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CIIS Today, Spring 2012 Issue
Get PDFThis volume is the Spring 2012 issue of CIIS Today, the Magazine of the California Institute of Integral Studieshttps://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ciistoday/1018/thumbnail.jp
Postmodern Trickster Strands in Shamanic Worlds
Get PDFThis essay explores socio-philosophical meanings of shamanic cultures and practices and
their affirmation and revival. What is their potential significance for humanity’s future? I
argue that shamanism engages humans in practices that put us potentially at the center of
our creativity and creative visioning. The trickster figure, a pervasive indigenous presence,
so often seems pivotal in this process and this pervasively male figure plays an important
part in this regenerative interpretation of postmodernism; in fact, postmodernism can be
understood as trickster. Just like the trickster, the nature of postmodernism is ambiguous.
I explore this ambiguity and suggest that shamanic practices and paradigms may inspire a
way out of our contemporary conundra with trickster help. This essay is concerned with
paradigmatic issues, it presents broad brush strokes rather than ethnographic details. Its
form attempts to honor trickster storytelling
Shamans as Healers, Counselors, and Psychotherapists
Get PDFShamanic models of healing, counseling, and psychotherapy differ from Western models in that
they emphasize closeness to the natural world as well as to one’s body and life’s spiritual dimensions.
Shamanic practices reflect the ideals of harmony and knowledge. In shamanism, there is no division
between “mind” and “body,” hence what Westerners refer to as “mental illness” is seen as part of
the total client being treated by a shaman, a perspective that often includes the client’s family,
community, and the world of “spirits.
Experiences of “Soul Journeys” in the World’s Religions: The Journeys of Mohammed, Saints Paul and John, Jewish Chariot Mysticism, Taoism’s Highest Clarity School, and Shamanism.
Get PDF“Soul journeys” are a central practice of shamanism. However, they have also been important
in many other religious traditions and have exerted a major impact on religions, cultures, and
history. This article surveys some important journeys in the world’s religions such as those of
Mohammed, the Christian saints Paul and John, Jewish Chariot Mysticism, Taoism’s Highest
Clarity tradition, and shamanism. The article explores the experiences of these journeys, techniques
for inducing them, culturally specific features, and the range of metaphysical interpretations of
them. It also examines some of the surprising ways in which journeys are currently impacting
Western culture, ranging from political movements to our understanding of states of mind
Daughters of the Revolution
No full textIn 1968, a clerical mistake threatens the prestigious but cash-strapped Goode School in the small New England town of Cape Wilde. After a century of all-male, old-boy education, the school accidentally admits its first female student: Carole Faust, a brilliant, outspoken, fifteen-year-old black girl whose arrival will have both an immediate and long-term effect on the prep school and everyone in its orbit. There’s the school’s philandering headmaster, Goddard “God” Byrd, who had promised co-education “over his dead body” and who finds his syllabi full of dead white males and patriarchal tradition constantly challenged; there’s EV, the daughter of God’s widowed mistress who watches Carole’s actions as she grows older with wide eyes and admiration; and, finally, there’s Carole herself, who bears the singular challenge of being the First Girl in a world that’s not quite ready to embrace her.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/facultypublications/1047/thumbnail.jp
Dissipative Processes in Psychology: From the Psyche to Totality
Get PDFThis paper articulates a possible framework for understanding and resolving psychopathological
phenomena from the perspective of chaos theory and based on the application of Ilya
Prigogine’s concepts of dissipative structures and processes. Twenty-eight years in clinical
practice have shown the human being to be memory-inheritance, which produces a type of
“psychological DNA.” The personality is thereby crystallized, generating dynamic patterns
(fractals) in its interference with reality. Although necessary for living, this crystallization
is imprisoning. Once the shadow of memory has been resolved and dissolved, the person
achieves reorganizing and transrational processes. We develop the concepts of the emergent
crisis and vortices such as sensitivity, instability and bifurcation, considering the symptom to
be a trigger for healing-transformation
The Traditional Roots of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga Practice and his Seven Quartets of TransformationSri
No full textFrom the Bhagavad Gita to CIISby Way of Sri Aurobindo and Haridas Chaudhuri
No full textThis talk will explain and recommend the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Haridas Chaudhuri based on the Bhagavad Gita (knowledge, action, love, meditation) and their addition of the yoga of the evolution of consciousness; it will then trace the place of these yogas in the history of CIIS from its founding to the present
Edges, Peaks, and Vales: A Mythocartography of California at the Margins
No full textInland of its spectacularly busy and famously scenic coast, and around the edges of its huge Central Valley, California extends itself into a mysteriously introverted land of dry deserts, tall mountains, ancient lakes, and solitary valleys. To listen deeply to the myths, legends, and images emanating from this arc of isolation demands an open-hearted inquiry from border to border and Sierra to open sea. The Tears of Llorona took the historical, ecological, and imaginal pulse of the original Mission counties of California along El Camino Real from San Diego to Sonoma. Ventral Depths sampled alchemical and mythic motifs in the Central Valley. Edges, Peaks, and Vales moves the terrapsychological focus to the interior edges of California, and therefore to those of a quintessentially place-based consciousness attuned to its startlingly sentient surroundings.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/facultypublications/1038/thumbnail.jp