In many religious and philosophical traditions, the soul is the non-material essence of a person, which includes one's identity, personality, and memories, an immaterial aspect or essence of a living being that is believed to be able to survive physical death. The concept of the soul is generally applied to humans, although it can also be applied to other living or even non-living entities, as in animism.
An out-of-body experience is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world as if from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy, although this term is more commonly used to refer to the pathological condition of seeing a second self, or doppelgänger.
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was a Greek–Armenian philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and movements teacher. Gurdjieff taught that people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings. The practice of his teaching has become known as "The Work" and is additional to the ways of the Fakirs (Sufis), Monks and Yogis, so that his student P. D. Ouspensky referred to it as the "Fourth Way".
Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii was a Russian philosopher and esotericist known for his expositions of the early work of the Greek-Armenian teacher of esoteric doctrine George Gurdjieff. He met Gurdjieff in Moscow in 1915, and was associated with the ideas and practices originating with Gurdjieff from then on. He taught ideas and methods based in the Gurdjieff system for 25 years in England and the United States, although he separated from Gurdjieff personally in 1924, for reasons that are explained in the last chapter of his book In Search of the Miraculous.
John Godolphin Bennett was a British academic and author. He is best known for his books on psychology and spirituality, particularly on the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff. Bennett met Gurdjieff in Istanbul in October 1920 and later helped to co-ordinate the work of Gurdjieff in England after the guru had moved to Paris. He also was active in starting the British section of the Subud movement, and co-founded its British headquarters.
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching is a 1949 book by Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky which recounts his meeting and subsequent association with George Gurdjieff.
The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development developed by George Gurdjieff over years of travel in the East. Students often refer to the Fourth Way as "The Work", "Work on oneself", or "The System". The exact origins of some of Gurdjieff's teachings are unknown, but various sources have been suggested.
Henry Maurice Dunlop Nicoll was a Scottish neurologist, psychiatrist, author and noted Fourth Way esoteric teacher. He is best known for his Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, a five-volume collection of more than 500 talks given and distributed to his study groups in and around London from March 1941 to August 1953.
A subtle body is a "quasi material" aspect of the human body, being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual, according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings. This contrasts with the mind–body dualism that has dominated Western thought. The subtle body is important in the Taoism of China and Dharmic religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, mainly in the branches which focus on tantra and yoga, where it is known as the Sūkṣma-śarīra. However, while mostly associated with Asian cultures, non-dualistic approaches to the mind and body are found in many parts of the world.
The astral body is a subtle body posited by many philosophers, intermediate between the intelligent soul and the mental body, composed of a subtle material. In many recensions the concept ultimately derives from the philosophy of Plato though the same or similar ideas have existed all over the world well before Plato's time: it is related to an astral plane, which consists of the planetary heavens of astrology. The term was adopted by nineteenth-century Theosophists and neo-Rosicrucians.
Reality tunnel is a theory that, with a subconscious set of mental filters formed from beliefs and experiences, every individual interprets the same world differently, hence "Truth is in the eye of the beholder". It is similar to the idea of representative realism, and was coined by Timothy Leary (1920–1996). It was further expanded on by Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007), who wrote about the idea extensively in his 1983 book Prometheus Rising.
In esoteric cosmology, a plane is conceived as a subtle state, level, or region of reality, each plane corresponding to some type, kind, or category of being.
Samael Aun Weor, born Víctor Manuel Gómez Rodríguez, was a teacher and author of over sixty books of esoteric spirituality. He formed a new religious movement under the banner of "Universal Gnosticism", or simply gnosis, and taught the practical and esoteric principles to awaken and fundamentally change the psychological condition.
The mental body is one of the subtle bodies in esoteric philosophies, in some religious teachings and in New Age thought. It is understood as a sort of body made up of thoughts, just as the emotional body consists of emotions and the physical body is made up of matter. In occult understanding, thoughts are not just subjective qualia, but have an existence apart from the associated physical organ, the brain.
The Fourth Way (1957) is a book about the Fourth Way, a system of self-development as introduced by Greek-Armenian philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff. It is a compilation of the lectures of P. D. Ouspensky at London and New York City between the years 1921 through 1946, published posthumously by his students in 1957.
The Ray of Creation is an esoteric cosmology which was taught by G. I. Gurdjieff. It is a diagram which better represents the place which Earth occupies in the Universe. The diagram has eight levels, each corresponding to Gurdjieff's Law of Octaves.
William Patrick Patterson was a spiritual teacher of the Fourth Way, an esoteric teaching of self-development brought to the West by G. I. Gurdjieff. Patterson was also an author, filmmaker and speaker on spiritual themes, including the Fourth Way, being and becoming, Advaita Vedanta, self-awakening, self-observation, esoteric Christianity, and conscious-body-breath-impressions. He was the editor-in-chief of The Gurdjieff Journal.
Oscar Ichazo was a Bolivian philosopher and an advocate of integral philosophy. Following his early life in Bolivia, Ichazo was later principally based in Chile, where he founded the Arica School in 1968. He lived his last decades in Hawaii, where he died. Ichazo's Arica School can be considered, as Ramparts magazine described it in 1973, "A body of techniques for cosmic consciousness-raising and an ideology to relate to the world in an awakened way." An American headquarters, the Arica Institute, was established in New York in 1971.
The Study Society is registered with the Charity Commission as Registered Charity Number 1155498. Its stated objects are for the public benefit:
- to advance the education of the public in religion, science, philosophy and the arts.
- the promotion of moral and spiritual welfare.
Lataif-e-sitta are special organs of perception in Sufi spiritual psychology, subtle human capacities for experience or action. Depending on context, the lataif are also understood to be the qualities of consciousness corresponding to those experiences or actions.
