Welcome and Introduction: Exploring Inner Space

"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large — this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual"...Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception (1954)

"I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."... Morpheus in the 1999 movie, The Matrix

Simply, this blog is about inner space and the exploration of that space as it pertains to transcendence. America has spent vast sums on the exploration of "outer" space over the past 60 or so years and a small number of us have even had the opportunity to view our small planet from the moon. Perhaps from that experience their perspective on life and living has changed for the better. As for the rest of us, we may enjoy their perspective vicariously and learn from the pictures we have seen. Obviously our economy cannot afford to send all of us to the moon for the transcendent experience a view of the earth from the moon can afford. Besides a more intense and profound transcend experience can be accomplished right here on earth!

The exploration of outer space has shown us how vast, but empty, our solar system and even our part of the universe may be. Outer space seems more like a stage prop set up to fuel our speculation about who we are and why we are here. In seeking answers to those two questions through exploration of outer space, it seems that all we have accomplished is the generation of more questions. Other than serving up entertainment for scientists who make their living from the study of outer space, and technology spin-offs from that work, has it made us better people or happier in our daily lives?

On the other hand, many have been able to take a journey inward. And that has generally been much more fulfilling for the individual. The inward landscape is vast and populated with beings of all sorts. Some good, some bad. Unlike outer space travel, inner space travel allows us to leave our physical bodies parked. And physical survival is much easier, although traveling with a wise guide is generally the best way to go.

Long before the Greeks, the ancients envisioned a minimum of two worlds, the material world and the spirit world, and developed procedures for travel between the these two worlds that are open to anyone with a sense of adventure. For thousands of years these indigenous inward travelers, known as shamans, have explored the spirit world and returned to tell or even write about it. One example of such writing is, of course, the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Some of these journeys have been chronicled in writings such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is really about living. Others are found in anthropological studies documenting firsthand accounts of inward travelers. Those who make the inward journey are now often called psychonauts.

My own interest in these inward travelers, or psychonauts, came from working on my blog, The Desert Fathers. In a roundabout way, I came across the story of the desert fathers while I was researching historical causes of the destruction of the ancient library in Alexandria, Egypt. As an academic librarian, i.e., a professional librarian who has spent his career working in institutions of higher learning, I was trying to understand how and why such a marvel as the Alexandria library met its implausible end after surviving for several hundred years.

After considerable research, I documented one possibility of how that great library ended in my fictional serial blog Alexandrine Librarian. There is ample evidence from reading that blog that it was my first attempt at writing historical fiction, which is something I plan to spend my retirement years doing, for better or for worse.

My research for writing the Alexandrine Librarian blog revealed that there were quite a number of ancient libraries in the Roman Empire. The Romans loved knowledge and reading and attempted to promote both throughout the Empire by building and maintaining large libraries. Some of these are documented in my not-yet-completed blog, Ancient libraries of the Mediterranean.

By this circuitous route I have come to a point where my interest lies in exploring what lies beyond the material world of the ancients and also beyond our contemporary world. Reading about the difficult inward journeys of the desert fathers made me wonder about other ways of inner exploration. I have found a substantial body of literature on this subject and am now sorting through all that I can find. In India, there is a tradition for many, that after a lifetime of work one may go on a spiritual search for what lies beyond. That effort, I believe, is a preparation for the transition of the individual to another level. Just as we all spent our early life preparing for adulthood, it seems worthwhile to spend some time and effort preparing for our later years, death and what lies beyond.

Perhaps as scary and morbid as that might sound, I am reassured by a belief that death is simply a transition or transformation of some part of our individual self, whether it is the soul or some other "essence" of our self. That constitutes a belief that we do continue on in some form somewhere in the spirit world. Some people in both primitive and civilized cultures believe we will return to the material world sometime in the future. If they are right, then although this life appears to be terminal, it might be best to keep an open mind, and not take terminality too seriously as it may prevent the very development needed for future return to the material world.

The aforementioned Tibetan Book of the Dead, the real title is "Bardo Thodral" or "Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States", is an intriguing document so alien to Western thought that considerable effort was required to translate it into English. In the final analysis it is a book about how to live as well as how to die. It is also a detailed map of the landscape of the world beyond this life, a special kind of knowledge that should of interest to every living human being. So why is it not a bestseller in the United States? One reason is that it may seem a daunting task just reading the text even in English. Annie Shapiro, a professor at Naropa and Dongguk Universities, has written an excellent summary of the Bardo Thodral that I would recommend reading for anyone interested in the landscape of the afterlife. It is available in PDF form here.

For many centuries in Tibet individuals have placed a high priority on preparing for life after death, mastering the ways of exploring inner space and traveling to the world beyond. Many are also able to return, bringing back profound insights. Have our expenditures for the exploration of outer space and the results of that exploration brought any kind of truly enlightening knowledge to people today?

Thomas Merton, speaking about the inward journey of the desert fathers, who themselves, much like the Tibetans, mapped the landscape of inner space, nicely sums up my feelings:

...they represent a discovery of man, at the term of an inner and spiritual journey that is far more crucial and infinitely more important than any journey to the moon.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it all the rest are not only useless but disastrous. Proof: the great travellers and colonizers of the Renaissance were, for the most part, men who perhaps were capable of the things they did precisely because they were alienated from themselves. In subjugating the primitive worlds they only imposed on them, with the force of cannons, their own confusion and their own alienation.

I realize that there is nothing new in these blogs. I am only discovering things that are already known by a few or by many. In that respect, I follow the tradition of many scholars, many bloggers. While I use this blog format mainly so that I can more easily keep track of my thoughts and ideas, I realize that by sharing it with others I might be revealing my own ignorance. That is an inherent hazard in sharing personal thoughts in writing.

This blog, like The Desert Fathers blog is all about transcendent experiences because at this point in my life that is what I am interested in.

So, I think, ..."if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhist, Christian or Muslim, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development..."

While this blog will also explore the practice of using entheongenic drugs for transcendent experiences, I am not now a drug user nor have I ever ingested drugs, nor do I intend to do so. Nor do I suggest or endorse the casual use of entheogenic drugs. Any attempt in achieving transcendency through entheogenic drugs should be considered a serious matter involving much research and preparation.

It is only in relation to this blog and the landscape of alternative realities that I am interested in studies documenting historical use of entheogenic drugs by various cultures over many centuries in religious, shamanic or spiritual contexts.


The Librarian
From the high mountains of southern Colorado
August 2011
send email to: alexandrinelibrarian@gmail.com

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