Ralph's Blog: Upcoming Events
A VIRTUAL ESOTERIC QUEST
OCTOBER 23RD TO 27TH
https://virtualeq.heysummit.com/.
AVAILABLE TO ANYONE, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION
As my readers know, I have been creating these Esoteric Quests now for 25 years. Their
purpose is the rediscovery of the lost spiritual history of the West from the ancient
mysteries, through the Library of Alexandria, the Golden Age of Andalusia, the
tolerance of 12th Century Sicily, the Florentine Renaissance, the spirituality of th e
Viking Age in Iceland, and much more.
If you go to www.esotericquest.org and click on Past Conferences, you can see a whole
sequence of events dating back to the alchemists of Bohemia in 1995.
This year, with the corona virus, we have had to think differently, Consequently, we have
created a Virtual Esoteric Quest that is accessible to all.
https://virtualeq.heysummit.com/
Many of our finest presenters will be part of it.
That includes Christopher McIntosh, Yuri Stoyanov, Leonard George, Marjorie Roth,
Ellen Goldberg, Valgerdur Bjarnadottir, and many others on the esoteric streams in
from Antiquity to the Renaissance, from the Viking Age to the 16th Century alchemists,
from the Library of Alexandria to the the Sufis of Andalusia.
I hope you’ll join us for the online event. It. believe it’s true to say that few who have
participated in an Esoteric Quest have regretted their decision. These Quests have been
some of the most significant experiences in my life. This is way beyond simple learning.
This is transformative, moving, inspiring work!
ESALEN INSTITUTE, BIG SUR, CALIFORNIA
MAY 8 TO 10, 2020
A PEEK BEHIND THE SCENES
This event was postponed due to the pandemic.
I will be co-teaching a workshop at Esalen in May on the emergence, development and significance of holistic centers. We’ve come a long way since MIchael Murphy met Aldous Huxley at Rancho La Puerta in Mexico in 1959 and encouraged him to start an institute on the Big Sur coast on remote hot spring land owned by his family. I, and others long involved in creating and running holistic centers, will share what we know of this work. New centers are appearing constantly and our goal is to pass on what we’ve learned, and enhance the awareness that we are all part of a greater whole, of a holistic and ecological consciousness urgently necessary for a sustainable and habitable planet.
AN ESOTERIC QUEST IN PORTUGAL AND NORTH WEST SPAIN
The Knights Templar and the Camino of Santiago de Compostela
This was also postponed due to the pandemic. See above for the virtual alternative.
I just returned from a planning mission to Portugal and Spain to set up our September, 2020 Esoteric Quest.
The website, www.esotericquest.org, has a lot of information about prior Quests. They began in 1995 in Cesky Krumlov, the Southern Bohemian mecca of alchemists, and continued most recently in Bulgaria, Crossroads of the Mysteries.
For our 25th anniversary we will hold our conference in Tomar, Portugal, stronghold of the Knights Templar. There will be an optional pre-conference experience in Lisbon and Sintra prior to the conference.
Two post conference journeys offer participants the option of following the Camino of Santiago de Compostela (not mostly on foot) from BIlbao in Basque Country to Santiago itself and Fisterra in Galicia, the end of the earth and the true conclusion of the pilgrimage
The Western Esoteric Tradition at Sivananda Yoga Ranch
I will also be teaching about the Western Esoteric Tradition at the the Sivananda Yoga Ranch in Upstate New York. It’s a pleasure to bring a complementary and often barely known approach to spirituality to this yoga enclave. We will cover a whole spectrum of cultural epochs from Ancient Alexandria, past Viking Iceland and the mysteries of the North, through Renaissance Florence and the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, and much more.
I will also be discussing the remarkable Austrian teacher, philosopher and reformer, Rudolf Steiner, during this weekend. He left, arguably, the greatest holistic legacy of the Twentieth Century but the essence of his work remains unexplored by most Americans on the spiritual path.
Recent 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.