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Pleased to announce that my new book, Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination, is now out - in the US at least! Sadly, it’s not out until

Ta trzecia - hipoteza widoczności, szczególnie działa na wyobraźnię. Dr Dąbrowski zachęca, by spojrzeć na drzewo. - Widzimy tylko część liści, bo więk

true masters feel the answer before they can explain the answer in words.

Years ago, I studied shamanism with a Lakota medicine woman. She said that the difference between science and shamanism is that a shaman doesn’t care

If intuition means rapidly processing multiple information streams to reach a conclusion below the threshold of consciousness, then yes, women’s brain

You can see mass formation psychosis throughout history in political ideologies from far left to far right, such as Communist, Fascist, and totalitari

Essay-crafting isn’t about communication, it’s about hypnosis. And essay-reading is mostly about self-hypnosis.

Often a troubled inner state protects us from other painful problems. If we can see what a painful thing protects us from, we can sometimes protect ou

Think like a gardener, not an architect: design beginnings, not endings. Unfinished = fertile

But if you make your lived experience observable in a structured way that connects to your efforts and projects, your collection of notes becomes some

One practical way to see what belongs in Personal Context — the kind of detail that makes decisions easier — comes from Ruben Hassid. In his article I

“don’t complain about being in traffic. you are the traffic.”

invite more rejection into our lives

One practical way to see what belongs in Personal Context — the kind of detail that makes decisions easier — comes from Ruben Hassid. In his article I

And I don’t get much wiser when I look at the recording and notice that a substantial part of it is them running backwards with a hen on their head. I

A rule I am going to try and follow this year: For every book I read of Western philosophy, I will also read one book of Non-Western philosophy. T

Zukav helped usher quantum physics into the mainstream spiritual lexicon. He offered a warm, lucid translation of one of science’s most confounding fr

The Egyptians believed that each person had a double called a Ka, which represented a person’s essential genius, energy, and identity, as well as a Ba

Mercurius is the wonder of the world because it reminds us that what is lowest and most rejected in us contains the germ of what is highest, and that

As our dark nights deepen, we find ourselves recovering our love of mystery. When we were children, most of us were good friends with mystery. The wor

The fire symbolized in Mercurius can be interpreted as the unconscious manifesting in our being through a vital impulse or élan vital that drives us t

The Magician energy is the archetype of awareness and of insight, primarily, but also of knowledge of anything that is not immediately apparent or com

“What does it mean to accept the gift of misidentification?” (Sophie Strand—for Advaya—talking about the trickster, the hobbled one, who doesn’t mind

Stop asking "how do I make more money" and start asking "how do I behave like a vessel that an ancient trickster God would enjoy watching reality thro

Hermes facilitates transitions, as between order (Apollo) and orgiastic excess (Dionysus).

your sense of self could change depending on your location.

The purple snake might be taken as a symbol of Mercurius, who, in being subject to a crucifixion, reveals a symbolic identity with Christ.30 In the dr

Hermes facilitates transitions, as between order (Apollo) and orgiastic excess (Dionysus).

Europeans and Americans all have a similar dream. Our culture tells us: be civilized, bottle up your true personality, or else let it out so quickly t

your sense of self could change depending on your location.

We can experience this mercurial fire in the tension of opposites (mind - body, thought - emotions, external reality - internal reality, animus - anim

So if the mercurial fire contains both the horror of the abyss and the ecstasy of divine love, it is necessary for the alchemist (or the modern seeker

Many analyses suggest that tricksters are combinations of oppo-sites. Some are both cultural heroes and selfish buffoons. The Spirit Mercurius was ass

For example, a patient comes into therapy complaining that he does not get along well with other people; somehow he always says the wrong thing and hu

Mercurius is the wonder of the world because it reminds us that what is lowest and most rejected in us contains the germ of what is highest, and that

No, no, you’re not thinking; you are just being logical. Neils Bohr

The dark side of psychic life is both dangerous and at times tragic, but the acceptance of its tragic potential was for Jung a necessity. He noted tha

For example, a patient comes into therapy complaining that he does not get along well with other people; somehow he always says the wrong thing and hu

The cure for suffering-which is the collision of consciousness with unconsciousness-is not to be submerged in unconsciousness, but to be raised to con

The danger is not that we have a slot machine in our pockets. The danger is that we have a dream machine in our pockets. Smartphones project the desir

This is the ultimate trapdoor in the hall of fame; to become a prisoner of one's own persona. The desire for recognition in an increasingly atomized w

In fact, one research study by psychologists specialising in creative persistence found that there’s something inherent about the creative process its

You have to do something wrong. The cracks are generative—that’s where the dandelions break through. But you have to do something wrong first. The fir

The word “romance” has nothing to do with love. Not originally. It comes from Latin romanice, meaning ‘in the Roman manner.’ In medieval France, writ

One other historical touch point for the word itself comes from a term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1930’s: “mythopoeia.” Tolkien’s term expresses

Co-authors Rosamund and Benjamin Zander, on finding the right frame: “Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life,

Research by Danu Anthony Stinson and colleagues calls this the “acceptance prophecy” — the psychological phenomenon where your expectation of being ac

Unlike bad things, which tend to happen suddenly, good things tend to be built gradually, so are rarely newsworthy on any particular day. Thus, bad th

“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that

boredom is to creatives what cardio is to athletes

I recently declared feed bankruptcy. At various points in my week // day, I type "kottke.org" into my browser, hit enter, and read whatever is there.

This is why the placebo effect works, because while it doesn’t change any material thing, it changes the shape of your attention, which is the fabric

Shadow work is essential to avoid being pulled into mass-induced psychosis or online outrage cycles. Nervous system regulation is equally imperative f

Hundredth monkey effect

The Elder Tree: A Plant of Saturn This video was created with and narrated by my Capricorn wife and podcast co-host, Michelle. We’ve always had an af

Ostat­nio byłem na Occul­tu­re Con­fe­ren­ce, gdzie pozna­łem oso­by eks­plo­ru­ją­ce filo­zo­fię Wil­lia­ma Sewar­da Bur­ro­ugh­sa, auto­ra Nagie­go

The Buddhist term for wholesome desire is chanda. Chanda is desire that arises from a place of non-tension. It often feels like a relaxed current, but

The Buddhist term for wholesome desire is chanda. Chanda is desire that arises from a place of non-tension. It often feels like a relaxed current, but

Vow can be imagined as the Soul’s inborn commitment to discover and realize its singular niche in the ecosystem of the anima mundi (World Soul). It de

Paradoxes are capable of holding seemingly opposing facts and deeper levels of complexity which, in my experience, are often closer to reality. And ye

We don’t need to surround ourselves with Japanese creations to appreciate this book. Yanagi asks us to be aware of how our lives are surrounded by eve

We think we are reaching the end of knowledge – but we are only reaching the limits of our instruments. The new paradigm begins exactly where the old

Perhaps the knowledge of the future is neither purely rational nor purely mystical. Perhaps it is relational: a dialogic state between what we can mea

And perhaps that is exactly what we are facing now: not a new answer, but a new way of listening. To science – yes. To the body. To the dream. To the

The freedoms associated with liminal spaces – club nights, abandoned buildings, forgotten shopping malls – often have a lot to do with the fact that t

If you happened to pay attention, you might remember your high school physics teacher illustrating the dangers of a frictionless world: cars can’t com

Don't Fall Into the Anti-Ai Hype

i’ve made a tragic discovery using clawdbot. there simply aren’t that many tasks in my personal life that are worth automating

It sees that our understanding has to be participatory, and that the soul and body are not opposed but discernibly different aspects of one reality. I

Further, the right hemisphere’s understanding of knowledge and belief is experiential, not a simple matter of information in the abstract or acquiesci

But there are still other paths to the abandonment of truth – darker than those we have discussed. In a world dominated by left hemisphere modes of be

Also worth remembering that “right hemisphere mode” is actually “entire-brain-and-body mode,” since the main difference between right and left is that

synchronicity as an acausal connection between inner meaning and exterior events:this connection is always present, and attuning to it in too literal

the primal intelligence behind synchronicity has a weird sense of humor and a trickster aspect, so hold everything lightly and be ready to feel the un

More and more, I think my issues with conventional productivity advice – indeed, with the very notion of productivity – boil down to this: Spending yo

Timing your overnight success If it takes three to five years for a project to gain traction, it probably doesn’t pay to start a project that the worl

“The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what “works,” but art opens up what is possible. Not everything has to be immediate or predictable. Defend sl

When academia cannot measure something, two things happen. Academia calls it “unscientific”. That is correct within its methodological framework – but

a kind of double reality: the measurable world and the experienced world.

It is not dangerous to believe in more than we can prove. What is dangerous is allowing fear of the intangible to make our world smaller than it is.

“We cannot sacrifice something unless we have first possessed it. Anger can be overcome only by someone who has experienced it first within himself. I

This is why the wellness industry sells regulation as serenity. Why calm women are praised as healthy women. Because your body’s agitation might be ac

The revolutionary potential of Buddhist practice - its ability to radically transform our fundamental relationship with life - gets reduced to a set o

Psychology tends to be solar, wanting to bring all things to light, to overcome the darkness and make everything manageable. It wants to banish darkne

IN YOUR DARK NIGHT of the soul you need not give up your intelligence, but you may have to change your idea of what it means to be wise in the conduct

This is not passive. Presence is not a trance. Presence is not being dissociated. Presence is the most awake state a human being can be in. It is the

Presence isn’t the destination. It’s the beginning of being able to act cleanly. Without presence, every action that comes from the mind is filtered t

Presence is the end of every curse. Fear-based stories about hexes, generational curses, psychic attacks, or malicious intentions only have power when

And the moment you rest in presence, even if it’s only for a split second, the union of opposites is already complete.

Ritualization is a potent stabilizing agent, a simple salve for a stressful time if only we are mindful of how we use its powers.

Ritual is Essential

Rituals are like a software upgrade for your nervous system. They affect your brain and body in three specific ways:Calm. Rituals help quiet the brain

How to design your own ritualsCreating personal rituals that serve your specific needs only takes a bit of observation, experimentation, and reflectio

Two conversations this weekend make me think that there's a vibe shift afoot in Silicon Valley around what one should work on and what is worthwhile.

UAP encounters occupy a similar slot in this inquiry. For more than a century, witnesses have reported phenomena that oscillate between physical and i

Two individuals encounter the same imaginal region (e.g., a shared dream, a simultaneously received vision of an alien craft, or a convergent vision o

Just a moment...

Just a moment...

Jak pisał Michael Wilson, "sen jest metaforą procesu twórczego, archiwum zaś jest dosłowną manifestacją artystycznych wpływów".

Dreams, my favorite portal into the imaginal, reveal it with startling precision. Every night, an interior landscape rises up with its own geography,

Both Wheeler and Einstein believed that time was a concept of the conscious (observing) mind and not an external phenomenon.

i highly recommend swapping out your language to show your alignment with nature’s cycles, it makes such a difference. i live by dropping Q1,Q2,Q3 and

"tragic art ... deals with the fact that a man is born to die."

How can we understand a death that means new life or a darkness that shines?

for Hillman, death is also the death of a materialist viewpoint, freeing us for imaginal and poetic life, a life beyond life, and a movement into psyc

Then I saw a beast come out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads; on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads blasphemous names.— Revelations

Written words cause ripples in the fabric of reality.

— Discomfort as a Gate —At some point this weekend, you will likely encounter discomfort. Maybe physical, maybe emotional. Maybe you’ll want to withdr

The gnomic (abbreviated GNO), also called neutral, generic, or universal aspect, mood, or tense, is a grammatical feature (which may refer to aspect,

The question is not whether algorithms can ever foster greatness—they cannot. Their design is fundamentally at odds with the qualities that define gre

There are so many more people we haven’t met yet, ideas we’ve never imagined, philosophical framings that we have yet to stumble upon. Part of our lif

The Greek word phantasia, from which we derive the word fantasy, comes from a verb that means “to make visible.” We make subtle energies visible by cr

Though traditional deity practice often uses external ritual, Goddess practice is primarily an activity of intention and imagination. Mystics, like ar

TRANSFORMATIVE SYMBOLS We’ve known since Jung’s time that myths and symbols have a lock-and-key relationship to energies in our personal consciousness

But the Tantric sages weren’t content with a generalized vision of energy-as-Shakti. They personalized it in mythic language and in an additional leap

The devotion to an altered state of mind propels puer fantasy toward altering the mind of the state by setting fires of rebellion. The calling from th

In keeping with the specific archetypal figure of the puer, this theory is meant to inspire and revolutionize, and also to excite a fresh erotic attac

Not only a biography can be touched by an archetypal figure. There are archetypal styles of theories as well. Any theory that is affected by the puer

The puer figure—Baldur, Tammuz, Jesus, Krishna—brings myth into reality. The message is mythical, stating that he, the myth, so easily wounded, so eas

Beyond involuntary and compulsive behaviour, there are two ways the unconscious bridges the gap to speak to the conscious mind: dreams and imagination

Understanding what the unconscious is trying to communicate means learning its symbolic language. Without this understanding, the unconscious images t

Our isolation from the unconscious is synonymous with our isolation from our souls, from the life of the spirit. It results in the loss of our religio

We must note that the resurrected body of Christ is not the same as before. He appears, but is not easily recognized. He can pass through walls, manif

The James Hillman Bibliography - OPUS Archives and Research Center

The instinct to avoid conflict is an instinct that is natural and useful - if the tribe didn't like you, you wouldn't get food. However, conflict avoi

instead of seeing arguments as winner-take-all debates, approach them as collaborative learning experiences.

I argue that ‘reality’ is exactly how Bohm and Pribram suggest that it is. It is a huge hologram. However, where I differ from them is I that I believ

The implications of this Bohm–Pribram holographic theory of reality are simply staggering; the universe is a vast hologram that is processed by an obs

In 1966 Pribram proposed that the brain might interpret information in a similar way to the process by which a hologram records an image. He suggested

The implication here is that the human brain actively filters external sensory stimulation and presents to consciousness a watered-down version of rea

Wisdom is ultimately about how to generate and enhance this meaning. Wisdom is about realizing. This means that cultivating wisdom generates realizati

Bullshit, unlike lying, works by making you unconcerned with whether speech is true or false. The bullshitter, like the sophists of antiquity, does no

From John Vervaeke: there’s a difference between lying and bullshitting. Lying is about debating the nature of the truth, but bullshitting is more dan

Bullshit, unlike lying, works by making you unconcerned with whether speech is true or false. The bullshitter, like the sophists of antiquity, does no

The more refined our conscious personality, the more shadow we have built up on the other side.

Projection on the Ego Level is very easily identified: if a person or thing in the environment informs us, we probably aren’t projecting; on the other

All of these layers of shadow projection might be imagined as nested dolls: The personal shadow is nested within the family shadow, which is nested wi

But busyness has a way of stealing creativity from you. Generative work, like art and writing, requires long periods of nothingness: it’s only in that

Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society [Leistungsgesellschaft]. Also, its inhabitants are

burnout represents the pathological consequence of voluntary self-exploitation.

Adolescents who never learn to control their consciousness grow up to be adults without a “discipline.” They lack the complex skills that will help th

Why is solitude such a negative experience? The bottom-line answer is that keeping order in the mind from within is very difficult. We need external g

In my opinion a good hobby has gear you can nerd out on, increasing levels of skill or knowledge that are never finished, is meditative and creates fl

Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act.

But if you try to reach the station called Insight before you pass through the town called Emotion, you never reach your destination.

Be tentative with words, value them well, take safe words, words without catches, do not spin them with one another so that no webs arise, for you are

Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of crazin

Who succeeded in crossing the borders of this realm with good grounds, pure conscience, and obeying the law of love? Who among the living is Christ an

It’s easy to say something should do everything well because saying something is easy doesn’t involve any work, or require any tradeoffs. But building

Bees don't waste their time explaining to flies that honey is better than shit