Alchemy
I am a writer, lecturer, practitioner of complementary health and a meditation teacher. I am currently an Honorary Fellow of Exeter University where I teach modules on the Esoteric Body, and the History of Alchemy in the new MA Programme for Western Esotericism. This is the first degree of its kind in the world. You can see details at the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism.
I am interested in practical alchemy, as well as its history. Alchemical medicines, called Spagyrics, are herbal medicines which have been prepared according to Paracelsian alchemical methods. They are very gentle but powerfully restorative and can help to rapidly rebuild your health and vitality in times of severe stress, illness or burn-out. My book on this subject, Alchemical Medicine for the 21st Century has just been published by Inner Traditions (July 2010).
Forthcoming events:
Past events 2009:
August 25th to 29th 2009
University of Wales, Lampeter
This three-day conference examined various aspects of Western Herbal Medicine from Ancient times, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to modern comparisons with Chinese and Ayurvedic Medicine. The main focus was the Western tradition of constitutional and energetic medicine.
European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism 2nd International Conference 2-4 July 2009: Capitals of European Esotericism and Transcultural Dialogue
In my talk I discussed the investiture of the Wessex landscape with esoteric value in relation to Antoine Faivre’s categories of esotericism (symbolic and real correspondences, living nature, intermediaries, transmutative experience and initiation). In this area of England, the imagination has been free to envision the invisible realm as a living part of natural order, to propose a deeper reality unfolded through landscape, and to discover connections between celestial and terrestrial forces that appear to be corroborated by the circumstantial evidence of the landscape itself. Artistic and literary works display an intimate connection and even a reciprocal relationship between imagination and the genius loci. The landscape stimulates the imagination which in turn embroiders the landscape with an esoteric mythos.
Past Events 2008
My talk, "The Vital Force, Dynamis and Susceptibility" proposed that the body is not a machine, but a form endowed with a spirit-like Vital Force, a dynamis that enlivens all its parts, and a questing susceptibility that attracts what is needed not only for the body itself, but also for the soul.
The Scientific & Medical Network
