Long before I was an undergraduate, there has been an adage in the humanities and social sciences that “everything is subjective,” or that “objectivity is a myth.” These statements hail from quantum physics’ discovery in the 1920s that the observer’s mere inclusion in an experiment influences that experiment, which is to say that detached observation… Continue reading Subjectivity, objectivity, stillness
Case studies
Ego death at Green Gulch Farm and spiritual education’s offerings for secular reform
Reincarnation as educational heuristic
Reincarnation is a built-in education modality. According to reincarnation, individual souls populate the world in successive, incremental incarnations, learning or failing to learn lessons each time. Associated concepts include karma (often translated as fate or destiny), dharma (vocation or purpose), and the ultimate goal is to “graduate” from the system such that one no longer… Continue reading Reincarnation as educational heuristic
The dream-visitation
Twice in my life I have had the following dream: It is the final evening of my senior year of college, and I am on campus. The following morning, I will graduate and then leave campus for good. That evening, I meet and sleep with a female student. She is one year younger than I… Continue reading The dream-visitation
What Dreams May Come and the acquiescence that is true love
At face value, Richard Matheson’s What Dreams May Come embeds a romantic tale of soul mates at first rent apart, then rejoined. This occurs because one of the souls, Chris, is killed in a car accident and enters the afterlife—a fact which for the principal third of the novel he refuses to believe. Then, Chris’s… Continue reading What Dreams May Come and the acquiescence that is true love
Jackson Holzberg Buckley 