I’m grateful to my mentor and therapist, Andrew Feldmar, for this principle. When he first dropped it on me I remember being speechless. I could hardly imagine putting it into practice. It’s wisdom spread through my system like a time-release capsule. Here’s why I think it’s so hard to accept, let alone practice. When we…
I intend to write this reflection in two parts, tracking the spiritual progress of our protagonist, Siddhartha, and then riffing on some possible meanings for our own spiritual journey. I must be one of the very few who had never read Herman Hesse’s classic novel, Siddhartha. It’s based (sort of) on the life of the…
The new psychotherapy: MDMA and the Shadow by Ann Shulgin Originally published on Eleusis, n. 3, pp. 3-11, 1995This is a revised and edited version of a talk given at the Psychoactive Sacraments Conference Retreat, sponsored by the Chicago Theological Seminary and the Council on Spiritual Practices Vallombrosa Center, Menlo park, California, U.S., February 16-19, 1995.Modern psychotherapy utilizing psychedelic drugs probably began in…
In my previous life I must have preached on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness a dozen times or more. I never really feel like I cracked the code. It was my own time in the wilderness that helped me to listen more deeply to what might be going on in this archetypal story….
Joseph Campbell once wrote something to the effect that when people say they are searching for the meaning of life what they are really searching for is an experience of being alive. This felt experience of being alive, and the realization of its absolute value is what I call “intensity”. We all come into the…