Mysteries

A review of Colin Wilson’s sequel to The Occult

Colin Wilson is one of the most thorough and prolific researchers and writers on the paranormal of recent years. Mysteries was written as a sequel to Wilson’s The Occult, and continues and extends the theme of that classic investigation into the world of the unknown.

Mysteries begins by floating the possibility that the “self” actually consists of a hierarchy of levels that may be likened to a ladder with higher rungs of shorter and shorter length (presumably meaning they are harder to experience, or are reached by fewer souls). Wilson adopted this concept after experiencing a series of panic attacks that were ended by his invoking a higher self (which he refers to as the schoolmistress effect). (more…)

Channeling

By Sheila Applegate

As we learn to love one another, we come to realize that, in their purest forms, all religions teach the same basic spiritual truths:  It is only the different ways we express them that divides us.  Each system of belief has a different piece of the puzzle, and ultimately, to heal our communities and our world, we will have to fit these different pieces together and realize the essential truths that connect us all as one.  In order to allow this to occur, we must open our hearts to hear beyond language and to expand in our understanding. (more…)

Lights from the Other World

Floater structures in the visual arts of modern and present-day shamans

By Floco Tausin

This article is based on the assumption that prehistoric shamanic rituals include the perception, interpretation and depiction of what we today call ‘eye floaters’ (muscae volitantes). It is suggested that, together with other shamanic symbols, floaters continue to be experienced and depicted in later shamanic societies up to the present day. The present article supports this thesis from the examples of modern Siberian and contemporary Tukano shamans. A closer look at their visual arts reveals geometric structures and characteristics that are typical of eye floaters. (more…)

Understanding The Power of Now

First published in 1999, Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now has become an international bestseller. Written as a series of questions and answers, it presents a radical analysis of humanity's current state and offers a revolutionary route back from unhappiness to enlightenment, which this article attempts to give the merest flavor of. If you read just one Spiritual book in your life, The Power of Now is a very strong contender to be that book. (more…)

The Basics of Expanding Consciousness

By Jaden Rose Phoenix, Author of Beyond Human: Claiming the Power and Magic of Your Limitless Self

Begin Where You Can Begin

There is always more than one route to the outcome you are seeking. However, to keep it simple, we will only explore a couple of starting points here. To allow your mind access to "other worlds," you might find it useful to have your left brain agree that experiencing unseen worlds is a possibility, a possibility that even you can have access to.

Start from the premise that there is evidence -- scientific evidence even -- that energies are present that you cannot see or feel or smell. (more…)

Entoptic phenomena as universal trance phenomena

by Floco Tausin

In the mid-1990s I met a man named Nestor living in the solitude of the hilly Emmental region of Switzerland. Nestor has a unique and provocative claim: that he focuses for years on a constellation of huge shining spheres and strings which have been formed in his field of vision. He interprets this phenomenon as a subtle structure formed by our consciousness which in turn creates our material world. Nestor, who calls himself a seer, ascribes this subjective visual perception to his long lasting efforts to develop his consciousness. He explains his vision as an extended perception of a phenomenon for which, in ophthalmology, the collective term “floaters” is applied. (more…)

Cocoons and fibers - Eye floaters as a source of inspiration for Carlos Castaneda?

By Floco Tausin

The anthropologist and cult writer Carlos Castaneda (CC) has substantially contributed to the emergence of a Western New Age shamanism. From the 1960s until his death in April 1998, CC published more than ten books, all of which he declared as anthropologically relevant collections of conversations actually having taken place and experiences made with the Mexican Yaqui Indian and shaman Don Juan Matus (DJ) and his companions. Today, the authenticity of CC‘s books is strongly controversial far beyond anthropology. But a worldwide total circulation of the order of a million copies testifies that CC‘s books, critical of society and reason, have been balsam for a whole generation which did not conceal its rejection of bourgeois politics and ideology. The same books were and are still widely received by the generation to follow whose spiritual way to the inside is hardly inspired by religious institutions. They gratefully adopted the fascinating description of a “seperate reality”, based on experiences of altered consciousness states, supported by the authenticity of Native Indian shamanism, and narrated in a lively dialogic writing style. (more…)

Mantra and Consciousness

Author: sushant pandey

A mantra is a combination of psychically potent sound syllables that are capable of influencing the human system. It works on different levels of being (from gross to the subtlest).

Mantras as it is defined, is that tool which liberates the mind from bondage, here bondage means ‘the state of identification of the gross mind’. Mind is always identified with the world of idea name, form and objects. At the energetic level the identification leads to dissipation of energy (vikshepa), mind is tied down to the plane of gross sensorial world creating the spectrum of experiences colored by the polar opposites of pains–pleasures, heat-cold, depression-elation etc. Here in these conditions mantras helps to tune the vibrations of mind to the subtler frequencies of mantras and hence helps to internalize it. (more…)

How to alter your consciousness to develop ESP

Author: Conrad Raw

There are various methods to alter your consciousness, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, drugs, alcohol and training. Most people have heard of all these things and the term “altered state of consciousness”, but don’t really understand what it means. Consciousness has three states. (more…)

Altered States Exploration With Mirror Gazing

Author: Lee Heather

There are of course many ways and means of investigating consciousness or altered states of awareness but a very little known but effective way of exploring these areas is the very ancient technique of mirror gazing.. The Greeks used a similar type of device that enabled them to have 'visions' that were of great benefit in arriving at decisions. In fact the remains of these devices can still be seen in some parts of Greece like Ephyra for example. (more…)