Hi Folks, I thought I would say a little hello here after finding this site via a google search.
I am the author of the book "The Shaman and Snow White: Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Shamanic States of Consciousness and Certificate 18 Healing" and the editor of the blog www.transitionconsciousness.org.
In 2010 I completed my masters degree in Holistic Science from Schumacher College. I am not too sure how many of you will know Schumacher College, but you will know many of the visiting lecturers, such as James Lovelock (who ran the very first course there 20 years ago), Jules Cashford, Margaret Colquhoun, the late Lynn Margulis, Margaret Colquhoun, Craig Holdrege, Arthur Zajonc, Rupert Sheldrake, Basil Hiley, F David Peat, David Abrams, Stanislav Grof, Iain McGilchrist, Vandana Shiva and many many more.
When Peter Reason came to teach us, we did a Council of All Beings, as he works closely with Joanna Macy.
The course was created by Margaret Colquhoun, a Goethian scientist, Henri Bortoft, a quantum physicist and Goethian philosopher, and the late Brian Goodwin, one of the most influential biologists on complexity and emergence. The course director is Stephan Harding, author of Animate Earth, and in his book he very much introduces Jung and also a way of knowing the world through myth to complement our way of knowing through logos.
Schumacher College was based on a vision of learning developed by Satish Kumar, modelled on an ashram. It is a communal college, and students live there fully participating in meditations, cleaning, gardening and cooking. The MSc is so much more than just formal teaching, it is specifically designed as a transformational process. The college focusses on science, economics and spirituality and takes its name from the late economist E.F. Schumacher, author of Small is Beautiful. It is a leading centre for ecological thinking, and as you can imagine there are many courses such as EcoPsychology, EcoLiteracy and other courses with a large proportion which could be identified as Depth Psychology.
You can download dissertations and papers by my fellow students here:
http://transitionconsciousness.wordpress.com/holistic-science-papers/
You will find many of my papers on my blog, and you can find out more about my shamanic writings and papers on simonralli.wordpress.com.
Right now I am writing a new paper for Restoration Earth Journal on western and Amazonian mysticism, and I will be comparing amazonian shamanism with the mysticism and gentle empiricism of Goethe.
I hope some of these will be of interest to everyone, and I am extremely glad to have found this community.
I am in the process of moving to Brazil right now, and last year I ran various lectures and courses on Integral Thinking or Holistic Thinking, helping business students develop a more holistic mode of consciousness to help them better get to grips with chaos and complexity and how new advances in science can be applied in a business context as well.
My key articles on this can be read here:
http://transitionconsciousness.wordpress.com/key-articles/
Regards
Simon
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