words

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 creating images in the mind. What we don’t always understand is how these images can transform our inner landscape, and then our life.

The unusual and little-used verb “to environ” means surround, enclose, envelop; literally, to form a ring around. “Environment,” the noun, means a set of circumstances (circum = around); the context, the physical conditions and external situations, that “surround” our persons and our lives.

The word “entheogen” was chosen to define such substances. It is derived from two words from ancient Greek: éntheos, literally “full of the god” or “possessed”; and genésthai, “to come into being”. So an entheogen is a substance that facilitates the finding of the “god within”.

The invisible source of personal consistency, for which I am using the word “habit,” psychology today calls character.5 Character refers to deep structures of personality that are particularly resistant to change. When they are socially harmful they are named character neuroses (Freud) and character disorders. These hard-to-change lines of fate are

the word “relativity”, used so often in relation to Albert Einstein’s amazing discoveries, means relative to the position of an “observer”.

The word “psychedelic” is taken from the Greek words psychē (“soul”) and dēloun (“to make visible”, “to reveal”).

The word ‘ecstatic’ is from the Greek ekstasis and means ‘standing outside oneself

throughout history certain human beings could reach a state of “enthusiasm” without using entheogens. I have picked this word carefully. Enthusiasm also has its root the ancient Greek word éntheos. Enthusiastic dancing, drumming and various other rhythmic movements seem to open access to the “god within”. Even in people not initiated in secret rite