I hope you are well. I had an interesting experience last week. I was invited to Freiburg, Germany to give a lecture at an institute that focuses on psi experiences, altered states of consciousness and spiritual experiences. The institute owns a floatation tank and invited me to have a session. It was a wonderfully relaxing experience. I felt like I was back in the womb, weightless and formless in a completely safe space. My breathing became so slow that at one point I thought I might be dead. It was a like a very deep meditation. I lose awareness of my body and of time. Afterwards, the world seemed like a slightly different place. My perceptions were intensified, so that everything around me looked more intricate and colourful. I felt like I was walking slowly and serenely through the beautiful medieval streets of Freiburg. If you have the chance to have a session in a floatation tank, I would definitely recommend it!

Synchronistically, the day after I returned from Germany, I was in my car, listening to a programme called 'Desert island Discs' On BBC Radio 4, in which well-known people choose their favourite records and talk about their lives. This week it was an actor/comedian called Greg Davies. Aged 32 he was working as a teacher when his girlfriend gave him a session in a floatation tank as a birthday present. After the session he started crying and didn't stop for three days. Shortly afterwards he met a woman at a party who was starting a floatation tank centre, who told him that sessions often release buried emotions. He realised that he was following the wrong life-path, and immediately enrolled on a stand up comedy course, and decided to leave teaching. From that point, he never looked back. An interesting example of the power of floatation tanks! 

Lecture in Germany

It was wonderful to visit Germany. From 1991 to 1995, I lived in eastern Germany. At that time, I was in a band, and we did a tour of Germany. I met a girl on the tour, and eventually decided to leave the band to be with her. It was just after the communist era, so it was a very interesting period, where everything was completely different to western Europe. The young people were very mature, artistic and intelligent, as they had grown up in opposition to the government, in an atmosphere of vigilance and scepticism. One of the great things was that it was very cheap to live, so I didn’t need to earn much money, and could spend most of my time reading, playing music and writing. I earned my living by busking (playing street music), playing shows with my band, plus giving a few English lessons per week.

So it was great to return to Germany, a little like returning home. I also really enjoyed visiting the Institute I mentioned, who are doing amazing work. (Their website is here)
 
I gave a lecture on the "Psychology of Enlightenment.’ I was asked to  summarise my research as a psychologist into spiritual awakening, over the last 15 years or so. I also talked about my attempts to define wakefulness, and to highlight its characteristics. Thanks for the Institute for Frontier Areas in Psychology and Mental Health for hosting me. (I start off with a few sentences of my rusty German.) A video of the lecture is here

Presentation on ‘DisConnected’
 

A few days ago I was invited to speak online about my recent book DisConnected, by a group of counselling psychology students at the Alef Trust. You can watch the video here

Upcoming Workshop based on The Adventure
 

On 29th June, I’m holding on online workshop based on The Adventure, a two hour practical session organized through the American Theosophical Society. If you’re interested, see here

European Transpersonal Conference 

I'm really looking forward to this year's European Transpersonal Association conference, which is in Oxford at the beginning of September. (In case you don’t know, Transpersonal Psychology more or less means Spiritual Psychology.) I'll be speaking there, along with many other transpersonalists and spiritual explorers.

Find out more here

Two Poems

As usual, let me finish this newsletter with poetry. My next project will be a book of poetry, so I’ve been collecting and collating some of my best poems (in my view anyway) over the last five years. Here are two poems that I’m hoping to include in the new book. I’ve chosen the second (The Formless Source) because it’s a good description of my session in the floatation tank! Let me know what you think of them. 

Your Body is Always Here

The thought-mind never comes to rest

like a wild swirling river 

whose currents keep changing direction 

from the future to the past and back again. 

But beneath your restless thought-mind

lies your body, firm and fixed,

like the hard floor of a riverbed.

While the mind flits from daydream to daydream, 

the body is always here.

When the mind is clouded with abstractions 

the body is always real. 

So when streams of thought flow wildly

anchor yourself in your body.

Give your attention to your limbs and muscles 

rather than to your thoughts. 

Locate yourself in your body 

instead of the future or past. 

Listen to your heartbeat and your breath 

instead of your anxieties. 

Feel the weight of your body beneath you

and the space it occupies in the world. 

And soon your turbulent mind will lose momentum

slow down and come to rest 

like a pool of water settling after a storm. 

Then your mind and body will rest together, 

grounded firmly in the world.

The Formless Source

When your mind is so full of the present

that time seems suspended 

as if you're free of the future and the past 

When your breathing is so slow

that your body seems suspended 

as if you're hovering between life and death

When your thoughts are so quiet 

that your mind seems suspended

as if you're neither awake nor asleep 

When your inner being is so deep 

that the material world seems suspended

as if hovering between illusion and reality 

Then you’ve found the formless source

where dualities return to oneness.

all best wishes and blessings, Steve