TANTRIC PSYCHOPHYSICS

The author is an electrical engineer who began the study of Psychonautics with John Lilly and contemplation with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche as far back as 1970, so this remarkable book represents the fruit of 50 years of spiritual and scientific search. Her immediately preceding book is The Electromagnetic Brain, reviewed by John Kapp in these pages. Joye also has a master's degree in Sanskrit and Indian philosophy, along with a doctorate in philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness from CIIS. The thesis of this comprehensive book is that there are a number of ancient traditions that understand the true nature of consciousness and that outline many techniques for its transformation and access to higher states and stages of awareness. The five parts introduce Tantric psychophysics, then three key western figures, Hindu Tantric psychophysics (including Patanjali and Sri Aurobindo), Tibetan Tantric psychophysics, and finally practical advice for modern psychonauts based on the author's own experience.

Our potential for transformation is grounded in neuroplasticity, seen by John Lilly in terms of reprogramming the human biocomputer from its default settings. As readers are only too aware, the western approach to consciousness is firmly grounded in the electrical activity of the brain and the assumed primacy of matter, even if there is currently a trend towards Panpsychism. Shamanic and many Eastern traditions postulate the primacy of consciousness in its pure state, and that this non-dual Absolute can be experientially accessed through a variety of contemplative technologies. Here, metaphors of frequency, vibration, holograms and fractals are more helpful; the author also introduces the work of David Bohm with his non-local implicate order and local explicate order, and Ervin Laszlo's akasha and Holofield theory.

In 1992, the author became a Benedictine oblate of the Camaldolese, and also spent time in India with Bede Griffiths, who wrote that the spirit of man is a capacity for God. Griffiths spoke extensively about Nonduality at our Mystics and Scientists conference in 1992, at a time when few were using such sapiential language. There are fascinating chapters on the work of Teilhard de Chardin, Rudolf Steiner (supersensible perception) and G.I. Gurdjieff (remembering the I). For me, the most interesting was Teilhard, where I learned that he had coined the term 'hyperphysics' in 1934 to denote the scientific study of consciousness, encompassing both matter and spirit in an integral evolutionary model. Importantly, hyperphysics is not a metaphysics, but a scientific approach. Teilhard writes about what he calls the process of 'centration,' leading to increasing states of complexity-consciousness. He distinguished between tangential component of energy operating in space time, and a radial or axial component characterised by conscious experience that followed a radial axis inwards to the centre. He was already pointing out that 'all we need to do is to take the inside of things into account at the same time as the outside.' (p. 61) This enables us to awaken within the Divine Milieu, entailing a transformation in the very perception of being – and God is only revealed from within.

The section on Hindu Tantric psychophysics contains detailed analyses of Patanjali's yoga sutras with its corresponding contemplative techniques, illustrated with many useful charts and diagrams. In comparing this with modern physics, the author cites the work of Frank Heile, who proposes that there are two streams of consciousness in the brain, which he calls primary and symbolic consciousness. She equates these with purusa and citta-vrtti respectively (chart on p. 134), which correspond broadly with McGilchrist's right and left hemisphere modes of attention. She postulates that the electromagnetic field of consciousness itself may be the evolutionary driver, and that the brain and neurons arise from the electromagnetic field (p. 135), comparing Heile's model with Fourier and Patanjali. Purusa as Primary Consciousness is timeless and spaceless, and therefore omnipresent. Within this context, yoga is reunion with the Self, and it is interesting to read about an experience of Sri Aurobindo, where a student had the sensation of stepping into his force field of love extending to a radius of about 4 feet.

Sri Aurobindo is the subject of the following chapter on the supermind. It is very interesting to read about his early life and political activity, which landed him in prison, thus giving him the ideal opportunity to begin serious meditation in the isolation of his cell. He switched the focus of his work from politics to cultural unity, while developing a Vedantic map of consciousness (pp. 155 ff.). This is summed up in a series of central insights: Being is real, the true Self; purusa is also determined to be real – the One Consciousness in many Consciousnesses; finally, purusa in the individual human being is not separate from the Transcendent Self, sharing the same essence. In the cosmic play, the illusory sense of separate individuality plays an essential role, even if it is designed to be transcended through spiritual realisation. The pitfall is that our external focus may filter out the finer bandwidths unless we undertake the inner journey. Correspondingly, avidya is required along with vidya – not seeing and seeing.

There is a thorough exposition of Tibetan Tantric psychophysics with a special focus on the Tibetan Vajrayana teachings of Dudjom Lingpa. The final part maps the psyche for direct exploration and draws on the author's own personal experience of meditation and contemplation. She observes that we are much more than the person we think we are: 'In fact, we are the universe looking out from within a central consciousness and obtaining a particular, unique perspective of itself and its vast creation in time and space.' (p. 267) We are living in an era that has lost its connection with source and essence, and is isolated in a brain-mind thinking, but we nevertheless feel a void or existential angst that something fundamental is missing. One theoretical bridge is provided by quantum brain mechanics originating in the work of Gustav Fechner. We all have the capacity to open ourselves to this wider consciousness energy field, and this highly-informative book provides the reader with many signposts along the way, but this does require a commitment to some form of regular spiritual practice.