I have plenty of knowledge and experience of esoteric lit, however, I have always focussed on the techniques and experiences - usually look at the models and constructs as mere hypotheses. lol. My background is in physics - there are lots of models, and the only way to tell them apart is their experimental predictions - no predictions, then it becomes metaphysics! Useful in juggling ideas, but not in pinning down a map of the psyche.
And this is something humanity still lacks - a map of the mind. There are ancient maps, such as the chakras and indian epistemology, plus now modern neuroscience, but I don't feel society really sees it as an important mission.
If I had to give it a name, it would be experimental esoterism - which obv includes experiential esoterism! ;-)
With ref to Alice, I can chew on a theory for breakfast and then spit it out at lunch! lol. Something I'm good at and enjoy. So if we can construct a theory based on natural philosophy, and not metaphysics, that could be more... nutritious ;-)
Back to weeding now... which is an interesting metaphor.
I dont have the refs on this machine, but do a search on "neural nexus chakras" and you should find some interesting papers. As I suspected decades ago, chakras are electromagnetic phenomena - not just electrical - as there is no material organ at most locations, but the electrical activities at the nodes of the neurons create an EM field. This in turn partially creates the auras, but IMO that also comes from the flow of blood, which is a charged liquid - eg the heart is nowhere near strong enough to be only a pump, the fluid also flows along EM channels, thereby needing less physical force.
Again, I believe that the understanding of the Human Energy Field requires more than our physical instruments can detect. I'm not sure if you are familiar with Barbara Ann Brennan; she, in my opinion, could be considered a metaphysical instrument that can perceive beyond what today's scientific technology can measure. Which is more important to you, the physics or the map?
Esoteric perceptions and exoteric measurements will converge, if both are true.
That we have biological instruments that cannot yet be replicated by technology does not mean they won't be. But, even then, the signal processing will be different.
Voice to skull is a good example that people should be familiar with - the human perceives sounds and hence assumes it is hearing, but no sounds are involved in the signal. A tech transmitter and receives can create, send and decode the same signals, but a computer will not "understand" the actual content of the message, and will not react to such meaning.
I find it amusing how Aristotle's Metaphyics remains more important than his Physics - of which it was the last chapter (at least it was edited that way some centuries later!) His Physics is filled with errors and only of historical importance, whereas the last chapter, dealing with "first principles" remains interesting as many of the questions have not changed. The answers have though, as speculative philosophy becomes natural philosophy. I rarely use the word "metaphysics" - it's just speculations pretending to be real. They might be real but that can be discovered with having a precise question and precise tools and manifested effects.
That does not stop humans having powers that the scifids (science fideists) regard as "not science", or heresies, but that is the class of science-priests talking shit. But to prove those powers are real requires more un-blinkered researchers. Diving into the arms of "metaphysics" just to avoid the very hard problems of experimentation does not interest me. I can easily accept the experiences while rejecting the metaphysics as mere speculation.
I certainly hope they both turn out to be true, as there are so many unanswered questions out there, that need different approaches from the ones we have been using thus far. I'm still not sure how you define exoteric? I suppose I define it as wisdom beyond Earth? 🤔 Or knowledge gained from non-earthly beings? 🤔
I think we'll have the technology eventually! If the Human Energy Field is real, then what can be seen by humans will in time have a counterpart in technology that will do the same or similar. Depends on whether the perceiving of these energies requires organic material. Cyborgs? 🤔
I have to admit that I first heard of Voice to Skull technology from Corey Goode, a so-called Secret Space Station whistle-blower, so I haven't given it much credence. From what I'm gathering from what you're saying is that this technology does exist? I wonder if this could account for the many people who channel voices from the stars! The jury is still out for me with regards to many of the alien contactees.
I never got into much of Aristotle's work, and I hardly ever use the word metaphysics. I remember reading a book ages ago called Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy by George G. M. James. Wow, that was a really long time ago, but I remember the argument was that Aristotle learned much of what he knew from Egyptians, and that most of his work was plagiarized, hence the errors in his work, as well as explaining how he was able to write on so many different topics. My days of intermingling with members of different Black Nationalists groups like the nation of Islam, the Five Percenters and the New Black Panther Party. 😆
Added to the vocabulary list!!!
I also prefer experiences. And I like the phrase you introduced me to, if I remember correctly... experiential esotericism, which for me includes observations that are repeatable. Firstly, the best would be direct experimentation, like what Rupert Sheldrake did, or way back in the day with Russell Targ, Dean Radin or Edgar Mitchell's Institute of Noetic Sciences.
But I also appreciate the great body of work that Michael Newton did with Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives and all that followed after.
exoteric = third person science
esoteric = first person science
I've mentioned this before, tho maybe some time ago - did a quick experiment once with my group of gifted kids - playing around with a Hall probe, that detects static magnetic field, so I thought we should test it on us - people! lol. I asked them to focus on the head - I thought the largest field would come from eyes - but no! It came out from the ears!! One reason headphones are dangerous - especially wireless sets! This is also the reason why binaural beats work - it isn't the sound as such, it's the EM signal generated by the magnet in the speaker.
The tech for bioenergies already exists - it just isn't pointed in that direction - not in public research. Else they'd find out how catastrophic wireless signals are to organic life.
Public science remains strangled by materialism - I don't understand how a person can go have an EEG or ECG or MRI or MEG and still believe they are machines unaffected by the signals that their scans have proved to exist!?
I don't understand this. 🙈
Isn't that an absolute irony! It goes to show that common sense isn't so common. And yes, public science is so far behind reality. I'm sure you already suspect, much like myself, that private science is using much more esoteric and exoteric sources than is publically known or admitted.
lol. more books to read. Read one intro, yes, she is on the right track - and never see her use the word "metaphysical" haha. The word dimension in physics can mean a number of things, basically they are parameters, whether spatial or temporal or neither.
mmm... I actually have had experiences of healing, but have not been trained.
Shame that Persinger passed away, as he was approaching similar conclusions but starting from the other side, using the biophysics of the universe and humans rather than from humans. The two sides of the coin must at some point be the two sides of the same coin. :-)
If I remember correctly, she studied atmospheric physics and worked for NASA. What was fascinating was that in her childhood, seeing the Human Energy Field was normal for her. That ability then faded as she aged, but it is my belief that subconsciously she chose her course of study to understand her childhood gift. What I also liked was that instead of using physics to explain the phenomenon, she chose esotericism, which back in the 80s was not really New Age yet. I gained a lot of insights from her work. She also introduced me to the world of Bioenergetics (Freud -> Reich -> Lowen), in which body structures based on emotional tensions throughout life, especially in childhood, form character structures which partially help us understand the Schizoid, Oral, Psychopathic, Masochist and Rigid (also known as Hysteric) personalities.
I think I may have heard of Persinger, but never studied any of his work.
Possibly. I invented my own meditation as a kid, and it worked - those transcendental experiences, I later forgot - only to recall them in my early 20s, but I'm sure they guided my path to physics and philosophy.
oh, I'd trace New Age back to Theosophy ;-) so is not that "new" lol
Really?! That far back? If you're talking about tracing then I can probably agree, as it was Theosophy that helped further spread Eastern Philosophies into the States. I always found them to be a creepy bunch. I read Isis Unveiled years ago, but found it a really difficult read. Mind you, this was before my shift, so I still was not ready for this kind of material.
IMO, it is the deliberate inclusion and distortion of Eastern philosophy that marks out the terrain of "new age", hence I'd start it with Theosophy. It's the pretense that it is "deep" when all I see is "deep fog". lol. As you say, is horrible to read, deliberately foggy, whereas original texts are much clearer. The last 40 years or so have seen many very good translations of, say, Tibetan Buddhist texts - mainly because it is the first time we have truly bilingual individuals.
As a counter-example contemporary with Blavatsky, Gurdjieff can also be impenetrable, but I find his crazy-wisdom more intelligible than Blavatsky's pseudo-serious works. His "4th way" bears some similarities with Dzogchen, which exists as a network of individuals without a formal "religious" structure.
I never got into any of this stuff until my late 20s. I was a street kid who cared little about study or religion. As I mentioned elsewhere, that all changed when I came across the Natural Life Energy model. I may have heard of things before that time, and even had some unusual experiences, but never to the point of creating a paradigm shift for me. These days I find it almost impossible to meditate, which often troubles me.
mmm... I hear that from many people - not just formal meditation, even clarity of thought seems to be affected. Depends where you live - how many EMF signals surround you, both phone and wifi. Hence I like caves ;-)
A "paradigm shift" first requires an important question. What was your question that the life energy model answered?
For me, I was always interested in the origins of things, hence even as a kid was fascinated by both physics and ancient human history.
This sounds like my situation. If I were to trace the decline of my meditations with the rise of WiFi in the area, it would match.
Why I think and behave the way I do, while others seem to be so different.
I'm also very fascinated with the origin of things. Forgive me for always inserting the Dynamic Assertive, but we are process-oriented, systems people. What has tortured me for years, with regards to the Life Energies, is the question: Who or what programmed these Energies into humanity? When and how? I suppose you can throw WHY in there as well? 🤓
Or does it? Is it that perhaps you are searching too hard in the world of physics? I believe that to Map the Psyche you will need instruments that have not yet been invented... or we have not acknowledged the instruments that are already available to us, like the actual mind, psyche or soul that we are attempting to map. What if electromagnetism or electricity are not enough? What if there are energies that we as humans can detect or read or map, while our modern instruments are still only dealing with the physical reality? We have to then reach for metaphysical tools.
I love experiential esotericism because it falls in line with what I have termed The Art of Confirmation, which I have been using for years to confirm the existence of some of the territory of this Map of the Psyche!
My question to you, my curiosity, is which drives you more, the Map of the Psyche, or the being able to describe that map through psychics?
We do not perceive the physics, even when it is physics. We do not perceive sound waves (unless subsonic. lol), we hear sounds. Just as we do not perceive photons, we see things. In both cases we have receptors and transducers, so that the signals are processed in a meaningful way for us.
More emotional states look similar. A lump in the throat, choking on words, is an experience - few perceive it as some block in energetics, or a choked chakra. Such experiences can be measured - it just means using the right instruments. But to know what those instruments should be requires a tentative hypothesis. Like Royal Rife says he scanned millions of frequencies till he found some resonances.
Reminds me of Louise Hay's work. There was a time when I had really dipped deeply into the language of the body! First it was Bioenergetics, which then lead to all kinds of other books on the subject. I was so fascinated by how much of our language reflects our moods or diseases or bodily pains and tensions. I subsequently did a lot of therapeutic work both on myself and others, using this knowledge. It's amazing what is often locked in our bodies, and how it comes out in our language. That guy is a pain in the neck.