Running alongside the accepted history of western consciousness there is another current which should have pride of place but which has been relegated to a shadowy, inferior position, somewhere underground. In the seventeenth century this other current – known variously as the western esoteric tradition, the western inner tradition, and the Hermetic tradition – fell victim to a coup d’etat enacted by one side of our brain against the other. The “rejected knowledge” of our other tradition, however, did not die, and was carried on by many brilliant individuals, the “secret teachers” whose insights into human existence and its relation to the cosmos informed the evolution of the western mind. My talk will look at the roots of our other tradition in the rivalry between our two brains and how we may now be a position to bring it to consciousness once again.
Gary Lachman is the author of many books on the links between consciousness, culture, and the western esoteric tradition, including The Secret History of Consciousness, Jung the Mystic, The Quest for Hermes Trismegistus, and most recently The Secret Teachers of the Western World. He writes for several journals in the UK and US, lectures widely in the UK, US, and Europe, and his books have been translated into many languages. He is a professor in the evolution of consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies and in a former life was a founding member of the rock group Blondie. His website can be found at www.garylachman.co.uk
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