A

abrahamic - There are ongoing discussions on the differences between, as well as within, the Abrahamic (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) and the Vedic (Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) religions in regard to ecological consciousness. – David Orton 2) "The inflectional speech - the root of the sanskrit, very erroneously called "the elder sister" of the greek, instead of its mother - was the first language (now the mystery tongue of the initiates, of the fifth race). At any rate, the semitic languages are the bastard descendants of the first phonetic corruptions of the eldest children of the early sanskrit. The occult doctrine admits of no such divisions as the aryan and the semite, accepting even the turanian with ample reservations.  The semites, especially arabs, are later Aryans-degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality.  To these belong all the Jews and the arabs.  The former are a tribe descended frome the Tchandalas of India, the outcasts, many of them ex-Brahmins who sought refuge in chaldea, in scinde, and Aria (Iran), and were truly born from their father A-Bram (no Brahmin) some 8000 years B.C.  The latter, the arabs, are the descendants of those Aryans who would not go into India at the time of the dispersion of nations, some of whom remained on the borderlands therof, in Afghanistan and Kabul, and along the oxus, while others penetrated into and invaded Arabia. - Blatavsky, from the 'Secret Doctrine'

abreaction - decisive moment in (psychoanalysis) when the patient intensively relives the initial situation from which his/her disturbance stems, before it is ultimately overcome.  In this sense, according to Levi-Strauss, the shaman is a 'professional abreactor'. - mb

accessory properties - ‘ Caffeine, for instance, is found in many botanicals besides coffee beans, including tea (Thea sinensis), yerba mate (Ilex paraguayiensis), kola nut (Cola acuminata) and guarana (Paullinia cupana). While each of these plants has stimulant properties, they also have uniquely different effects.  By standardizing only to the caffeine content, these accessory properties are ignored, such as the tonic, long endurance effect of guarana due to its guaranine content, the antioxidant and nutritional effects of yerba mate, and the antitumor properties of green tea.’ -   Michael Tierra

acoustic mirror -  look at yourself in an acoustic mirror, and hear what you're saying. Notice repeating words, excessive cliches, unconscious patterns, intonations, sloppy expression. You can do some linguistic grooming . . . - mb

acting at a distance - bureaucracy overcomes pity by distancing the human subject and by spreading responsibility across the organization and diffusing it down the hierarchy. The distancing is accomplished in two ways: the human affected by our actions is redefined as an "animal", as "the other"; and technology permits us to act upon humans who are at such a distance that we cannot directly observe what we have done to them. This last point--that the psychological consequences are less when technology permits us to act at a distance-- is supported by studies comparing the post-Vietnam war suffering of infantry, who had shot people at close range, and of pilots who had dropped bombs on them from higher altitudes. Bauman says that animal pity is inspired by the proximity of the sufferer, and it seems contradictory but true that it is harder to kill one person with one's hands than a million by pressing a button. http://www.spectacle.org/496/dream.html

addiction - possessive condition of dependence.  Yes, a kind of possession. - mb   2) , "addiction is a form of pathological learning" in which the brain has created a rewards system for something that is harmful to the body."I would not call it damage -- the circuit is working the way it should. But it has been remodelled in a maladaptive way," said Kauer. -  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070425/hl_afp/sciencehealth;_ylt=AtTbB8qxIXBCM3ujcEhalsbMWM0F 3) it is lack of meaning in life that generally leads to drug addiction.- Michael Sonn 4) Addictions and compulsions, whether consumptive (drugs, alcohol, food) or behavioral (sex, gambling, shopping) can be understood as involving contracted states of consciousness, where attention and awareness is fixated on repetitively and ritualistically taking in something or doing something. The treatment of addictions and compulsions with psychedelic, consciousness-expanding drugs was (and is again now) one of the most promising applications of these substances in health care. - Ralph Metzner 6) . . . .Millions are waking up, but there are still billions of walking dead, those who continue to anesthetize themselves with addictions, including the greatest addiction of all – conformity.’  Leon Shenandoah

Adom – Adam hybridized with Atom – the interrelated human - mb

Adversarial trance – What you resist persists.  Are you a peace advocate resisting war, or promoting mutual harmony?   We win wars, thus creating a definition of peace as an absence of war, rather than peace as a pro-active culture.  How then to employ advocacy strategies that do not resists, and thus fuel persistence, of what they oppose?   How do you be for something and against nothing?   Ultimately the urge to attack others is a projection of one’s own unresolved conflicts.  The goal, thru self-understanding, is to collanborate rather dissasociate - ?

adults - obsolete children - Dr. Seuss

adventures in consciousness - the human life well lived - S. Grof

aesthetic frames - 'It has been suggested that this visual art along with the melodies of the icaros combine with the synaesthetic effects of the potion to produce an "aesthetic frame of mind" central to the healing process.' - http://www.biopark.org/ayahuasca.html

aesthetics of resonance -

afterglow -  Note the spiritual explanation, that you are on the spirit communicatory wavelength on yage and carry that frequency over to afterglow conversations which allows your spiritual essence to relate to the spirit in others, thus bypassing egoic barriers. You could also say you ‘outfeel’ those egoic barriers. - mb

aging - the natural process of impermanence - Dzigar Kongtrul

Agni - Deity of fire.  Has aspects of world creator heating up the waters of creation;  of digestive fire, a principle that allows, encourages, and propels growth;  sacrificial fire - is both mediator between the gods and transformer of the offerings into energy acceptable to the gods.  Life feeds on life, requiring the digestive fire that transforms organic energy into life energy;  Agni as destructive and purifying agent.  – David Kinsley

agreeway -

agriculture - 'Contrary to what we've all been taught, agriculture was not an "advance" (of civilization) per se, but a Faustian bargain with managed catastrophe. Agriculture thrives on the disruption and destruction of natural processes. The ensuing chaos, while manageable in its nascent forms, is very hard to stuff back into the box once industrial agriculture takes root, so to speak. - Jeremy Raymondjack (in review of the book 'Against the Grain') 2) 'The assumption is that nomads and hunter-gatherers, who usually traded with civilized folk, knew a good thing when they saw it and so simply adopted the farming technology. In other words, a bunch of guys who spent their time running around the woods, hunting and fishing and trading meat for sex, one day saw someone hoeing weeds and said to themselves, 'What a fine idea! Let's go do that instead.' Is it possible that the technology did not spread entirely by adoption, that hunter-gatherers were wiped out or displaced by an advancing agricultural imperialism? The record suggests that although some adoption did occur, by and large farming spread by genocide." Richard Manning, p 45

agriglyphs -  crop circles.  ‘Look through 20 years of aerial photos of these agriglyphs and it is hard to deny their melodic precision, their circular forms resplendent with abstract, yet harmonic waves of invisible energy’.  Also looked upon by some sceptical observors as, ‘British rural fun’.  2)  Magnetic field transfer from higher to lower dimensions. Your media resists, why? Suggest discussion - Cassiopaea

algion - . . . is sold as a powder and added to products including Velveeta cheese, Corona beer, Eclipse breath strips and Mrs. Fields cookies.  Algin makes ice cream's texture feel less like ice crystals and more like cream. It keeps spice suspended in salad dressings. It coats paper to block ink from sinking through. It removes the brush strokes in a fresh coat of paint.  – Shannon Macmahon

allergies - a protein recognition problem

allometric growth - the pattern of growth whereby different parts of the body grow at different rates with respect to each other.

allometry -  “ . . . this point is made most compellingly by allometry, when parts of the body grow at different rates. A familiar example is the slower growth of the human skull relative to the body in children, causing adults to end up with heads not much larger than those of infants but atop large muscular bodies. If the allometry of a species is strong, small adults can be strikingly different from large adults in many biological traits, even if they are all identical genetically in the trait under consideration. Among animals the process can be taken to bizarre extremes. In some stag-beetle species, such as the European Lucanus cervus, little males have relatively short, simple mandibles, while large males have more massive mandibles half as long as the rest of the body, an armament that gains them superiority in combat. What is inherited in the males is not one of a series of body types, and not necessarily even a particular body size, but rather the allometric growth pattern common to all the males. Males that obtain less food or terminate growth early end up small and feminized; those that reach large size become hulking, top-heavy supermales. The allometry itself is relatively simple, dependent only on differences in rates of growth among certain patches of tissue. It is easy to imagine a rapid switch of a magnitude often associated with the origin of species that is nevertheless based on the simplest hereditary change. Minor mutations in one or several genes might easily alter the allometric pattern, so that all of the males come to more closely resemble females. Alternatively, the change could push the pattern the other way, so that all stag-beetle males sprout huge mandibles. The social systems of ants illustrate the power of allometry even more dramatically. The caste system of each ant colony, from queens to big-headed soldiers to small-headed workers, is based on a single allometric pattern common to all female members of the colony. Depending on the food and chemical stimuli she receives as a larva, a female ant becomes a queen or a soldier or a minor worker. All fall within the same allometric framework. Genes have nothing to do with the caste determination of the female, but they do determine the allometry of the colony and thus the characteristics of the caste system as a whole. If the allometry is changed even a little by gene mutations, a different caste system emerges.”  Edmond Wilson

allopathy - a system of medical practice which aims to combat disease by the use of remedies which produce effects different from those produced by the disease treated.  It derives from the law of contraries, which aims to contradict or suppress symptoms.  In the history of Western medicine, Galen (2nd century Greece), an exponent of rationalism in medicine, was the first to formally institute the law of contraries as the basis of practice.  However, his opponents, the empirics, maintained that experience taught them that the law of similars healed, contrary to rational doctrine.  The law of similarities treats symptoms as the body’s adaptive defense against disease rather than the disease itself, and acts to express them.  It is the basis of homeopathy, and appears in many vitalistic medical philosophies which have made their way into contemporary discourses on holistic medicine.  The doctrines that derive from the law of contraries or similars therefore define main streams of medical thought in Western medicine.  Allopathy is now synonymous with modern biomedicine.  - mb

Altair - Although the names of modern planets and constellations are Latin, the names of most major stars -- Altair, Deneb, Rigel, Sirius, Fomalhaut, Aldeberan, Betelgeuse -- are Arabic as are many of the other terms of astronomy, such as azimuth, almagest, almanac, and the Zodiac. 

alternation - Alternation is a natural rhythm that is woven into the fabric of life on this planet. We go back and forth between day and night, the seasons of the year, breathing in and breathing out. By tuning into and aligning ourselves with alternation, we can come into deeper harmony with nature and with ourselves. When alternation is not naturally present, by consciously creating it, we bring our lives into greater balance and open ourselves to accelerated healing. - Andrew Oser

alter-native - I met Klee and his sister Jeneda and brother Clayson at a preview for the Tree Sit: Art of Resistance film many years ago where their band Blackfire (www.blackfire.net) was performing. I loved their powerful lyrics and their self-called “alter-native” punk sound. They are 'Dine’ and they bring together their traditional native beliefs and ways with music and activism. – Julia Butterfly

anamnesis - In modern societies, the successors to the shamans of indigenous peoples are the psychiatrists and psychotherapists, who seek to unravel the tangled skeins of dysfunctional mind-body patterns and integrate them into a more harmonious, less painful wholeness. The psychiatric anamnesis (“un-forgetting”) is exactly analogous to the shamanic soul retrieval, and the divinatory re-membering. The broken connections of one’s past history to one’s present condition are recalled and recollected, and can then be integrated and made whole again. Painful, traumatic or confusing experiences tend to freeze or distort the normal processing of our experience. - Ralph Metzner

Anarchism -   "a tendency in the history of human thought and action which seeks to identify coercive, authoritarian, and hierarchic structures of all kinds and to challenge their legitimacy, and if they cannot justify their legitimacy, which is quite commonly the case, to work to undermine them and expand the scope of freedom" – N. Chomsky

anatomy of contact - Analysis of the process whereby cultures previously isolated from one another make contact.  E.g. with tribes previously isolated from Westernizing influence.  And to take that further, note the anatomy of contact created when Western (Global iindustrial) minds are brought in contact with the spirit worlds. - mb

anatta - 'or no-self. It basically means that nothing in the universe has a fixed identity - especially you. If you're breathing and have a heartbeat and just read this phrase, billions of things changed in your mind and body right now. So you're fundamentally not the same you were five seconds ago, let alone five years ago. So quit trying to defend something that essentially isn't there." - Alex Benzer

ancient corporeality -  The performer, with a capital 'P', is a man of action.  He is not a man who plays another.  He is a dancer, a priest, a warrior;  he is outside aesthetic genres.  He doesn't want to discover something new but something forgotten.  Essence interests him because in it there is nothing sociological.  This is not externally learned, but accessed thru an 'ancient corporeality' (which might lead thru ancestral memories to . . . origins).  Primordial body memory accessed thru engaging body intelligence.  - Grotowski

anchiant -  really old . . . 

angelic updraft -  good . . . singing

anima mundi - the soul of the world

animal transformation -  When a myth relates the transformation of a human being into an animal of the same name, the change in status is often marked by the loss of spoken language and the acquisition of a specific call.  Descola

Animate essences - Yaminahua model of cognition:  experiences and meanings can be embedded in the non-human world.  Concept of a type of perceiving animate essences (called Yoshi) shared by human and nonhuman alike, creating for them a shared space of interaction, which opens up this magical arena shamanism.     

Anna Mystic -

annual herbalism - “annual herbalism” is allied to egoic ways of self-understanding, and self-expression. It cyclically reappears allied to whatever medical ideology is then in vogue at different life-phases of the Empire archetype. It contrasts with “perennial herbalism,” which seeks to align with designs, purposes, and needs of natural ecosystems (earth wisdom), and is given continuity by these identifications. - mb

anomie - “Adding to this, according to my understanding, anomie a la Durkheim does  not refer to absence of any cultural norms. But it refers to, expressing in cybernetic terms, absence of negative feed-back. In society, there co-exist plural norms or ideals and they keep equivalence. But in state of anomie, only one norm or ideal get salient (expressed) and equivalence is broken out.  Anomie in the Mertonian sense refers to the relationship between goals and means. Sumita Miki Merton proposes 4 stages of anomic expression:  Innovation - using methods deemed wrong by society to achieve one’s ends;  Ritualism - going thru the motions (playing at normalcy);  Retreatism - ‘dropping out’;  Rebellion - trying to change society - ?

anormal - “Still the driving motor of shamanism is, besides the social needs, the shaman’s contact with the spriits.  This contact is realized through experiences that are anormal, transferred to another world, the world of gods, spirits, and ghosts.”  Hultkrantz

antenna head -

anthropocene - Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet's geologic history has begun. Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch: Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns. Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature. Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns. Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.
The idea, first suggested in 2000 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, has gained steam with two new scientific papers that call for official recognition of the shift. - Robert Britt

anthropocentric detour - the anthropocentric detour of industrial society out of ecocentrism and into the present ecological dilemma - Sessions

anthropomorphic drama -   . . . during the (ayahuasca) tryp 'all of nature turns into an anthropomorphic drama.'  Andritzky

anusaya - (Sanskrit).  Buddhist term referring to the fears and latent tendencies that lie deep in our unconscious.  According to Thich Nhat Hahn:  ‘Because we are not able to resolve the anusaya, we repress them and they grow stagnant and cause sickness whose symptoms can be recognized in everything we do.  Buddha taught that rather than repressing our fears and anxieties, we should invite them into consciousness, welcome them . . . quite naturally they will lose some of their energy . . .’  as in ~~ laws of natural healing . . . .

ancestors -   The Ancestors are a spiritual experience not common to most modern religions. (They are the same thing as "the Saints" in Catholicism, but the Saints are little appreciated nowadays either.) The Ancestors are not easy to describe, but the following could be said about them. One's beneficent genetic ancestors, as well as the people who inhabited one's homeland in the past, as well as one's personal spiritual antecedents and inspirational guides, whether genetically related or not, comprise the Ancestors. In addition, the animals and plants of one's homeland would also have to be included here—or rather, they include themselves, because they claim to have helped build our bodies and the bodies of our ancestors up from the soil. The Ancestors are an indispensable part of life, material and spiritual. They are not some mysterious people out there to spook us (though that is possible to the careless), but they are the people who went before us, who kept alive the traditions of fairness, decency, love, compassion, and spiritual wisdom, so that we, who came afterwards, could have a world that was worth living in. By being good, kind, spiritual people, the Ancestors earned the respect of the Creator, so that after their death they were allowed to continue as sentient beings. And now, from the other side, they still look over us, guiding, protecting, teaching, loving us. But of course, they can only be perceived by people who are, like themselves, dedicated to humane and spiritual purposes. The Great Creator respects the Ancestors. Because of their spiritual activities they stand justified before him. Because he respects them, and because we stand on their shoulders, we are required to acknowledge and respect them as well. The Indians would say that it is not possible to communicate with the Creator unless one has this connection. The Ancestors are braided into the over-all human divine interconnection. In Indian ceremonies they act as a channel between us and the other world. The Indians never held that they were gods, except in periods of cultural degradation, but only that they are an indispensable part of the link to God. As an Indian medicine man once said, "The whiteman has his medicine, but he will never be able to heal because he does not know the Ancestors." - Matthew Wood

anger - 1) "I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson is to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into
energy, so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world." - Gandhi 2) a double-ended knife, that stabs those that wield it at others. - Amma

Apocalypse - Our situation is extremely dire, while at the same time there is nothing to become pessimistic about. Being able to hold this paradox is the “crux” of the matter. This involves being able to hold these seemingly contradictory opposites together as both being true simultaneously. Our apocalyptic situation is very dire, while at the same time it is (potentially) the highest blessing: If we recognize what the darkness is revealing to us, it can (potentially) wake us up. Interestingly, the inner meaning of the word “apocalypse” is something hidden being revealed."  - Paul Levy

appreciation -   Appreciation is a form of synergism.  For example, we can only minimally understand a painting by reducing it down to the different paint colors used.  The effect of looking at a (good) painting brings on feelings of appreciation.  These feelings tell you something of the intent of the artist, what he/she was trying to express.  Thus you understand intent, you feel relational to the painter, and you can thus be moved or healed by this relatedness.  Through experience with nature you develop an aesthetic.   You do this by thinking with the heart.  For this you need an eye for beauty

aromotherapy -  Aromatherapy is based on absorption by the nasal mucous membranes of volatile elements, ionized and made pranic.  Noses are then ‘pranic antennas.’ - Adidrevan Lysebeth

archetypal moment - the astrological onfiguration of one's birth

archetype -  1)  the primary colors of character.  2)  “We seeded and assisted this early symbol (Hator) of the feminine mystery.  She is an archeytpal pattern, a cosmic force that can be metaphorized, and we, as a culture, have identified with her qualities of love, ecstacy, and bliss.” - Hathors  3)  The dance of the many as one. - Sheoekah 4) what the DNA is to the physical world, archetypes are to the psyche - Marrion Woodman 5) Qualities have devic presences.  We've personified them into god and goddesses.   The age of rationalism kicked them out, and they crept back in thru Jungian archetypes.  6) a universal principle or force that affects--impels, structures, permeates--the human psyche and human behavior on many levels. One can think of them as primordial instincts, as Freud did, or as transcendent first principles as Plato did, or as gods of the psyche as James Hillman does. Archetypes (for example, Venus or Mars) seem to have a transcendent, mythic quality, yet they also have very specific psychological expressions--as in the desire for love and the experience of beauty (Venus), or the impulse toward forceful activity and aggression (Mars). Moreover, archetypes seem to work from both within and without, for they can express themselves as impulses and images from the interior psyche, yet also as events and situations in the external world. Jung thought of archetypes as the basic constituents of the human psyche, shared cross-culturally by all human beings, and he regarded them as universal expressions of a collective unconscious. Much earlier, the Platonic tradition considered archetypes to be not only psychological but also cosmic and objective, as primordial forms of a Universal Mind that transcended the human psyche. Astrology would appear to support the Platonic view as well as the Jungian, since it gives evidence that Jungian archetypes are not only visible in human psychology, in human experience and behavior, but are also linked to the macrocosm itself--to the planets and their movements in the heavens. Astrology thus supports the ancient idea of an anima mundi, or world soul, in which the human psyche participates. From this perspective, what Jung called the collective unconscious can be viewed as being ultimately embedded within the cosmos itself. - R. Tarnas 7) "Freud, who started as Jung’s mentor and later became his rival, generally viewed the unconscious mind as a warehouse for repressed desires, which could then be codified and pathologized and treated. Jung, over time, came to see the psyche as an inherently more spiritual and fluid place, an ocean that could be fished for enlightenment and healing." - Sarah Corbett, NYTimes, Sept. 16.'09

art - to effect creative transparency to the transcendence – the transcendent reality that is living in  and thru the concrete.

Artist’s Task - Venus reminds us that we don’t need to source solution but to invite in solution. The artist’s task is to create doors in the wall of the Reality Police so that invisible magic can pour forth into the world again – Caroline Casey

A.S.C. (alteredstatesofconsciousness) - 1) is an arena outside time and space, containing metaphor and imagery as latency.  Metaphor here is an external mental form which corresponds to latent symbolic structures.  It is being in energy, thru a ritual focus that engenders an ASC, which in turn translates the ‘numinous’ qualities of metaphor into human experience, that the initiate then integrates with physically.  Knowledge therefore becomes deeply embedded in the body as physical experience.  *The importance of ASC is that it lessens taints from accompanying ‘projections’ into the energy state.  In this process the qualities inherent in particular metaphors can be eventually given form .  ASC permits shifts in cognitive/perceptual mindstates and permit the initiate to see a larger picture of interconnectedness that was formerly not possible (or ‘noteasilyaccessed’). Symbols as musical tones:  e.g. qualities associated with the Star of David, the cross, the Om mantra take shape in the structure of symbol, and sequence of visualization and experience.  In meditation (ASC / trypping) these qualities are transformed by being traced out in white light (as symbol) and experienced in the body (as vibration). The step from metaphor and symbol is also expressed as the step from mental constructs to vibration - i.e. the physcial experience in the body of the tonal frequencies associated with the numinous qualities of the metaphor.  Without physical feedback from the body one remains in mental constructs only - the books and reports of experiences told by others.  The physical aspects of meditation:   vibrations, circulations in the body, energy pulses - enables one to own the experience of meditation for oneself.  Thus one’s own internal experience can be a basic referent for ethnographic accounts.  Trust in the bodily truth.  (This is why the Gnostics got kicked out of orthodox Christianity.  They were actually having, owning, and being empowered by religious experiences)  So:  vibrational frequencies or tones represent particular metaphorical qualities that are held mentally and once experienced physically, translate into form in terms of how we think, speak, and act.  Bourguignon (1973) considers A.S.C. as part of the psychobiological heritage of our species.  It is ‘therefore a universal feature or process innate to humans that is expressed culturally in variable ways’. I. Prattis.  2) To scramble the senses and cognition is to release impacted ideas and rigidities of perceptions.  Colonic . . . A.S.C. allows the human organism a period of sloughing off of the old and an integration of the new.  Our history of A.S.C. experiences properly utilized are the growth rings of our psyche. 

Ascension - The ascension process is now geared to the masses and not just the select few – Archangel Michael

ascension movement – “Hal’s son, Dr. Joshua David Stone, is a well known author and teacher in the ascension movement and his daughter, Judith Tamar Stone, is one of the foremost Voice Dialogue teachers.” - http://www.delos-inc.com/Introduction/introduction.html

ashes of Eden -

astral memory - '. .  imprinted layers of existence cling to astral memory, like the layers of an onion'. - Rick Phillips

astrology - After English, astrology is my second language. Like a language, it's both logical and messy; it's useful in making sense of  the world, yet full of crazy-making ambiguities. At its best, astrology is a playful study of the metaphorical link between the human psyche and the  sun, moon, and planets. It's not a science. It's an elegant system of symbols, an art form with a special capacity to feed the soul and educate the imagination. When regarded as a precise method for predicting the future or when used to pander to the ego's obsessions, it becomes a deserving target for satire. – R. Brezsney  2) the oldest science of human history.  According to this cosmology the planetary energies reverberated through the spheres and echoed through the four realms of existence leaving their mark or signature in all aspects of the manifest and non-manifest world. - http://www.b-and-t-world-seeds.com/signs.htmg 3) a kind of intrinsic aesthetic splendor in the universe, an overflow of cosmic intelligence and delight that reveals itself in this continuous marriage of mathematical astronomy and mythic poetry. But in more pragmatic, human terms, my sense of astrology is that the constant coincidence between planetary positions and human lives
exists as a kind of universal code for the human mind to unravel, so that we can better understand ourselves and our world, rediscover our deep connection to the cosmos, and be more complete human beings. - R. Tarnas

astronomy - the rebellious teenage son of astrology

Asura - "supra-human spirits (in Buddhist and Hindu mythologies), inhabiting their own worlds, which nevertheless intersect and interact in consciousness with the world of humans, in complex ways. They are violent, destructive counterparts to the Devas, or light-inhabiting beings. . . . The asuras correspond most closely to what I (and other writers) have called dominator or counter-evolutionary, or “dark force” spirits. - Ralph Metzner

atom – ‘Structures of activities rather than changeless inert things” – R. Sheldrake.  2)  ‘each an intention, a consciously created system for cultivating and regulating its particular field of space.’ – K. Carey

atomism-mechanism - The belief that the universe is divisible into simple and similar particles and that all wholes (forms) are fundamentally made up of these particles and nothing more can be termed atomism. The different concrete wholes, like rocks, trees, planets, and air, are simply different configurations of these particles; and change in wholes, such as the growth of a rose from seed to flower, comprise only changes in the configurations of particles.  Atomism began with the philosophy of Leucippius and Democritus, who found a compromise between the universal unity and unchangeability of Parmenides and the commonsense world of diversity and change. Their argument was that the sensory world was reducible to indivisible particles, called atoms, which themselves were identical and unchanging--hence providing a fundamental unity and unchangeableness to the universe. Thus, nature's wholes were simply a sum (configuration) of its parts (atoms).  From its beginning, this basic doctrine has undergone a number of interpretations as it was espoused by such as Epicurus, Lucretius, Gassendi, and William Boyle. However, its core notion of irreducible particles common to all wholes became a general theory of mechanistic science in the seventeenth century, underlying the philosophical perspective of, say, Hobbes and later Holbach and La Mettrie. This view was pervasive in nineteenth-and twentieth- century physics, chemistry, and biology, and we are now seeing its influence in the social sciences (behaviorism). Essentially, the mechanistic philosophy à la Hobbes sees commonsense wholes as made up of patterns and motion of basic particles. The fundamental laws involve the motions of these particles and their configurations; regularities found for wholes should be reducible to these laws. Moreover, causes are simply the action of one particle upon another (action-at- a-distance, such as gravity, was indeed troublesome to this philosophy, and led to imaginative attempts to define a corpuscular ether transmitting such causes). Things themselves can only act as a consequence of being acted upon.  Because particles were considered similar, if not identical, this mechanistic perspective generally led to emphasizing quantity over qualities, "primary" over "secondary" characteristics. Mass, length, and velocity become fundamental concepts of reality, superordinate to "subjective" qualities like color, texture, odor, taste, and shape. Reality was seen as a universal machine, set in motion, perhaps by God, constructed of elementary particles, governed by mathematical laws, and fully determined.  Mechanism, while still a popular commonsense philosophy and a methodological paradigm for social scientists, has lost its scientific base. Few physicists accept it today. The mechanical view has failed in its attempts to construct ethers, light corpuscles, and mechanical models to account for physical phenomena. Scientists increasingly have had to employ constructs without mechanical meaning (such as electromagnetic field) whose interpretations lie wholly within the mathematical equations of which it is a part. Mechanical models are no longer felt to be needed, even if at all conceivably possible. The focus is now on mathematical abstractions--functions, not material particles.– rj rummel

audit culture - 'The economic imperatives of neoliberalism combined with the technologies of New Public Management have wrought profound changes in the organization of the workplace in many contemporary capitalist societies. Calculative practices including `performance indicators' and `benchmarking' are increasingly being used to measure and reform public sector organizations and improve the productivity and conduct of individuals across a range of professions. These processes have resulted in the development of an increasingly pervasive `audit culture', one that derives its legitimacy from its claims to enhance transparency and accountability.' - Cris Shore

auric wounds – “ . .  and psychic scars can be repaired quite automatically, like the way the body heals itself, but others can remain in the auric field as long as a lifetime and even be carried into future lifetimes, depending on how deep they are.  Wounds remain in the field so long because people usually avoid directly experiencing their wounds, but suppress them deeper into the field and then bury them with an energy block.  Deep wound of this sort occur from one extremely harsh interaction or from habitually repeated negative interaction.  – Barbara Brennan

austronomy -

authorial bloat -  a condition brought on by becoming drunk on the ego toxins that often accompany a feeling of expertise or status of expert . .  - steve buhner (word);  mb  (definition). 

Autarky -  means economic self-sufficiency

authoritree -

autochotonous - pertaining to autochthons;  aboriginal, indigenous.  'This work has led us to meet about 70 local healers in this region, most of them mestizos . . .although the influence of autochotonous groups substantially affects the practices and imagery of the healers'.

autopoesis - Teachers of biology used to teach a list of properties of living things to distinguish them from non-living things, because it simply had no basic definition of life. This list included such properties as irritability (reactivity), mobility, growth and reproduction. A few decades ago, two Chilean biologists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, gave us our first basic definition of life as autopoiesis, a Greek word meaning "self creation." The definition that goes by this name is as follows: A living entity is one that continually creates its own parts. Note that this basic definition says nothing about growth or reproduction, which may or may not be properties of a living system. Some of you may be happy to know that you can be alive whether you reproduce or not. In any case, this definition seems to apply admirably well to our planet Earth, which scientists used to think of not as a living entity, but as a non-living geological ball upon the surface of which, by some miracle, life sprang from non-life. Now we can see that the Earth constantly creates itself from the inside out, lava erupting from its molten insides to form new rock, while old rock is eroded, carried to the oceans and remelted at the subduction zones of tectonic plates, where the edge of one slides beneath the edge of another. This great recycling system of magma to rock to magma is joined by those of Earth's waters and atmosphere as the sources of endless creativity, endless supplies of materials to be incorporated into microbes, plants and animals. The entire planet regulates its temperature like a warm-blooded creature, which indeed it can be see to be, as well as regulating the delicate chemical balance in the composition of its atmosphere, seas and soils, further evidence that it is a great living cell or body. Note well that it can function as such only because all its parts are in constant communication and because of the ceaseless planetwide flow of its energy and materials. Life will never evolve naturally on one part of a planet; planets either come to life as wholes or do not come to life at all. – E. Sahourtis

autoscopy - More relevant may be the kinds of double seen in autoscopy, literally 'seeing oneself.' Although the OBE is rarely distinguished from autoscopy in the psychiatric literature, other distinctions are made instead. The main distinction is that OBE involves feeling of being outside the body while autoscopy usually consist of seeing a double. Some people see the whole of their body as a double; some see only parts, perhaps only the face. There is an internal form in which the subject can see his internal organs; and a cenesthetic form in which he does not see, but only feels the presence of his double. There is even a negative form in which the subject cannot see himself even when he tries to look into a mirror. - http://www.psychwww.com/asc/obe/faq/obe19.html

avenues of thought - ‘If one does not reject patent and observable facts, we are inevitably led by these considerations on ayahuasca to a necessary epistemological revision of modern science, especially medicine. Conceptual frameworks, experimental models, and classic paradigms are all shown here to be inadequate to explain such an experience. Aristotelian thought, the foundation of modern science, provides an inadequate system of coordinates. It appears to us that one cannot undertake a serious and audacious (and ambitious) study of phenomena in the modification of states of consciousness without previously accepting an eventual change of paradigm. The pertinence of these themes enlarges the concepts currently in vogue in order to open up new avenues of thought. Ayahuasca constitutes an intellectual challenge for our time. We cannot overemphasize the need to approach the study of ayahuasca through experiential practices enriched by generations of Amazonian therapists and ayahuasqueros.  J. Mabit et al

aversion - aversion is attachment standing on its head. 

awakening - Surrendering to the strengthening (re)balancing forces of Gaia.   This is an impulse to become more whole, like water gaining minerals.  It has a force to it, like a bouncing ball, like the swing of a pendulum.  To surrender to this pull, there are levels of resistance . . to deal with, to overcome (another discussion). Awakening arrives with a flow of new meaning . . that we are All of one family. - mb

awareness flows - Integrative (as opposed to adversarial) approaches to truth might benefit a population that is becoming increasingly congested in its planetary home. Freeing epistemology from the so-called 'Age of Reason' might even bring scholarly benefits, such as opening areas of inquiry notoriously resistant to logical investigation, e.g., the visionary quests of sorcerers, the meditational insights of lamas, or just those evanescent understandings people sometimes grasp in that never-never land between sleep and waking. It might also help us understand those awareness flows that can occur across seemingly impenetrable cultural and cognitive barriers. Inquiry into such matters has long resisted both syntax and logic as well as the crucial pillars underlying them: e.g., quantification, measurement, and classification. - Sorenson, R.

ayahuasca - 1) can be viewed as a cleanser; infiltrating and clearing at every possible level of being, chelating wherever darkness hides in the body and energy field, and expelling it. - http://www.realitysandwich.com/how_shipibo_healers_cured_my_brain_tumor

ayni - " . . . This state of harmony is epitomised by the sacred law of Ayni, a law taught within this tradition but essentially one of the most sacred universal laws governing life. 'Ayni', simply put, means reciprocity. This law ensured, in its practice, social balance within the Incan empire. At its core, it is the act of giving, and the honour that exists with this act is the sole motivator for the giver. In the west we tend to lean towards energy exchange - 'A' gives to 'B' and 'B' reciprocates. Ayni expresses this differently - 'A' gives to 'B' motivated purely by the love of giving. This law teaches that what has been given is an energy, no matter its form, and cannot be kept. So 'B' is obliged to give to another who may have need, at any time. This law is supported by nature and is obvious in our natural surroundings. A tree does not hold jealously to its fruits but gives to the birds, insects, earth, and so on, its excess. In return the tree receives what it needs to grow - water, sunlight, and minerals, for example, from nature. And so the cycle of life perpetuates in flow and harmony.' - http://www.inkari.co.za/info/aboutus.htm