embark on a journey

Inner Garden offers a dynamic and powerful course in internal Alchemy called AIR (Alchemical Inner Reconciliation) and "Vision Quest". They are complementary to physical alchemy. Enrol and embark on a journey into the Inner Worlds, to discover a new horizon and potential within the mind

Vision Quest is a form of meditation that is not to be approached as a leisurely stroll. No specific prior experience is required or necessary. More important is a form of honesty to oneself, a good degree of self-discipline and persistence.

Invitation to Vision Quest

origins

In our culture we usually think of ourselves mentally as a single intelligent unit, an individual person. Freud was influential in the propagation of the idea that our conscious and unconscious may have a different agenda, resulting in intra-psychic conflict. Freud did not discover this. Many before him, going back at least to Leibniz, have postulated the existence of unconscious psychological activity. But Freud broke new ground in his attempts to make the rules by which the unconscious operates more specific and subject to scientific research. Freud had observed that clients invariably "resisted" a free association process when they approached crucial points of emotion-laden (repressed) memories. Oftentimes their resistance was indirect and unconscious. Their minds suddenly and mysteriously went blank, for example, or they subtly changed the subject, or decided to question Freud's medical credentials. Seemingly a conscious part of each client wanted to face the music and be cured, while another unconscious part feared that the emotional pain of a successful treatment would be too much too bear.

the tradition

Alchemists held a holistic world view, with reality as an organic continuum. Within, we find larger and smaller parts grouped together as systems, and as systems of systems. Just as our physical (organic) body is made up of individual cells, grouped into various organs, our mind too is made up of a large number of smaller intelligent units that are ordered into various groups. Together, all of these smaller intelligent units combine to make up what we refer to as "I" when we talk and think about ourselves. In Vision Quest, we refer to these smaller intelligent units as intelligences or agents. Minsky was one of the first to research this concept academically, and called it "The Society of Mind".

revival of an ancient path

Elements of the philosophy that is mentioned above have surfaced fairly recently in academic literature, yet this is but a fragment of an older more comprehensive body of knowledge about the mind - in ancient Egypt these "agents" were extensively studied and called "Neters". This concept is true both on the physical plane, for example in the biological make-up of organisms, as well as on the mental plane, where we prefer to call them "intelligences". These intelligences might be thought of as being somewhat similar to intelligent software programmes, programmes which oversee and carry out all of the many functions that go into making up our personal being. Some direct our digestive system, some regulate body temperature, some govern our emotions, others oversee our various thinking processes, etc. However, these intelligences are more than a mechanistic piece of software.

The 16th Century alchemist, physician and philosopher, Gerhard Dorn, has left a number of books that report of a journey deep into the mysteries of the inner planes, and an accurate contact and understanding of these different intelligences. There are a number of other examples of alchemical or qabalistic writings that are a testament to the underground tradition of the exploration of the Inner Worlds, and this tradition has lived on until modern day (for example in the works of Robert Desoille and Carl Happich). Inner Garden offers the unique opportunity to take on this journey yourself, in the footsteps of a select group of Philosophers who have pioneered and mapped this terrain before you. To give you a foretaste of this Quest, we have uploaded the first (introductory) stage of this journey to our Scribd account, which can be accessed here

For a more detailed introduction of Vision Quest, check out the VQ articles here and as shown below.
To enrol in Vision Quest, please contact us here.
(Some experience with Alchemy or esoteric practices is recommended.)

In answer to some of the inquires as to the history of Vision Quest, we have drafted the rough chronographic or existential influence diagram as shown below.

relevant articles

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