Edgar Morin, who calls for a transdisciplinary way of thinking, wrote an amazing short essay entitled "A New Way of Thinking". (A New Way of Thinking.pdf)  One of the principles of this new way of thinking involves recognizing that wholes and parts are mutually interactive:  "properties emerge from the organization of a whole and may...

Following on the last posts about language, I'm just going to go way out on a limb here and re-present a picture that Rudolf Steiner gives which, when you really take it in, can transform your whole sense of language.  It is this: Steiner points out how at the present time, humanity can only...

We are ecologies within ecologies within ecologies.  Complex processes, such as inflammatory responses, span multiple systems as multivalent expressions of dynamic self organization.  Within constant interlaced boundaries provided by the dual and complementary forces of growth and decay, life becomes possible; we become possible.  Interactivity, specialization, contextual adaptation, flexibility, utilization of 'randomness' and dynamic...

Dennis Klocek is holding a Coros Institute meditative retreat on April 3rd - 5th (Palm Sunday Weekend) at Walker Creek Ranch in Petaluma, CA. Topics will include: · Death of the spirit in the material world as a source of unconscious anxiety. · Working on the essential steps of separating the soul forces in the process...

Alfonso Montuori, one of my professors at CIIS, has identified three styles, or modes, of learning, which he calls the narcissistic, the reproductive, and the creative. From his article, The Quest for a New Education, From Oppositional Identities to Creative Inquiry, narcissistic learning is "an approach to education that sees the source of knowledge as...

The role of destruction, and of the working out of polarities, is a subject that has been dealt with an the alchemical tradition for a very long time.  Alchemically, it is understood that the issue you are dealing with, in which you find yourself (the prima materia) MUST go through a process of putrefaction, of...

'Higher' is not intrinsically special by itself. Absent movement, and continuous transformation between higher and lower and lower and higher, higher becomes an irrelevant abstraction. But when experience directs us along a particular path, opens new vistas while closing and modifying others, punctuates contexts with more effective inclusivity, and actuates/accentuates the development of new...

Earth --> Day-waking (i.e. 'normal' adult) consciousness  Water --> Imaginative consciousness  Air ----> Inspirational consciousness  Fire ---> Intuitive consciousness   Earth --> Thinking 'about' - object-oriented  Water --> Thinking 'with' - process oriented  Air ----> Thinking 'between' - polarity-oriented, (Brad exemplifies this very well)  Fire ----> Thinking 'as' - whole-oriented   Further, considering that all thinking...

what spirit speaks the heart re-echoes its lofty chambers with choric ringing  twist and fold in timely rhythm the fountain's deep moods springing   unshadowed now, revealed and waking all forge and fire, veils rent aside the swallowed sun, see! - beaming again 'cross the rivers, stride in stride the call's heard round from distant shores the ferryman's change cast far away for the...

I updated the main page to load much faster, and created a page of alchemical images: https://spiritalchemy.com/alchemyimages.htm Please beware that the page is LOADED with images, in order that they can be easily browsed, so it may take a minute to load.

Wow - wandering through Powell's books just turned up this gem - perfect for me!  It's a book with an alchemical basis (the chapters are organized by the seven basic alchemical processes), exploring philosophy, science, history, and consciousness...  but what's even better is that the book is very visual and creative.  It includes seven paper...