

a ‘solar culture’ that practiced ruthless slavery, the oppression of

the female, violent warfare, torture of prisoners of war, and hu-man sacrifice. The author explains:

As fortune or destiny would have it, I ended up meeting my

mentor, don Antonio. He was one of the last of the living

Laika, and he took me under his wing and trained me for

nearly 25 years. He was a man of many lives—during the

day, he was a university / professor; in the evenings, a mas-ter medicine man. He was born in a high mountain village

and worked with the tools and practices of the 15th century,

yet he was conversant in the way of the 21st. Although he

was a descendant of the Inka, he would tell me that the

Laika are much older than the Inka, whose culture was mas-

culine and militaristic. The Laika’s teachings were from that

earlier time, when the feminine aspect of the divine wasrecognized./xi-xii


456



Over millennia, the Laika learned to access the biological

blueprint of light and assist Spirit in the unfolding of crea-

tion. They also learned how to heal disease and create ex-

traordinary states of health, as well as to craft and shape

their personal destinies, by changing the LEF [Luminous

Energy Field]./xiii

The powerful message of this teaching is that we can over-

come our negative individual and collective karma by rejoining

the original pattern, through overcoming and healing what the

Kahunas call complexes , and what Dr. Villoldo calls imprints in the

Luminous Energy Field (LEF).

We can think of the LEF as the software that gives instruc-

tions to DNA, which is the hardware that manufactures the

body. Mastery of the insights lets us access the latest versionof the software and allows each of us to create a new body

that ages, heals, and dies differently. Without the ability to

reprogram the LEF, we're trapped in the stories we inherited;

that is, we age, heal, live, and die the way our parents and

grandparents did, reliving their physical ills and emotional

ailments. The four insights contained in these pages allow us

to break free of the tyranny of our familial curses, the storiesthat haunted our ancestors./xiv

In becoming Homo luminous, we'll give up the ways of the

conquistador and discard the masculine theology that values

command, control, and dominion over nature, a theology

that justifies the exploitation of the earth's rivers and forests

because they're seen merely as resources for human con-sumption. Instead, we'll embrace an older mythology that

has become lost to most humans, a feminine theology of co-

operation and sustainability./xiv

ALBERTO VILLOLDO

457



It is a daring perspective, and I can only admire the courage of

the author to forward his wonderful mission in a time of change

that perhaps really contains a vortex, an opening for the new to

emerge from the old.

The book contains much more than the little window that I

opened here in my book review, and perhaps contrary to my other

reviews, I restrain myself here. And for good reason. It’s a sym-

bolic act. Discover for yourself, and see what more you can learnfrom this extraordinary book! I feel unable to convey it.


458



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Personal Notes



Documents

The New Paradigm in Consciousness Healing and Spirituality 40 Book Reviews