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Esowteric

@esowteric.bsky.social

Interested in Illuminationism; the Sufi Way; Western tradition; Renaissance; Romanticism; Idealism; Panpsychism; Imagination; contemporary depth psychology; resistance; etc. Author of mystical adventure and soft scifi. Blog: mystical-faction.blogspot.com

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Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 22h ago

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all ...” ~ William Blake.

Image containing a text quotation, with a pink rose and green leaves in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from William Blake, Letter to the Reverend John Trusler (1799). Quoted in Patrick Harpur, A Complete Guide to the Soul (UK) or The Secret Tradition of the Soul (US), reads: Nature is Imagination Itself: “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2d ago

“Considered just from the left hemisphere’s narrowly utilitarian point of view, its blind destruction of the three elements that are most important in securing our well-being – closeness to the natural world, social cohesion and embrace of the divine – is self-defeating ...” ~ Iain McGilchrist.

Image containing a text quotation, with a grey silhouette of the side of a human skull and white cogs in place of a brain, in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, reads: Narrow-Minded Utilitarianism “Considered just from the left hemisphere’s narrowly utilitarian point of view, its blind destruction of the three elements that are most important in securing our well-being – closeness to the natural world, social cohesion and embrace of the divine – is self-defeating. That these elements are so vital to well-being is not my opinion, but as near a fact as we can get.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2d ago

A Little Something for Your Ark ~~~~~~~ We have plenty of warners, but what we desperately need right now are more arks. “Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt”, a story of resistance and a blueprint for resistance: esowteric.vivaldi.net/2026/01/15/a...

A Little Something for Your Ark, Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt

In these increasingly dire times we have plenty of warners, but what we desperately need right now are more arks. As Michael Ventura wrote: “[A]ll of this passing things on, in all its forms…

esowteric.vivaldi.net

Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2d ago

The World Turned Inside Out ~~~~~~~ “[A]n odd thing happens: once this transition is accomplished, it turns out that henceforth this reality, previously internal and hidden, is revealed to be enveloping, surrounding, containing what was first of all external and visible ...” ~ Henry Corbin.

Image containing a text quotation. The text, from Henry Corbin, quoted in Tom Cheetham, The World Turned Inside Out: Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism, reads: The World Turned Inside Out: “[A]n odd thing happens: once this transition is accomplished, it turns out that henceforth this reality, previously internal and hidden, is revealed to be enveloping, surrounding, containing what was first of all external and visible, since by means of interiorization one has departed from that external reality. Henceforth it is spiritual reality that...contains the reality called material.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 3d ago

“The ancients rightly called this internal longing for wholeness “fate” or “destiny,” the “inner voice” or the “call of the gods.” It has an inevitability, authority, and finality to it, and was at the heart of almost all mythology. Almost all heroes heard an inner voice ...” ~ Richard Rohr.

Image containing a text quotation, with the small figure of a woman sensing an aroma in the air, in the bottom left-hand corner. The text, from Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, reads: Inner Longing and Inner Dialogue: “The ancients rightly called this internal longing for wholeness “fate” or “destiny,” the “inner voice” or the “call of the gods.” It has an inevitability, authority, and finality to it, and was at the heart of almost all mythology. Almost all heroes heard an inner voice that spoke to them. In fact, their heroism was in their ability to hear that voice and to risk following it—wherever!”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 3d ago

“[T]he Outsider is a man who cannot live in the comfortable, insulated world of the bourgeois, accepting what he sees and touches as reality. `He sees too deep and too much,' and what he sees is essentially chaos. ...” ~ Colin Wilson, The Outsider.

An image containing a text quotation. The text, from Colin Wilson, The Outsider, reads: The Outsider: “[T]he Outsider is a man who cannot live in the comfortable, insulated world of the bourgeois, accepting what he sees and touches as reality. `He sees too deep and too much,' and what he sees is essentially chaos. ...” “... To the objection that he is unhealthy and neurotic, he replies: ‘In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.’ His case, in fact, is that he is the one man who knows he is sick in a civilization that doesn’t know it is sick.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 4d ago

“... I am not claiming to prove anything at all ... and I cannot expect to convince the reluctant. I want merely to offer an alternative Gestalt or world-picture that, to me at least, accommodates some of these questions better than other world-pictures I have explored ...” ~ Iain McGilchrist.

Image containing a text quotation, with a grey silhouette of the side of a human skull and white cogs in place of a brain, in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, reads: A New Way of Seeing Things: “So much, for now, of life. Let us return to consciousness, and see what happens if we set aside for a moment the idea that it arises from matter in a random universe (none of which seems very likely in any case, for reasons some of which I have touched on), and instead think along the lines that I have indicated. I am not claiming to prove anything at all – in this area the very idea of proof is inappropriate; and I cannot expect to convince the reluctant. I want merely to offer an alternative Gestalt or world-picture that, to me at least, accommodates some of these questions better than other world-pictures I have explored. The reader must decide for himself or herself whether it resonates with experience and intuition better or worse than reductionist materialism.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 4d ago

The Root Causes of Why We're FUBAR or “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” ... esowteric.vivaldi.net/2026/01/16/t... Post-enlightenment, post-trust, post-truth, post-rationality, post-honour, and post-chivalry.

The Root Causes of Why We’re FUBAR

Or “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” I’m tempted to simply post: “The U/S is FUBAR and the UK is heading the same way. “That’s it. That’s the post.” I was going to say that coming in the wake…

esowteric.vivaldi.net

Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 4d ago

“Analysis should always be a prelude to a synthesis, in which the original synthetic take and the subsequent analytic take are themselves synthesised. The whole purpose of division is to enrich a union ...” ~ Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things.

An image containing a text quotation, with a white lotus and green leaves in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, reads: The Integration of Differentiation and Unity: “Analysis should always be a prelude to a synthesis, in which the original synthetic take and the subsequent analytic take are themselves synthesised. The whole purpose of division is to enrich a union. ‘Everything depends’, wrote Hegel, with his customary infelicity, ‘on the unity of differentiatedness and non-differentiatedness, or the identity of identity and non-identity.’”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 4d ago

“It’s important to realize that there is, obviously, a fuzzy line between psychosis and inspiration, between a wild hallucination and an altered state of consciousness that produces an insight or results in a creative experience ...” ~ Robert Ornstein and Sally Ornstein, God 4.0.

An image containing a text quotation. The text, from Robert Ornstein and Sally Ornstein, God 4.0: On the Nature of Higher Consciousness and the Experience Called “God”, reads: Hearing Voices: “It’s important to realize that there is, obviously, a fuzzy line between psychosis and inspiration, between a wild hallucination and an altered state of consciousness that produces an insight or results in a creative experience. Each of us sometimes hears a prompt inside with a new idea or insight, or telling us to do or not do something. Sometimes these voices are incoherent or wrong. But many of our greatest works of literature were created that way. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth both specifically acknowledged this.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 5d ago

“Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers ...” ~ Henri Bergson (?)

Image containing a text quotation, with a single green eye in the lower left-hand corner. The text, attributed (rightly or wrongly) to Henri Bergson, “On Intuition vs. Intellect” (1907), reads: Awakening: “Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 6d ago

“What divergent thinking covers is not just being able to make up new ideas at random – most of which would be worthless – but perceiving connexions and shapes or forms that guide thinking by analogy: to broaden a field that has become too narrow ...” ~ Iain McGilchrist.

Image containing a text quotation. The text, from Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, reads: Divergent Thinking: “What divergent thinking covers is not just being able to make up new ideas at random – most of which would be worthless – but perceiving connexions and shapes or forms that guide thinking by analogy: to broaden a field that has become too narrow, or to find alternative ways of visualising something that has become too familiar. All the literature on creativity in whatever field makes the same point: that it is about seeing hitherto unperceived parallels, seeing shapes or Gestalten that others have failed to see, standing back and taking the broad view, not squinting at the same microscopic field and looking up the rule book. Talent hits a target no-one else can hit, wrote Schopenhauer; genius hits a target no-one else can see.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 6d ago

“... We need to simplify and stand apart to manipulate things, to deal with the necessities of life, and to build the foundations of a civilisation. But to live in it, we also need to belong to the world and to understand the complexity of what it is we are dealing with ...” ~ Iain McGilchrist.

An image containing a text quotation, with the grey silhouette of a woman, arms outstretched in joy, in the bottom left-hand corner. The text, from Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, reads: Two Ways of Seeing the World “These two ways of seeing the world are each vital to our survival. We need to simplify and stand apart to manipulate things, to deal with the necessities of life, and to build the foundations of a civilisation. But to live in it, we also need to belong to the world and to understand the complexity of what it is we are dealing with. This division of attention works to our advantage when we use both. However, it is a handicap – in fact, it is a catastrophe – when we use only one.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 7d ago

“One of the peculiar developments in our Western world is that we no longer have any sense of having a soul. If we are asked what the soul is, our minds go blank. The word soul calls up neither feeling nor image ...” ~ Robert A. Johnson, We.

An image containing a text quotation, with a couple in fancy dress at a masquerade ball dancing in the bottom left-hand corner. The text, from Robert A. Johnson, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, reads: Soulfulness: · “One of the peculiar developments in our Western world is that we no longer have any sense of having a soul. If we are asked what the soul is, our minds go blank. The word soul calls up neither feeling nor image; there is nothing in our feelings or our lives of which we can say, “That is my soul—there she is.” It is a word that philosophers, theologians, and poets use, but we don’t know why, and we secretly doubt that they know, either. “Soul” has become a mere figure of speech, a sentimentality.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · last wk.

“Sufis believe that, expressed in one way, humanity is evolving towards a certain destiny. We are all taking part in that evolution. Organs come into being as a result of the need for specific organs (Rumi) ...” ~ Idries Shah, The Sufis.

An image containing text, from Idries Shah, The Sufis, that reads: Conscious Evolution: “Sufis believe that, expressed in one way, humanity is evolving towards a certain destiny. We are all taking part in that evolution. Organs come into being as a result of the need for specific organs (Rumi). The human being's organism is producing a new complex of organs in response to such a need. In this age of transcending of time and space, the complex of organs is concerned with the transcending of time and space. What ordinary people regard as sporadic and occasional outbursts of telepathic or prophetic power are seen by the Sufi as nothing less than the first stirrings of these same organs. The difference between all evolution up to date and the present need for evolution is that for the past ten thousand years or so we have been given the possibility of a conscious evolution. So essential is this more rarefied evolution that our future depends upon it.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · last wk.

“It is disconcerting to suspect that ‘depersonalization’ is not just a psychopathological condition but to some extent our common state of mind; sad to think that we have swapped a vibrant, animate cosmos for a mechanical soulless universe ...” ~ Patrick Harpur.

Image containing a text quotation, with a metallic goblet in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Patrick Harpur, A Complete Guide to the Soul or The Secret Tradition of the Soul, reads: The Grail Quest: “It is disconcerting to suspect that ‘depersonalization’ is not just a psychopathological condition but to some extent our common state of mind; sad to think that we have swapped a vibrant, animate cosmos for a mechanical soulless universe, like the perpetual winter presided over by the wounded Fisher-King in the Arthurian legend. Only the Holy Grail can heal his wound and restore fruitfulness to the Waste Land. And what is the Holy Grail? Nothing less than the Soul of the World. Only a conscious effort of imagination to summon her daimons back can save us, together with an act of psychological faith that they will come.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · last wk.

“While we exist on Earth, we are also living in the Otherworld. It is just that we are not usually – or, at least, continuously – aware of this fact until we die. Incarnation is a ‘forgetting’ of our eternal origins and anamnesis is the recollection of them ...” ~ Patrick Harpur.

Image containing a text quotation, with the black silhouette of a cat, paw raised, in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Patrick Harpur, A Complete Guide to the Soul, also known as The Secret Tradition of the Soul, reads: A Forgotten World: “While we exist on Earth, we are also living in the Otherworld. It is just that we are not usually – or, at least, continuously – aware of this fact until we die. Incarnation is a ‘forgetting’ of our eternal origins and anamnesis is the recollection of them – a recollection which is for most of us at best shadowy, fleeting and vague as a dream. The life-review given to us by the personal daimon is a full remembrance, both of our divine origins and of our temporal existence.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · last wk.

“The main trouble with the whole spirit/matter, soul/body problem is that it is not soluble. It is what used to be called a mystery. It is a modern error to take mysteries literally; that is, to turn them into problems which then have to be solved. We cannot solve mysteries ...” ~ Patrick Harpur.

An image containing a text quotation, with the grey silhouette of Sherlock Holmes wearing his characteristic deer stalker hat and with a pipe in his mouth, in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Patrick Harpur, A Complete Guide to the Soul / The Secret Tradition of the Soul, reads: Solving the Mysteries: “The main trouble with the whole spirit/matter, soul/body problem is that it is not soluble. It is what used to be called a mystery. It is a modern error to take mysteries literally; that is, to turn them into problems which then have to be solved. We cannot solve mysteries – we can only enter into them; and then it is we who are solved or dissolved, transformed in such a way that we see the ‘problem’ quite differently, as a delightful paradox for instance, like the traditional cultures who are unworried by the contradiction between soul and body.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2w ago

“The enchantment of Maya, in modern psychological terms, is exactly the image of the world that you have as a consequence of your fears and desires. If you could break away from your ego limitations, you would behold the world of paradise right here & now ...” ~ Joseph Campbell.

Image containing a text quotation, with the grey silhouette of a woman with arms outstretched in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Joseph Campbell, Romance of the Grail: The Magic and Mystery of Arthurian Myth, reads: Eyes Wide Open: “[T]he enchantment of Maya, in modern psychological terms, is exactly the image of the world that you have as a consequence of your fears and desires. If you could break away from your ego limitations, you would behold the world of paradise right here and now. There is a Buddhist saying: ‘This world, with all its ills, with all its horrors, with all its stupidities, with all its darkness, is the golden lotus world.’ THIS is the golden lotus world right now, as it is. And if you cannot see it, such is not the world’s fault. What must be corrected is not the world, but your own perspective. And so we find in the Grail legend that everything needed is all there, only it is not being seen. And what the hero is to do is to clarify the situation.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2w ago

Are We There Yet? ~~~~~~~ “Remember that perception and illumination will not at first be of such a character that you can say of them ‘This is perception’ or ‘This is illumination.’” ~ Bahaudin Naqshband, from Idries Shah, Thinkers of the East: Studies in Experientialism.

Image: A Vision of Fiammetta / Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain. “Fiammetta wears a flame-coloured dress in allusion to her name. Her figure stands glowing against a dark background: a vision of the brief moment between life and death. The short-lived apple blossom signifies the transience of beauty: Fiammetta stands entwined in the branches of an apple tree surrounded by emblems of the departing soul a shower of falling red and white blossom, a blood-red bird (the messenger of death), butterflies (symbols of the soul), and an angel in the aureole around her head” (Julian Treuherz, “Dante Gabriel Rossetti,” Pre-Raphaelites and Other Masters, Royal Academy Exhibition 2003, 31).
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2w ago

“Through all the ages poets & artists have often been prophets, because their work, or the material for it, comes to them from the same depths of the collective unconscious in which the major transformations of a particular era are in process of creation.“ ~ M-L von Franz.

Image: Beautiful eyes, 1692849 / Bess-Hamiti / Wikimedia Commons (orig. Pixabay) / Creative Commons Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication. Close-up colour photo of a Middle-Eastern lady's head, with her hair and mouth covered by an orange, brown and white scarf, showing only her beautiful orange-brown eyes, eyebrows and the top of her nose.
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2w ago

“Transcendental or productive imagination [rather than "mere fancy"] is an active, spontaneous power, a process that begins of itself & by itself, through its own internal agency and not through external causation. It is prior to experience, not subsequent to it.” ~ Roberts Avens.

An image containing a text quotation, with a winking emoticon holding a light bulb in the bottom left-hand corner. The text, from Roberts Avens, Imagination Is Reality: Western Nirvana in Jung, Hillman, Barfield, and Cassirer., reads: Transcendental or Creative Imagination: “Transcendental or productive imagination [rather than "mere fancy"] is an active, spontaneous power, a process that begins of itself and by itself, through its own internal agency and not through external causation. It is prior to experience, not subsequent to it.”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2w ago

“Western distinctions have been reduced to a Cartesian framework ‘between outer tangible reality & inner states of mind, or between body and a fuzzy conglomerate of mind, psyche, & spirit. We have lost the third, middle position ... soul.’” ~ Roberts Avens, Imagination Is Reality.

Image containing a text quotation. The text, from Roberts Avens, Imagination Is Reality: Western Nirvana in Jung, Hillman, Barfield, and Cassirer, reads: The Forgotten “Third”: “Western distinctions have been reduced to a Cartesian framework ‘between outer tangible reality and inner states of mind, or between body and a fuzzy conglomerate of mind, psyche, and spirit. We have lost the third, middle position which earlier in our tradition, and in others too, was the place of soul: a world of imagination, passion, fantasy, reflection, that is neither physical and material on the one hand, nor spiritual and abstract on the other, yet bound to them both. By having its own realm psyche has its own logic—psychology—which is neither a science of physical things nor a metaphysics of spiritual things.’”
Esowteric@esowteric.bsky.social · 2w ago

With the sad onslaught on the humanities in the US and increasingly so in the UK, before long AI and its cycloptic, myopic visionaries will soon know more about the humanities than we do. Or at least their stilted and contrived version of it, since abstract thinking is not exactly their superpower.

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