UPCOMING CONFERENCES and PROGRAMSUPCOMING EVENTS

AN ESOTERIC QUEST FOR THE MYSTERIES OF THE NORTH

IN ICELAND

SEPTEMBER 20 TO 28 2024

Join us this autumn equinox as we return to the mystical beauty and silence of the North. Iceland is a spiritually deep destination whose soul is embedded in a vast landscape of serenity and grandeur. Its endless spectrum of natural wonders, in the form of glaciers, mountains, waterfalls, volcanoes, thermal pools and oceanside villages, truly make it the “Land of Fire and Ice.”

The third in our series on the Mysteries of the North, this Quest will take place in an entirely different part of the country from our first Iceland Quest on the Snaefellsnes peninsula and in the Westfjords. We will start with three days in Skalholt, the historic capital of Iceland for 700 years, with its gentle rivers and holy mountain. We then travel to the beautiful Westman Islands off the south coast, often described as Iceland’s best kept secret, where Celtic monks may have practiced their devotions before the arrival of the Norse. We conclude with an optional two days in and around the culturally rich capital city of Reykjavik.

Norse mythology, with its fascinating sagas and eddas, is filled with esoteric depth. There was much more to the Vikings than the familiar stereotype of plunder and mayhem. They were adventurers, artists and shamans who deeply valued the Völvas, seeresses capable of peering into the future. The Icelandic sagas have had an enormous influence on Western literature and were a major source of inspiration for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

This Quest will continue to bring together leading scholars, artists, writers and seekers, yet will be more experiential and less of a full-scale conference than has been our norm. With guided meditative journeys into Norse mythology, evenings of music, and visits to sacred mountains and thermal baths, there will be more time for contemplation and attunement to nature. We’ll have fewer formal presentations, yet those will be offered with our usual depth, insight and outstanding faculty. We also are designing this Quest to include a budget level of accommodations to invite a wider group of participants into our Fellowship of the Quest.

Complete information on this Quest - itineraries, activities, presentations, faculty, accommodations, pricing and registration - will be coming soon. To stay connected to updates and announcements, be sure to sign up below for our newsletter. See our Past Conferences to explore previous Quests. And feel free to write to us at registration@esotericquest.info with any questions.

The annual Holistic Centers’ Gathering will be taking place at Kripulu Retreat Center (or online) during the first week of May this year. I have been attending these Gatherings since their inception in 1985 and know that this is a wonderful way to put your finger on the pulse of the holistic ‘movement’, if it can be called that. It’s really a consciousness, cultural and spiritual impulse with adherents all over the world as it represents a healthy, sustainable future for our planet.

I’ll post more details as I know them but if you go to Holistic Centers Network you’ll find the latest information. Those running centers, from anywhere in the world, or those creating or hoping to create new centers are welcome.

ALSO

Please keep an eye open for the next Esoteric Quest Conference that will be held in Tomar, Portugal with post conference journeys along the Camino of Santiago de Compostela and in to the Templar heartlands.

We are looking at mid September but dates can’t yet be confirmed due to Covid. But we are hopeful that this event, the latest in a quarter century long series on the Western Esoteric Tradition, will take place this year.

A VIRTUAL ESOTERIC QUEST

OCTOBER 23RD TO 29TH

Dear Friends,

I am now updating the prior posting about the latest Esoteric Quest.

Due to the pandemic, there will instead be a Virtual Quest and here is the link:

https://virtualeq.heysummit.com/

I hope you will check in out. October 23 to 27, 2020

I’ve produced these Esoteric Quests, explorations of the Western Mystery Tradition, for 25 years now and they have all been deep and moving. We really do need to bring alive the beauty and wisdom of the Western Tradition to complement the many wonderful Eastern and shamanic paths that so many seekers today are drawn to.

The fact is that the Renaissance alchemists, the Cathars, the Andalusian Sufis, the philosophers at the Library of Alexandria, the initiates of the mysteries of Samothrace in the Greek Isles, and even the Vikings of Iceland had profound spiritual insight into the world around them. An insight that we have largely lost.

So this series of Quests is intended to bring alive again the lost spiritual history of the West. I hope you will join us for this year’s transnational online Quest in which we will continue our exploration of the beauty and relevance of the Western Mystery Tradition,

https://virtualeq.heysummit.com

AN ESOTERIC QUEST IN PORTUGAL AND GALICIA, SPAIN

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR AND THE CAMINO OF SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

SEPTEMBER 2020 TOMAR, PORTUGAL

The Esoteric Quest team is currently planning our 25th Anniversary event in Portugal and North West Spain.

The main conference will take place in the Templar stronghold of Tomar. It is not widely known that after the Templars were suppressed elsewhere in Europe, they continued under a new guise - the Order of Christ - in the newly independent country of Portugal. The troubadour king, Denys, who ruled for almost half a century, ensured their protection and the continuation of their work. Tomar is not only a lovely and atmospheric old town, but it is also on the Camino of Santiago de Compostela, on the route going North through Portugal. The pilgrims would stop to pray at the beautiful Romanesque convent within the castle walls.

But of course esoteric Portugal comes all the way up to modern times. The country’s most celebrated modern poet is Fernando Pessoa who was deeply versed in esoteric matters and considered himself a true Templar. And when it comes to soul, what can rival ‘saudade,’ that deep yearning in the heart, the longing of the lonely sailor far out at sea as he remembers his sweetheart and home and turns his sadness into melody? Of course, this is the music of Fado, sung by courtesans, sailors and bohemians in the port areas of Lisbon for the last two hundred years, and one of the essential Portuguese experiences.

Portugal is also rich in Visigothic, Sufi and Jewish history, and has its own myth of return in the form of Sebastianismo, the feeling that one day the king who disappeared centuries ago in the deserts of Morocco will return and usher in a golden age.

Portugal had the unique destiny of being the first European country (apart from the Vikings) to explore the oceans, journey down the coast of Africa, pass the Cape of Good Hope, and open up the sea routes to India and Indonesia. These voyages were overseen by Prince Henry the Navigator, grandmaster of the Knights of Christ, the successors to the Templars. And they were not merely voyages for trade. They were also spiritual quests in search of Prester John, the legendary priest king said to rule an ideal kingdom in the heart of Africa or Asia.

After our conference in Tomar we will head North along the famous Camino toward Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain and finally on to Fisterra (Finisterre), the end of the earth, the true terminus of the great pilgrimage. And we will enjoy two nights in Lisbon and Sintra before the conference begins.

So please mark September as a time for a spiritual adventure. Each time we go to a new country, we drink deeply of its esoteric and spiritual depths and we can already tell that Portugal and Galicia will quench our thirst for sacred knowledge.

AN ESOTERIC QUEST IN BULGARIA: CROSSROADS OF THE MYSTERIES

AUGUST 22 TO 27, 2019

The 15th Esoteric Quest will take place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, the oldest living city in Europe and a European Capital of Culture this year.

These Quests have been an important part of my life’s work, and I am delighted to be exploring a part of Europe I had never visited before last year with multiple streams of esoteric wisdom and fascinating cultural history. There is true delight in piecing together the mosaic of the Western Tradition and seeing how the parts fit together. Each Quest takes us further as the mosaic emerges in its beauty.

To learn more, please go to

www.esotericquest.org

I am also pleased to announce that the Quest Digital Library, containing audio and video recordings of many of our Quests, is moving forward steadily and should be accessible to viewers by the middle of August. Many thanks to our donors and to the indefatigable Roger Green who has filmed so many of the Quests, and plans to film Bulgaria!

Conferences and Programs

An Esoteric Quest

An Esoteric Quest for the Lost World of the Incas, and the Living Spirituality of Indigenous Peru and Bolivia in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, Machu Picchu and Cusco

August 20 or 22 - 28, 2018

Learn More

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD BROCHURE

PAST CONFERENCES and PROGRAMS

2017

2017: An Esoteric Quest in the Western Isles of Scotland: Megalithic, Celtic and Norse Cultures in the Outer Hebrides

Click HERE to visit website

The thirteenth in a series of conferences on Western spiritual traditions continued our theme from our 2016 Quest in Iceland of exploring the mysteries of the North. We investigated the geometry and alignments of the evocative standing stones, pondered the meeting of Gaelic and Norse cultures, experienced the mystical beauty of these islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, and learned about Scotland’s more recent esoteric traditions. Our home base was Lews Castle overlooking Stornoway harbor, a beautifully restored 19th-century estate.

2016

2016: An Esoteric Quest for the Mysteries of the North in Iceland

Click HERE to visit the website

The twelfth in the Open Center’s series of conferences on the Esoteric Quest took place on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula in the West of Iceland, a place long held sacred in Norse Mythology. Its sparkling ocean and long ridge of protective mountains terminate in the Great Snow Mountain Glacier itself, Snæfellsjökull, long seen as a holy place. While Norse mythology itself is filled with fascination and spiritual depth, there also was much more to the Vikings than the familiar stereotype of plunder and mayhem. They were not only warriors and raiders, but also adventurers, artists and shamans who deeply valued the Völvas, seeresses capable of peering into the future. Conference goers were invited to join leading scholars, writers, artists and adventurers to enter the great Mysteries of the North in one of the most magical realms on earth.

2015

2015: An Esoteric Quest in the South of France

Click HERE to visit the website

This Esoteric Quest was held in the Languedoc region of France. Long known as a focal point for numerous spiritual streams, this area was at the heart of the high medieval culture of both the Troubadours and the Gnostic Christian Cathars. The Bons Hommes, as the Cathars called themselves, created one of the most remarkable and enigmatic spiritual movements of the Middle Ages, the destruction of which was one of the great tragedies of European religious life. The Troubadours were the first to bring romantic love to the Western world in poetry and song of great elegance and charm that expressed a new merging of the erotic and the mystical.

2013: An Esoteric Quest for Ancient Arabic and Medieval Sicily

Click HERE to visit website

This Quest took us to medieval Sicily, a brilliant center of Arabic culture with its poets, geographers and mosques. In the 12th century, the incoming Norman impulse created the most tolerant, multicultural and radiant land of its time, a place where Catholics, Byzantines, Jews, and Muslims all co-existed and flourished. It was an island where esoteric knowledge flowed through philosophers, Sufis, Neo-Platonic troubadours, Kabbalists and alchemists, and seekers of The Grail.

The Western Esoteric Tradition in the 21st Century

News!

I recently co-presented at a symposium on this theme at the Sivananda Retreat on Paradise Island in the Bahamas from April 25th to 28th.
I’m fortunate to be joined by some of my favorite speakers on this theme – Joscelyn Godwin, Marjorie Roth and Leonard George.

Here’s what the website says about it:

A golden thread of spiritual wisdom can be traced through much of the Western world. Follow the courses of multiple Western esoteric streams to explore their spiritual influence on the present age.

Learn about ancient Alexandria, the Sufis of Islamic Andalusia, the hermetic and neoplatonic resurgence of 15th Century Florence, the alchemical world of Renaissance Bohemia, and more.

The teachings of this symposium draw from the 22-year history of Esoteric Quests created by New York City’s celebrated Open Center. Join this gathering of eminent scholars, historians, and musicians who will bring these oracles, myths, art, and songs to life.

This retreat and yoga center is a jewel on turquoise seas with the steady, soothing rhythm of the waves calming those jangled city nerves. I have deeply enjoyed my prior visits there including the most recent one in which I spoke on my memoir, The Jeweled Highway, at a symposium on spiritual narrative- My Story, Their Story, Your Story organized by the redoubtable scholar of Indian and Jewish spirituality, Nathan Katz. We were joined by Jan Willis, gutsy, eloquent and engaging facer down of the KKK in the JIm Crow South, and Roger Kamenetz, poet, dream journeyer, and author from New Orleans. It was a truly lovely experience. Here is the link: https://www.sivanandabahamas.org/course/western-esoteric-tradition-21st-century-april-2018/

An Esoteric Quest for Ancient Alexandria

Greco-Egyptian Birthplace of the Western Mind
June 12th to 17th, Alexandria, Egypt

Alexandria was for seven hundred years the greatest center of learning and culture in the ancient world, a brilliant crucible in which the civilizations of ancient Greece and Egypt intermingled and absorbed streams of wisdom from throughout the known world. Its legendary Library and Museum made it possible for many of history’s greatest philosophers, scholars, and scientists to flourish, and for the city to become the cradle of Hermeticism, Gnosticism and Neoplatonism. Alexandria was a city filled with compelling personalities, from its founder Alexander the Great, to Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs. Its long list of influential thinkers includes the great Jewish philosopher Philo, the Gnostic Christian Clement, the Neoplatonists Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus, and finally the noble and tragic Hypatia, last of the pagan lovers of wisdom. Please join us for the first international conference held in Alexandria to bring vividly to life the most influential center of culture and esoteric wisdom in antiquity, the authentic birthplace of the Western mind.

The conference also includes expeditions to sacred sites in and around Alexandria, and evenings featuring cultural presentations of music and poetry.

To read more go to: www.esotericquest.org

This is the latest in a series of conferences on the ‘lost spiritual history of the west’ that I have organized over the last fifteen years. You can find brochures for each of these on the Esoteric Quest website.

2009: An Esoteric Quest for Inner America

The Open Center’s eighth Esoteric Quest addressed the life-enhancing spiritual impulses that emerged powerfully in America. We brought alive the worldviews of Native Americans, seventeenth century Alchemists, Freemasons and Founding Fathers, Transcendentalists, early Feminists, and Spiritualists. We also honored numerous twentieth century American writers and artists influenced by esotericism, and celebrated the contemporary, multicultural, spiritual explosion. Writers, scholars and performers joined in the beautiful Catskill Mountains at a special moment of rebirth of the American spirit.
Click HERE to see website

2008: An Esoteric Quest for the Mysteries and Philosophy of Antiquity: Spiritual Experience, Wisdom and Art in Ancient Greece

This Quest took place on the magical island of Samothrace, Greece, far off the beaten track in the northern Aegean Sea. For a thousand years, the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace was one of the most famous mystery centers of the ancient world, rivaling Delphi in stature and fame. International scholars, writers and artists gathered for the seventh in the Open Center’s series of conferences on the Western Esoteric Tradition. The conference was followed by three optional journeys. One explored the Sufi world of Istanbul, the other journey traveled to Delphi, Eleusis, and other evocative mystery centers of mainland Greece. Lastly we traveled to Ephesus, Didyma, and Miletus, exploring oracles and sacred sites from early Christianity.
Click HERE to see website

2007: An Esoteric Quest for the Golden Age of Andalusia: Sufis, Kabbalists and Christian Philosophers in Medieval Spain

This conference took place in Granada, the evocative and beautiful city lying below the snowy Sierra Nevada that, alone on the Iberian Peninsula, remained under Muslim control until the fateful year of 1492. Outstanding faculty from Spain, France, Britain and the United States addressed such topics as: the Zohar, the Sufis of Andalusia, Arabic alchemy, Ibn ‘Arabi and Rumi, the knowledge system of Ramon Lull, the troubadours, and the place of Spain and Islam in the Grail stories. Evenings were filled with poetry, flamenco, and music that emerged from the blending of ‘Las Tres Culturas‘.
Click HERE to see website

2006: An Esoteric Quest in Central Europe, From Renaissance Bohemia to Goethe’s Weimar

This eight-day itinerant conference began in the Czech Republic in Kutna Hora and then proceeded to Marianske Lazne (Marienbad) in western Bohemia. It concluded in Weimar, Germany, and followed the Western Esoteric Tradition from fifteenth century Bohemia to its reemergence in Goethe’s artistic and scientific work.

Another major interest of mine is developing a more holistic approach to death and dying in our culture.

A major interest of mine is in the emergence of holistic approaches to Death and Dying. The Open Center has produced six conferences on the Art of Dying: Spiritual, Scientific and Practical Approaches to Living and Dying since 1995 and now has an Art of Dying Institute that offers a six month certificate program in Integrative Thanatology and many other events on this theme. The Art of Dying 7 will take place in the spring of 2020.

These have been some of the most life-enhancing events I have ever had the privilege to organize. They coincide with America’s gradual emergence from a fundamental stance of denial and fear around dying to a view that is more open, enlightened, and aware of the merit derived from being aware of death and the transience of life on a moment by moment basis rather than ignoring these facts until a crisis arrives.

Please see www.artofdying.org for further details.

2000: The Italian Renaissance and the Esoteric Traditions: Hermetic, Cabalistic and Neo-Platonic Philosophers & Their Influence Today

This five-day conference took place in Florence, Italy, and looked at the world of Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and the many other remarkable figures and esoteric impulses that characterized fifteenth century Florence.

1998: The Grail: Arthurian Mysteries and the Grail Quest

This conference brought alive the Celtic background of the Grail stories and explored the roots and meaning of the Arthurian legends. It was held in Lampeter, Wales.

1997: Prague, Alchemy and the Hermetic Tradition

Held at the Zofin Palace on an island in the center of Prague, this conference coincided with the Festival of Rudolf II, King of Bohemia and Hungary, and Holy Roman Emperor in 1600, and investigated many aspects of the alchemical world of renaissance Bohemia.

1995: The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited: The Western Mystery Tradition in Bohemia. A Conference in Honor of Frances Yates

The first of the Open Center’s conferences on the Western Esoteric Tradition, this event brought together scholars, researchers and writers in the Southern Bohemian mecca of alchemists, Cesky Krumlov. It was named after Frances Yates’ pioneering work, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment.

The Holistic Centers’ Network and the International Holistic Centers’ Gathering

There are few better ways to keep your finger on the pulse of the holistic ‘movement’ than by attending this unique Gathering of centers from all over North America and increasingly from all over the world. In addition to the Open Center, the following centers are regular participants at this five day event every spring in which we share our insights, lessons, struggles, successes in a spirit of openness, candor and mutual support.

I have developed a worldwide network of friends and colleagues from my participation in these warm, open and informative events on both US Coasts and in both Eastern and Western Europe.

There’s not much doubt that holistic ideas and practices are emerging all over the planet, and these centers are some of the focal points of this impulse.

The next Gathering will be held at Hollyhock on Cortes Island in British Columbia, a hundred miles north of Vancouver from May 12 to 17 2019. Please go the www.centersgathering.org or www.hollyhock.ca for further information.

Here is an article that covers my role in the Gathering over the last 25 years.

AN ESOTERIC QUEST IN BULGARIA: CROSSROADS OF THE MYSTERIES

AUGUST 22 TO 27, 2019

The 15th Esoteric Quest will take place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, the oldest living city in Europe and a European Capital of Culture this year.

These Quests have been an important part of my life’s work, and I am delighted to be exploring a part of Europe and multiple streams of esoteric wisdom in a country I had never visited before last year.

To learn more, please go to