Politics and the occult seem an unlikely couple, but the truth is that the two have had a long and remarkably influential relationship involving some of the key turning points in western history and spanning the political spectrum. (more)

In a promotional video blog for the next Emmerich disaster film, 2012, Woody Harrelson gives "crackpot" prognostications about our impending doom. [Video] (more)

Reality is becoming more improvisational and up-tempo. The ideas of Jose Arguelles, Terence McKenna and others about time going through ever-faster fractal spirals of historical pantomime seem increasingly on the mark.  (more)

Zen-ish people are always saying "This is it, there's nothing to get, it's all here now," but I never really thought they meant it! Did they really mean this is as good as it gets? Surely they must be referring to some other version of this that will come along later, once I really understand that "this is it, here and now." (more)

Canadian professor Gordon Freeman challenges mainstream archaeology by arguing that a local site is actually the remains of a massive sun temple.

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Here's an off-the-cuff eulogy for psychedelic subculture legend Fraser Clark.  (more)

Religion can be fairly straightforward; it brings us together and marks important occasions. But what about those of us who make spirituality the center of our lives? Are we sick and scarred? (more)

We follow a reductionist model of human beings as self-seeking, selfish, almost robotic, creatures. We need to value the wholeness of being human and apply this in our relationship with the world. (more)

What can the Yoga Sutras and their interpreters tell us about entheogen-induced states of consciousness? If I partake of plant medicines, have I fallen from the path, or can botanicals play a role in the discipline of yoga? (more)

The concept of tsedeq (world in balance) brings powers to the ecological struggle which are only unleashed by religious belief. In doing this we are entitled to the name of Melchizedek, the title of the old Canaanite priest-king, the royal warrior who defends sacred ecology and resists the forces of capital. (more)

Talks this week in Sebastapol and San Francisco with Daniel Pinchbeck and Jamie Janover, on Nassim Haramein's unified field theory, 2012, and so much more. (more)

Everywhere I go, I meet people who express an irrational desire to grow some of their own food, to build their own houses, to get their hands back in the dirt. Now it is time to fall in love with the world. (more)

The call to indigenous shamanism is similar to the vocation of the Western medical professional. But medical training can disconnect the trainee from the larger community. Shamanic practice brings the trainee back to his or her healing roots. (more)

Our awakening is always a mutual and reciprocally shared co-awakening due to our infinite interconnectedness. Moved by something greater than our imagined self, we become an instrument of something much vaster than our own limited version of ourselves. (more)

I began to experience synchronicities in the early nineties and in the last three years they became frequent and more complex. Friends began to report their own experiences, which created a feedback loop resulting in remarkable events. (more)

Whether a naked Sheela-na-gig flaunting her enlarged vagina or a Madonna protecting her swollen belly with layers of reticent robes, feminine icons defy our inclination to identify the one "correct" reading of an image. They require us to employ multiple readings, a skill that is vital to feminist inquiry and, perhaps, to our very survival. (more)

After a terrific and scary psychedelic journey, I realized that I needed a mentor. I found Terence McKenna. Several years later, during an Ayahuasca ceremony, a vision of Terence taught me to stop relying so heavily on my intellect and reach out from my heart. (more)

Peruvian shaman Juan Osco leads a group of healers atop Lima's highest point to offer spiritual protection and cleansing to world leaders. (more)

A new Eleusis would make us aware that we have read but the first few pages of the great book of nature, and make our decisions regarding the environment, foreign relations, the economy, science, and social structures more informed, humane, and sustainable. (more)

For a blog in which I interpret reader-submitted dreams, I receive dreams featuring an elephant every two months on average. Elephants are notable as symbols of memory, especially collective memory, which is to say, history. (more)

Rosemary Regello’s article “Apocalypse 2012?” provides robust reading lists and links for all your 2012 needs. (more)

Meditation is no match for procrastination, laziness, and the draw of a crack-of-dawn email check. These afflictions arrest meditation and art, and have to be conquered by sheer discipline, the mark of great artists and great meditators. (more)

"What if we were in a big council and the crows and the wolves and the plant spirits and the gemstone guardians and the ancestors all gave a blessing and offered guidance in how to use fire to create community and peace and connection?" (more)

Although I had never smoked marijuana myself, I noticed that partakers of this plant became susceptible to foreign entities. I decided to investigate, and followed the smoky wisp spirits into the green underworld. (more)

Imaginal hygiene is the inner art of self-managing the imagination, to defend it from forces that compromise, pollute, and sterilize it, and to cultivate those that illuminate and nourish it. Knowledge of this is essential to the story of human survival into the 21st century. (more)

Finances are an inevitable part of survival, but mixing money with spirituality can be fraught with negative emotions. Learning how money works and meditating on our attitudes about wealth can be transformational. (more)

When you make a spiritual practice of boredom, you are creating new neural pathways that allow you to relate to unpleasant stimuli in new ways. The point is to use boredom as a gateway to pure awareness. (more)

Psychedelics are back in the labs, where researchers hope to develop treatments for chronic depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and drug and alcohol dependency. (more)

The Template is a series of ceremonies and sacred geometry hoping to free us from "the fear-based matrix that rules our deepest behavioral patterns." [Video]
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Recent excavations of the Yanghai tombs near Turpan, China have unearthed a 2,700-year old shaman who was buried with 28 ounces of marijuana for use in the afterlife.

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