NYC ESOTERIC GATHERING,  AUGUST 27TH TO 29TH

Open Center co-founder and creative director Ralph White answers some questions about the NYC Esoteric Gathering taking place at the Open Center this weekend.

1.    Why are you organizing this Gathering?

For the last fifteen years the Open Center has produced a series of pioneering conferences on the Western Esoteric Tradition. These have taken place in Prague, Florence, Granada, the Isle of Samothrace and elsewhere. Next year we will produce An Esoteric Quest for Ancient Alexandria: Greco-Egyptian Birthplace of the Western Mind and so this year we have no major conference in an exotic locale. We thought it would be a good idea to create a homegrown New York City Esoteric Weekend to bring together people with an interest in these deep topics, and reflect on both the Inner America conference last year, look forward to Alexandria next year, and discuss the situation of esotericism in general in the world today.

2.    Who will be there?

Many of the presenters from the Open Center who speak regularly on themes pertaining to the Western Esoteric Tradition – Emerson and the Transcendentalists, Sacred Geometry in Contemporary Art and the Library of Alexandria, the Tarot as the Book of Thoth, Alexandria’s influence on Islamic Art in Andalusia, and much more.

3.    Do I need to come for the whole weekend?

No. We have set it up so that people can simply come for the opening evening – two lectures by myself and the celebrated scholar of the Western Tradition, Christopher Bamford,  followed by a reception; Or they can come to either Saturday or Sunday or, of course, they can attend the whole weekend.

4.    Do I need to be deeply versed in esoteric philosophy to get anything out of the experience?

No. This event is intended to appeal to newcomers to this fascinating spiritual tradition, and to those who have attended previous Esoteric Quests. It will be of interest to anyone with an interest in the meaning of life, the destiny of America, or the nature of the Ancient World.

5.    Why is the Western Esoteric Tradition important?

For those of us with a European heritage, it is our own indigenous spiritual tradition. So while shamanism, Buddhism, yoga, and the countless worldviews available to us today can enlarge and expand our experience of the spiritual path, the Western tradition can bring alive figures and ideas from the history we know and reveal them in a fresh light as pioneers in the evolution of consciousness.

How do I register?

Click here or call 212-219-2527

Just as there are subtle electromagnetic forces, which bind the parts of an atom together, there are also subtle patterns of energy, which create and sustain all living things. This "life energy" expresses itself not only through our physical bodies but also through our thoughts, feelings, personal relationships,and everyday experiences. Polarity therapy works with life energy in all of its forms, using a comprehensive
system of bodywork, exercise, nutritional guidance, and verbal counseling to bring body, mind, emotions, and spirit into a state of balance, harmony and vibrant health.

HOW POLARITY WORKS

Utilizing hands-on contacts, toning, breathing and gentle counseling techniques, this work embodies a full holistic healthcare system, and can be used to empower other modalities as well. Developed by Dr. Randolph Stone (1890-1981) an osteopath, chiropractor, and naturopath who sought to integrate Eastern and Western approaches to healing such as reflexology,acupressure, craniosacral balancing, yoga, and Ayurveda.

Barbara Brennan Technique® Energy Healing employs hands-on methods developed by Barbara Brennan to help facilitate shifts in your physical, emotional, mental, intentional and essence domains.

CranioSacral Balancing uses gentle, hands-on palpation to feel for movement/rhythm generated by the pulse of the cerebrospinal fluid; may be useful in alleviating migraines, chronic fatigue, neck and back tension.

Deep Tissue uses slow strokes and deep pressure work to relieve chronic areas of tension and pain.

Huna Mua Kahuna Lapau’au is an Ancient Hawaiian Shamanic healing method that allows communication between your Bodies, which consist of the Three Souls of Consciousness. For life to make sense, information must flow and connect through each dimension, carried by the light of Consciousness.

Indian Head Treatment stimulates circulation and relieves tension in the head, neck and shoulder region.

Polarity Therapy balances “life energy,” releases energy blocks in specific areas throughout the body, including the chakra system. It also incorporates nutrition, movement and open communication to facilitate self awareness.

Pregnancy Pampering soothes and helps relieve the aches and pains of pregnancy. It can be used after the first trimester.

Reiki is a “laying-on-of-hands” technique, removes energy blockages, provides new vitality through healing universal life energy.

Reflexology applies pressure to specific points on the feet to enhance the natural healing abilities of corresponding organs and glands.

Shiatsu uses stretching and applied pressure along meridians to release chi (vital energy), improves immune function and relieves ailments such as backaches and menstrual pain.

Swedish works muscles to relax tension and promote blood and lymphatic circulation—a superb combination of relaxation and healing.

Thai incorporates guided yoga-like movements, gentle stretches and application of pressure along meridian lines to center the mind and body.

Trager® involves movement re-education through gentle, rhythmic techniques to promote deep relaxation and increased mobility.

VortexHealing® an energetic healing that works with divine light and consciousness to perform deep emotional, physical and karmic healing.

Hypnosis creates a relaxed state of mind utilizing guided imagery and positive suggestions, providing the groundwork for life changing shifts and overall good health.

Neurofeedback with NeurOptimal™ is an EEG biofeedback training that effortlessly assists the brain to organically change as it reorganizes itself in the most efficient way to promote well-being.

To schedule a Wellness appointment call 212-274-1829
For more information on Wellness click here

“One of that tiny and select company of the most brilliantly creative and provocative political-historical writers of the last half-century.”

Peter Dale Scott is one of the most perceptive and courageous political thinkers and poets of our time. A former Canadian diplomat and professor of English at Berkeley, his brilliant research has consistently revealed the deepest, most hidden truths about America’s efforts to shape the world since the Second World War. His major prose works include The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America (2007) and Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993). Both books explore the concepts of parapolitics and deep politics, growing in part out of his researches into the Vietnam War, and later the JFK assassination. He is also an award-winning poet and was co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley. Much of his work has been engaged with Deep Politics, which posits that “in every culture and society there are facts which tend to be suppressed collectively because of the social and psychological costs of not doing so.”  This symposium will bring together an outstanding group of writers and scholars to honor the brilliant work of Peter Dale Scott at the beginning of his 80s.

A ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM
Saturday, March 13, 2010, 10am–10pm
10WEC10S (a 1-day workshop)
Members: $75 / Nonmembers: $80

Wealth, Empire and the Future of America: An Exploration of the Deep Politics of War
Peter Dale Scott, PhD, with panelists including Richard Falk, James Galbraith, Roger Morris, Norman Rush, Mark Selden, Eric Wilson, Russ Baker and Daniel Ellsberg
In the first of two seminars offered by Peter Dale Scott, he will be joined by a distinguished panel in his deep political analysis of American politics. The opening session will look at the concepts of deep politics and deep history, and apply them to the gradual corruption of recent American politics that has resulted from Wall Street’s distortion of American foreign policy through its domination of the CIA. His second presentation will look at the evolution of so-called “Continuity of Government” planning over two decades under Rumsfeld and Cheney, its implementation on 9/11, and the consequences of that implementation today. In the afternoon, Peter’s presentation, which could be entitled The Road to Afghanistan, will survey the CIA’s reliance on drug-trafficking allies and assets over fifty years, and how this has contributed to America’s current dilemma in Afghanistan. The concluding session will argue that the most hopeful model for significant social change in America is that presented by the civil rights movement in the South, or Polish Solidarnosc: namely, the solidarity between urban intellectuals and a spiritually united popular base.

A ONE-DAY SEMINAR
Sunday, March 14, 2010, 10am–5:30pm
10WEC20S (a 1-day workshop)
Members: $65 / Nonmembers: $70

An Evening of Poetry Peter Dale Scott
Enjoy an evening of poetry of “conscience, intelligence, and eloquence with a candid and humane activist, an adventurer, traveler, penetrating scholar, and teacher.... reminding one that some valuable human beings with authentic voices are still among us.” His long poem Coming to Jakarta has been called the most important political poem to appear in the English language in a very long time. His meditative poems also honor the world as a spiritual resource, and reveal a profound sympathy for all things.

AN EVENING READING
Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 8pm
10WEC25P
Members: $15 / Nonmembers: $17

Peter Dale Scott: His Life as a Poet, Seeker and Investigator of Politics and Deep Politics
Peter Dale Scott, with David MacGregor, Ron Graham, Ron Dart, Ronna Kabatznick and Bryan Sentes

“I believe that at the present time the problem of the unification of the world and the problem of the unification of the individual, are in the end one and the same problem, and the solution of one is the solution of the other.” —T.S. Eliot

Peter Dale Scott’s method of political analysis, often drawing on a wide-span survey of details, has been called the intuitive method of a poet. Conversely, his poetry has been praised for its attempts to encompass both pastoral and contemporary political-historical elements in a single comprehensive vision. In recent years both his politics and his poetry have expanded to embrace a more explicitly spiritual dimension, where Scott writes as a seeker rather than as a preacher. Peter will speak on each of these three aspects of his life, and each will be discussed by a distinguished panel. Minding the Darkness, his most recent long poem, “predicts with Shelley that both outer and inner enlightenment (the current word is development) are damned, even murderous, if they do not honor each other.”

A ONE-DAY SEMINAR
Saturday, March 20, 2010, 10am–5:30pm
10WEC30S (a 1-day workshop)
Members: $65 / Non-members: $70

Paul Almond is a film director and producer who created the landmark documentary "7 UP" for Granada TV in the UK. He has won numerous awards for film directing including a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Foreign Picture. His trilogy "Isabel, Act of the Heart and Journey" is considered part of the Canadian film canon.

Russ Baker is an investigative journalist who has written for The New York Times, Washington Post and Vanity Fair. He is founder of WhoWhatWhy/The Real News Project. His first book, Family of Secrets, The Bush Family, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, was published in 2009.

Mary Baine Campbell is an American poet, scholar, and professor. She teaches Medieval and Renaissance literature, as well as creative writing, at Brandeis University Her most recent book is entitled Trouble.

Ron Dart is a university professor, mountaineer and author. He teaches in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of Fraser Valley, British Columbia. He is one of the main and public keepers of the Red Tory tradition in Western Canada. His books include Thomas Merton and the North Cascade Beat Poets. He is a regular contributor to Vive le Canada.

Daniel Ellsberg is a former U.S. military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.

Richard Falk, PhD, is professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University and United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur in the Occupied Territories. He is the author of many books including, The Costs of War: International Law, the UN and World Order After Iraq.

James K. Galbraith, PhD, holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Chair of Government/Business Relations at the University of Texas. He is a Senior Scholar with the Levy Economics Institute and Chair of the Board of Economists for Peace and Security. His books include: Balancing Acts: Technology, Finance and The American Future, Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay.

Ron Graham is an author and journalist whose books include One-Eyed Kings, God’s Dominion and All the King’s Horses. He has been a television producer and a contributor to Saturday Night magazine, the Globe and Mail and the New York Times. He was formerly president of PEN Canada and is currently Chair, Institute of Contemporary Culture, Toronto.

Ronna Kabatznick, PhD, is a social psychologist who has been practicing meditation since 1985. She spent nearly two years on a Vipassana Meditation retreat under the guidance of two of Thailand’s greatest Forest Masters. She is assistant clinical professor in department of Psychiatry at UC San Francisco.

David MacGregor, PhD, is Professor of Political Thought at Kings College, an affiliate of the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Publications include: Hegel and Marx After the Fall of Communism; Hegel, Marx and the English State; The Communist Ideal in Hegel and Marx. Forthcoming book: Deep Politics of the New Millenium: September 11 and US Imperialism.

Askold Melnyczuk is the director of creative writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, He is the author of Ambassador of the Dead, What Is Told and The House of Windows. He also teaches in the Graduate Writing Seminars at Bennington College.

Roger Morris, PhD, is former aide to U.S. Secretary of State, Dean Acheson and former National Security Council member under the Lyndon B. Johnson. His books include: Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician, Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America, The Money and the Power: the Making of Las Vegas (with Sally Denton).

James Schamus is a film producer and screenwriter, noted for his work on critically acclaimed films such as the Academy Award winning film "Brokeback Mountain." He also co-wrote and produced "Eat Drink Man Woman" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with director Ang Lee. He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and is a published film historian holding a faculty position at Columbia University.

Norman Rush is a writer whose stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Best American Short Stories. Whites, a collection of stories, was published in 1986, and his first novel, Mating, the recipient of the National Book Award, was published in 1991. Mortals is his second novel.

Mark Selden, PhD, is a Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University and Coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal. He is a specialist on modern geopolitics, political economy and the history of China, Japan and the Asia Pacific. His books include: China in Revolution and War and State Terrorism.

Bryan Sentes teaches at Dawson College and Concordia University, Montreal. He has read his poetry widely in North America and Europe. He has published reviews, translations and scholarship in the sociology of religion, mythology, and popular culture. His books include: Ladonian Magnitudes and Grand Gnostic Central and other poems.

Eric Wilson, PhD, is professor of Law at Monash University Law School, Melbourne, Australia. His books include: Government of the Shadows : Parapolitics and Criminal Sovereignty. His current subject interests are in the history and philosophy of international law and critical jurisprudence.

Tracy Ware, PhD, is a professor of Literature at Queen’s University, Toronto. He has published on Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Poe, Trilling and Naipaul. He edited A Northern Romanticism: Poets of the Confederation and Susan Fracis Harrison’s Crowded Out! and Other Sketches.

9/10:
Transforming the Energy of Anger

9/13:
FALL OPEN HOUSE

9/17:
Energy Kinesiology Training

9/18:
Reiki 1

SAVE THE DATE:
9/21: Muhammed: A Story of the Last Prophet with Deepak Chopra
10/28: Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Training
10/1-3:Art of Dying IV Conference

UPCOMING FREE INTRODUCTORY CLASSES

The Fall 2010 edition of the Open Center catalog is available online. View the digital catalog




Open Center in the News
We're expanding! Read an interview with Walter Beebe, Open Center president, in Crain's New York Business (PDF file download).

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