Tagged with Books

Shamanism is characterized by an intentional change in consciousness to interact with spirits. Troubles of a spirit nature can have serious repercussions in a person's life. It is the task of the shaman to heal such persons. (more)

My career as an interviewer, science writer, scientific researcher, and science fiction author has been inseparably linked with my thirty-three years of experimentation with psychedelic drugs and hallucinogenic plants. (more)

Shamanism is the oldest psychospiritual tradition known to humankind. In this dimension everything that happens, whether embraced and accepted by us or completely rejected, has a healing and evolutionary purpose. (more)

I watched the incense smoke wander around the room like weightless leaves in the breeze. Then Fernando asked me to close my eyes. I had no idea that my "self" was about to shatter into a million pieces like broken glass. (more)

What exactly is prophecy? Can we trust it? The esoteric tradition teaches that the future is, at least in principle, knowable. One theory holds that there exists a realm of images and forms, which has many names in many traditions. The Kabbalists call it the world of Yetzirah, or "formation." (more)

The story of Terence and Dennis McKenna in contemporary mass consciousness is inextricably associated with the so-called "Experiment at La Chorrera." We were children of the 60s lured by the passion to discover something truly astonishing. Terence told the tale in True Hallucinations. But until the publication of my recent book, few had heard the story from my perspective.  (more)

The greatest protection against the evil aspects of wetiko is to be in touch with our intrinsic wholeness. In Buddhism, the wholeness of our true nature is likened to a mirror, which reflects whatever is put before it but is never tainted nor stained by its reflections. When we are in touch with our true nature, the evil of wetiko cannot ‘touch' us. (more)

The unprecedented apocalyptic monstrosity of the internet makes it obvious that our universe, and everybody in it, is hurtling into the final few screams of the Great Dissolution, as promised in the Vishnu Purana. The Night of Brahma will follow, when we all have to shut the fuck up, and even stop publishing e-books. (more)

While Tolkien might be surprised to find his fantasy works compared with the enthnography of Amazonian Indians drinking psychoactive brews, his depictions of characters singing over plant medicine in the forest reminds us how the Amazonian shaman will icarar the marirí of the plants into manifestation in the world. (more)

We've heard the story before. A patient slips into a coma and nearly dies. He experiences lights, colors, and landscapes, all while disconnected from his body.  Messages are imparted, deep feelings are felt, and then he is sucked back into the material world, his whole perspective changed. The difference this time is that the patient is a neurosurgeon. (more)

The first two rules of science are: the truth at any price and look at things as if you've never seen them before. Your mission: finding the questions that will produce the next big perception shift, that will allow others to radically reperceive. So how does God get into the picture? (more)

If you want to know what a dream shaman of the West would be like, consider Carl Jung, as he is now revealed in his Red Book, compiled from the journals he kept during the years of his "confrontation with the unconscious," when the "spirit of the depths" dragged him, night after night, through the terrifying stages of Underworld initiation. (more)

In the last few decades, Western therapists have rediscovered the healing potential of breath and developed techniques that utilize it. Deliberate increase of the pace of breathing typically loosens psychological defenses and leads to a release and emergence of unconscious (and superconscious) material. (more)

Anthropological fieldworkers have highlighted the inadequacy of Western distinctions between the ‘natural' and the ‘supernatural' when addressing the beliefs of their informants. Such distinctions are culturally constructed and, as such, are in no way universal.  (more)

The material base of civilization is rapidly eroding. As the illusion of unlimited material progress gives way, we find that the only thing we truly possess is our own experience, our state of mind and inner being. The jewels and precious metals that industries mine from underground are irrelevant compared to our jewel-like nature.  (more)

Soul describes a dimension of everyday experience. It is not eternally unchanging, but rather learning, growing, and maturing. If we respect her, soul can guide us and teach us, and she thrives with our respect. It may be that we don't have individual souls at all, but rather that there is only one, undivided. (more)

Honesty is not just refraining from deliberate lies, it's the positive act of living in accordance with the deepest truth you can discover.  In order to become honest we need to seek truth. We have a faculty of recognizing truth when we meet it because we partake of the soul. (more)