In the introduction to The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult â an anthology of classic horror stories that deal in one way or another with the named subjects â Lon Milo DuQuette, who also edited the book, relates his boyhood experience of awakening for the first time to both a love of richly…
Tag: Consciousness
Dreams, Waking Reality, and the Purpose of Your Life
In A Course in Demonic Creativity, I recommend reading your life like a dream or a creative narrative (a novel, a movie) to discern symbols and themes that can serve as clues to your overall life pattern, your purpose, your creative calling, your destiny and life mission as embodied in the concept of the daemon…
Above the Fray: Is There an Unconditioned Truth beyond Time and Culture?
This week a colleague, having read some of my essays involving esoteric and weird religious and philosophical matters — which will appear in my forthcoming essay collection (title reveal: What the Daemon Said) — remarked that he wondered why those who vaunt Eastern or other perspectives don’t realize that these may be just as time-…
The self, this elusive intermediate entity that initiates action
Essayist Tim Parks and philosopher, psychologist, and AI expert Riccardo Manzotti in Aeon, in an excerpt from their new book, Dialogues on Consciousness: Parks: I see what youâre saying: my experience, which is none other than the accumulation of all the objects my body has encountered, eventually determines my actions. But Iâm not altogether convinced….
The bias of scientific materialism and the reality of paranormal experience
In my recent post about Jeff Kripal’s article “Visions of the Impossible,” I mentioned that biologist and hardcore skeptical materialist Jerry Coyne published a scathing response to Jeff’s argument soon after it appeared. For those who would like to keep up with the conversation, here’s the heart of Coyne’s response (which, in its full version,…
Scientism, the fantastic, and the nature of consciousness
Religion scholar Jeffrey Kripal is one of the most lucid and brilliant voices in the current cultural conversation about the relationship between science and the paranormal, and about the rehabilitation of the latter as an important concept and category after a century of scorn, derision, and dismissal by the gatekeepers of mainstream cultural and intellectual…
Teeming Links – July 12, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net This week, a change in format: The Teeming Brain’s long-running “Recommended Reading” series will henceforth be titled “Teeming Links.” It will also shift to a streamlined format that does away with the former practice of including extensive excerpts and publication information from the linked items. I want to…
The reality of paranormal trauma and the negative bias of mental health care
Here’s Alexander De Foe, a Ph.D. candidate in Psychological Studies at Monash University, writing for Australia’s respected online news site The Conversation and asserting the importance of non-judgmental psychological help for people who have suffered from traumatic paranormal experiences: The therapy room should be a place where clients feel safe and comfortable talking about anything….
Alan Watts: “The Real You”
“It’s absolutely necessary that we let go of ourselves, and it can’t be done, not by anything that we call ‘doing it’ — acting, willing, or even just accepting things. . . . When you look out of your eyes at nature happening ‘out there,’ you’re looking at you. That’s the real you, the you…
Learned Psi: Training to Be Psychic
“Learning to become psychic involves a fundamental restructuring of the way we process information both inside and outside ourselves. This can dramatically alter one’s life, and not always in a conventionally positive manner.” Is it possible to take normal, healthy, emotionally stable people who do not think they are psychic, and who don’t recall having…