Communing With the Gods, 13


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13

Dream Yoga-s

393-426


p. 394 attaining one's life-calling

"rather specific dream experiences may be incubated using ... psychoactive drugs (or "entheogens;" see Wasson, Kramrisch, Ott and Ruck 1986) ..., and the ... guidance from ... guru[-]s. ... attaining ... even one's life-calling may depend utterly upon the dreams one has ... ."

Wasson, Kramrisch, Ott, & Ruck 1986 = R. Gordon Wasson; Stella Kramrisch; Jonathan Ott; & Carl A. P. Ruck : Persephone's Quest : Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven (CT) : Yale Univ Pr.


p. 394 Samskr.ta \svapna\ (Bodish \rmi-lam\ 'dream')-yoga

"among the planet's peoples ... there are a number that carry out the ... control and exploration of dreaming to the extreme of what we might call dream yoga, or

what Mary Watkins (1976:20) in her book ... called "disciplined dreaming."

I am aware that the term "yoga" is from the Sanskrit ... . {Though there may be terms in various other languages for such co-labor in co-operation with one's guardian-angel, this personal practice is most highly developed in its Bharatiya guises, so that employment of a Gaud.iya term is proprely in order.}

{The term \yoga\ 'a yoking' (verbal form of \yuga\ 'a yoke') is referential to a covenant undertaken with one's is.t.a-devata (one's 'own [personal] divinity', i.e., one's 'spirit-guide' [viz., one own 'guardian-angel'], \fravas^i\ in Zend), such that, therewithal, one covenanteth to work diligently as co-laborer alongside that divinity. Whereas in waking-state yoga-s, bandha-s ('bonds') and yama-s ('restraints') may be required, dream-state variants may be more subtle.}

Watkins 1976 = Mary M. Watkins : Waking Dreams. NY : Harper.


p. 395 purpose of svapna-yoga

"disciplined dream yogas ... may be found all over the world where they are ... used to evoke dreams and dream-related development which is taken to instantiate a people's cosmology and guide individuals into the depths of that people's mystery tradition. The whole point of dream yoga is to

learn how to accomplish, maintain and maximize lucidity in dreams ... ."

{INCORRECT! Merely to recognize that one's is dreaming can only put one into a particularly praecarious situation, exceedingly perilous if one at this point be negligent of one's immediate duty of assiduous co-operation with one's is.t.a-devata (the entity who, in C. G. Jung's dreaming-experience [as recorded in his Red Book], regularly self-identified as his \Seele\ 'soul', and commanded him to institute, in the waking-world, a "new religion" -- viz., in defiance of Protestantism).}


p. 395 S.uwfiy hypn-agogic vision

"Kelly Bulkeley offers several examples, including those of the nin{e}th century S[.]ufi mystic, al-Tirmidhi, who described the following hypnagogic dream or vision (Bulkeley 2008:208) :

[quoted] ... one night, ... overtaken by deep weariness, ... as I put my head on the prayer rug, I saw

a huge and empty space ... .

{"The state of "Quiet," ... as a nothingness, ... an emptiness" (U:M, "Introversion", pt. 1 : "Recollection and Quiet", p. 318).}

I saw a huge assembly with an embellished seat and a pitched canopy ... . I entered through the veils and ... as I entered through the veils, awe descended upon my heart. ... And after a while I found myself outside the veil. ... [end of quote]

It was the intense concentration of the trained meditator that produced such a dream (see also Sviri 1999)."

Bulkeley 2008 = Kelly Bulkeley : Dreaming in the World's Religions. NY Univ Pr.

U:M = Evelyn Underhill : Mysticism. 12th edn. 1930.

Sviri 1999 = Sara Sviri : "Dreaming Analyzed and Recorded : Dreams in the World of Medieval Islam". In :- David Shulman & Guy G. Strousma (edd.) : Dream Cultures : Explorations in the Comparative History of Dreaming. Oxford Univ Pr. pp. 252-73.


p. 396 shamanic programmes of disciplined dreaming

"Many such shamanic traditions do involve a program of learning

to control dreaming (see Sumegi 2008:28-30).

{viz., to control (discipline) one's own behaviour while dreaming : the divine dream-world itself cannot be controlled by a mere mortal}

One methodological problem we have in anthropology is that the details of these programs are frequently missing in the literature. The common ethnographic situation involves the fieldworker{'s} asking questions about shamanism and shamanic practices without being phenomenologically involved as an apprentice or student. Few ethnographers ever master the skills involved in shamanic dreaming, and thus have little appreciation for how difficult it is to carry ordinary dreaming to the shamanic level of proficiency. Accounts therefore are frequently perfunctory".

Sumegi 2008 = Angela Sumegi : Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism. Albany : State Univ of NY Pr.


p. 396 similarity betwixt AmerIndian shamanic dreaming and Bharatiya svapna-yoga

"Barbara Tedlock (1999:96) -- who ... is herself a proficient lucid dreamer -- has noted the similarity between Eastern {East-Asiatic} practices and those of many Native American cultures, the latter being, "... a form ["of dreaming"] as self-conscious as Tibetan Buddhist dream yoga and the Hindu practice of 'dream witnessing' found in Transcendental Meditation. Within both these Asian traditions initiates are taught techniques to enhance lucid dreaming as a form of meditation which is naturally available during sleep. Throughout the Americas shamans talk of experiencing conscious or lucid dreams in which they become aware of dreaming and then, while remaining in the dream state, direct the action of their souls, shadows, selves, or doubles.""

Tedlock 1999 = Barbara Tedlock : "Sharing and Interpreting Dreams in Amerindian Nations". In :- David Shulman & Guy G. Strousma (edd.) : Dream Cultures : Explorations in the Comparative History of Dreaming. Oxford Univ Pr. pp. 87-103.


pp. 397-8 Parintintin & Melanesian dreaming of myth-events

p. 397

"Mageo (2003b ...) remarks ... that, "... Parintintin shamans use their culture's dream thesauruses {thesauroi} within the dream itself. By intentionally dreaming of a symbol, the shaman seeks to create an event in the world that this symbol would ordinarily predict."

The Parintintin shaman has to first learn the skill by which such specificity of dream intentionality can occur (Kracke 1992).

p. 398

Their mythology is replete with imagery, much of it derived initially from dreams, that can be selected and that "comes alive" anew in the dreams of individuals ... .


So integrated are dream content and the origin and elaboration of mythology among some peoples, {that} they may be said to practice "myth-dreams" -- a term coined by Burridge (1960:26-30) to cover the blending of mythopoeic symbols with dreaming among Melanesian peoples ... (see also Stephen 1997)."


"This kind of dreaming requires that the intention pass through the wake-sleep boundary -- a process we have called ... cross-phase transference (or cross-state transference) ... . ... But the difference {scil., in accomplishments} is to what extent can the dreamer choose to dream about a specific object ... while awake, recall the intention in a lucid dream state, and proceed to carry out the intention while dreaming."

Mageo 2003b = Jeannette Marie Mageo : "Theorizing Dreaming and the Self". In :- Jeannette Marie Mageo (editrix) : Dreaming and the Self : New Perspectives ... . Albany : State Univ of NY Pr. pp. 3-22.

Kracke 1992 = Waud H. Kracke : "Myths in Dreams ... : an Amazonian Contribution to ... Primary Process". In :- Barbara Tedlock : Dreaming : Anthropological ... Interpretations. Cambridge Univ Pr. pp. 31-54.

Burridge 1960 = Kenelm Burridge : Mambu : a Melanesian Millennium. Princeton Univ Pr.

Stephen 1997 = Michele Stephen : "Cargo Cults ...". ETHOS 25.3:333-358.


pp. 399-400 synaisthesia during ordinary dreaming?

p. 399

"Imagery occurring ... in dreams may be due to synesthesia -- that is, sensations arising in one sensory mode automatically give rise to sensations in another sensory mode, as when someone sees color or sees sound. The

{It is dubious whether there hath ever been any recorded instance of any person's ever experiencing synaisthesia during the course of any dreaming. Even among such persons as experience synaisthesia on an ongoing, daily basis while awake, synaisthesia would appear to be completely absent from their dreams.}

p. 400

great composer, Olivier Messiaen, reportedly saw colors when he hear music ... ."

{Apparently, neither the author nor Messiaen, however, ever experienced synaisthesia during dreaming -- which would tend to discredit the author (Ch.D.L.)'s wildly speculative hypothesis alleging that synaisthesia is somehow a regular or frequent concommitant of ordinary dreaming. I myself have often (over a course of years) experienced synaisthesia while in a hypn-agogic state (overhearing, during a formal group-meditation session, a noise -- emanating from the waking-world -- suddenly jarring me into a waking-state, while momentarily producing a visionary blotch of white light) ... but never during actual dreaming.}


p. 400 odor (or flavor?)-to-vision-of-clouds-of-sunrise/sunset conversion as variety of synaisthesia

"a personal example ... in a lengthy meditation retreat at Samye Ling monastery in southern Scotland ... . ... As is standard practice, I meditated on ... my sense of taste. But before long, I realized that with my eyes closed intense images were arising. With each ..., the imagery was either of pink fluffy clouds, or ...

tanks rolling across a desert landscape. This puzzled me until ... I thought of foods in that way. So ... about this ... the chef indeed very consciously balanced ... each meal -- a very Taoist approach ... . Then I proposed an experiment to which the chef readily agreed. ...

{The antient symbolic aequivalent a tank's revolving treads may possibly have been a revolving sling containing a slingshot : this is the usual metaphor, employed in the Qabbalah for the revolving of an incarnate soul in the vicissitudes of life, until at the demise of the material body, it be shot forth (similarly as the shot from a slingshot) into another life.}

When I compared ..., I found that my imagery matched unfailingly the yin-yang designation of the food -- fluffy pink clouds arose when I was eating yin foods ... ." {Five-colored divine clouds are of much significance in Taoist cosmology (e.g., ascension to Heaven by priestess Bian Dong-xuan in GP&T; the heavenly dream in MH&GMC, p. 70; and the quasi-heavenly scenario in #149 "Song of Lasting Regret", stanza 84 : ShCARChL, p. 276) : could these be somehow reminiscent of hypn-agogia?}

{The author may have been in a rather-entranced (hypn-agogic) state-of-mind while this synaisthesia was proceeding : which could suggest that synaisthesia may be a frequent accompaniment of the transitional hypn-agogic state (even though not of ordinary dreaming).}

GP&T = Jinhua Jia : Gender, Power, and Talent : the Journey of Daoist Priestesses in Tang China. Columbia Univ Pr, NY, 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id=oUpBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT172&lpg=PT172&dq=

MH&GMC = Yonglin Jiang : The Mandate of Heaven and The Great Ming Code. Univ of WA Pr, Seattle, 2011. https://books.google.com/books?id=w68uObIhx9MC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=

ShCARChL = Victor H. Mair (ed.) : The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. Columbia Univ Pr, NY, 2000. https://books.google.com/books?id=sV3ZzccfeC8C&pg=PA276&lpg=PA276&dq


{A possible functional purpose in odor/flavor-to-color conversion in meditational synaisthesia :- The Skt term for 'flavor' is \rasa\ : this word is evidently cognate with Latin \ros\ 'dew'. The saying "Thy [the deity's] \t.al\ 'dew' is a \t.al >owriym\ 'dew of lights'" (possibly implying that such flavor is a flavor of lights/colors) is expounded by commentators on the TNaK as referring to \qiymah\ 'resurrection'. The main functional difference between ordinary redincarnation on the one hand, and resurrection on the other hand; is that redincarnation must ordinarily entail loss of memory, whereas resurrection is understood to involve retention of memory -- and memory is likewise retained by each Taoist so-called 'immortal' (immortalized ordinary human). Therefore, this synaisthetic meditational practice may be intended to enable practitioners to retain their memory into their next life. [written 23 Jan 2018] (Though memory of ordinary personal events would be useless to retain into another life; yet never-the-less, knowledge of mathematics, of physics, and of other sciences could be retained to some considerable utility into another lifetime, and beyond.)}


pp. 401-2 Iviatim tribe dream-shamanry

p. 401

"the memoirs of a Cahuilla (a.k.a., Iviatim) medicine woman named Ruby ... in the book, Not for Innocent Ears : Spiritual Traditions of a Desert Cahuilla Medicine Woman (Modesto and Mount 1980). ... One is chosen in the womb by Umna>ah, the Cahuilla's creator god (ibid:25). Each shaman has a dream helper which they contact in a dream ... incubated by ingesting the psychoactive plant, Datura ... . Ruby's (ibid:26) :


[quoted] ... helper came spontaneously ... .


I dreamed to the thirteenth level.

{The 13th is the highest of the Heavens in traditional Nahuatl/Aztec cosmology.}


The way you do this is by remembering to tell yourself to go to sleep in your first level ordinary dream. You consciously {conscientiously} tell yourself to lay down {lie down, recline} and go to sleep {in the dream}. Then you dream a second dream ["a dream within a dream"]. This is the seond level and is the prerequisite for real Dreaming. ...


On the 3rd level you learn and see unusual things, not of this world. The hills and terrain are different. On both the 2nd and 3rd dream levels you can talk to people and ask questions about what you want to know. ...

p. 402

When I dreamed to the 13th level, that first time, I ... didn't know how to get back. ... That was where I met my helper, Ahswit, the eagle.


But I was in a sort of coma, asleep for several days. ...


The way you return is to tell yourself beforehand that you are going to come back (like self-hypnosis ...), later in the dream you have to remember."


pp. 402-3 sleeping within a waking-world cave, which (in the resultant lucid dream) extendeth further aback into another, praeternatural world of divinities

p. 402

"The Shoshone medicine man credited with revitalizing the Shoshone and Crow Sun Dance after it was outlawed in the 19th century ..., ... (Fitzgerald 1991:Chap. 8) ... received his calling, plus instruction ... and power from the Chief of the Lttle People, Seven Arrows, during a three day retreat in a cave. ... On the third day he heard drumming and singing and bells ringing from deeper in the cave. During the lucid dream he was joined by Seven Arrows two invited ... to follow him back into the cave

p. 403

so he could show ... some things.


At first they arrived at a place and saw men ... on the hoop and arrow game.


They wandered further back and came to a cavern where people were ... on horse races.


Still further into the cave they arrived at a place where people were ... on the hand game. ...


They then walked back even further to a place where they could hear a drum beating and saw a tipi. The sides of the tipi were rolled up ... and they could see a sick person ... and a medicine man treating the patient. After the medicine man had completed his ministrations, Seven Arrows told ..., "This is what I am going to give you ... . ... I want you to go back now ... . .... Go home now, and I will tell you later what things I want you to work with. You will be able to help people get well when they are sick. ...


Seven Arrows led him back to the cave entrance where ... (ibid:220-221n),


"... I saw my body lying there on the ground. ... When I reached my body, I felt as though I was lying down on top of myself,

{The dreamer's experience must have been of returning from astral projection.}


and then I was awake."

Fitzgerald 1991 = Thomas Oren Fitzgerald : Yellowtail, Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief : an Autobiography. Norman : Univ of OK Pr.


pp. 404-5 becoming a ma`ma (shaman-priest for the Kogi)

p. 404

"The Kogi Indians live high in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of Colombia. ... The Kogi ... are ruled by an elite strata {sic! read : "stratum"} of male priests called ma`mas ... . ... A novice is chosen by a ma`ma in trance communion with the Mother-Goddess or by dream-divination. ... During the many years of training, the novice lives among the family of a ma`ma ... . He sleeps in a ceremonial house during the daylight hours, and only emerges during brief intervals at night for meals and for training, always accompanied by a ma`ma. If the moon is out at night, he has to wear a special hat that blocks out the direct light of the moon. ... He undergoes meditation and breathing exercises, and ingest{at}ion of various psychoactive drugs ... . "The youth is taught many divinatory techniques ..., and going on to deep meditation accompanied by ... controlled breathing, and the 'listening' to sudden signs and voices from within" ([Reichel-Dolmatoff] 1976:280). ...

p. 405

For the apprentice ma`ma, this a long process ... that evoke inner spiritual experiences in lucid dreams and trance states that ... culminate in union with the divine. As Reichel-Dolmatoff (1976:284-285) states :


[quoted] ... the aims of priestly education is to discover and awaken those hidden faculties of the mind that, at a given moment, enable the novice to establish contact with the divine sphere. ... The novice sees images and hears voices that explain and extol the essence of being, the true sources of Nature ... . In this way, he is able to receive instructions ... about collective ceremonies to be organized, or sicknesses to be cured. ... The entire teching process is aimed at this slow, gradual building up to the sublime moment of self-disclosure of god to man, of when Sinta`na or Bu`nkuase` ... reveals himself in a flash of light and says : Do this! Go there!" ... The divine personification appears bathed in a heavenly light and, from then on{,} teaches the novice at night."

Reichel-Dolmatoff 1976 = Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff : "Trainng for the Priesthood Among the Kogi of Colombia". In :- Johannes Wilbert (ed.) : Enculturation in Latin America : an Anthology. Los Angeles : Univ of CA Pr.


p. 408 Bodish dream-yoga

"by the more disciplined and extensive uses to .. out to transpersonal dreaming, I ... share ... my exploration of lucid dreaming and Tibetan Tantric Buddhist dream yoga (see ... Laughlin, McManus and Webber 1984). ...

One of those practices is the dream yoga (Tib: [r]mi-lam) which is included as one of the so-called Six Yoga[-]s of Naropa {Skt \Nad.a-pada\}, revered and emphasized by the [d]Ka-[r]gyu[d] sect ... (Guenther 1963 ...). Integral to the dream yoga are ritual methods for maintaining and enhancing awareness while entering and during dream states."

Laughlin, McManus, & Webber 1984 = Charles D. Laughlin, John McManus, & Mark Webber : "... Tibetan Arising Yoga Practice". PHOENIX : J OF TRANSPERSONAL ANTHROPOLOGY 8.1-2:91-106.

Guenther 1963 = Herbert V. Guenther : The Life and Teaching of Naropa. Oxford Univ Pr.


pp. 409-10 the author's hypnopompic man.d.ala-visions

p. 409

"It all began when I awoke early one morning in 1963 staring at the world through a man{.}d{.}ala


(in what I would learn to be a hypnopompic experience;

{WRONG TERMINOLOGY! In the standard litterature of oneirology, \hypnopompic experience\ is ALWAYS employed to describe only such visions are are witnessed upon awaking with one's eyen remaining as yet closed. That which the author witnessed is described in the standard litterature of oneirology as, instead, the visions accompanying so-called "sleep-paralysis", which visions are ALWAYS witnessed after having oped one's eyen upon awaking. [I have myself likewise experienced (about 1974) the vision witnessed during "sleep-paralysis" : in my case, it was of (not a Bodish man.d.ala, but rather) a Maya hieroglyphic inscription occupying the entire surface of a green substance (jadelike ectoplasm) covering the ceiling.]}


see Gillespie 1987 {sic : read "1997", as per p. 522 infra}). ... I came out of sleep and into waking awareness


in a state of extreme bliss {N.B. : A "peculiar sensation of extreme joy and happiness" (SYM&T, p. 79) is associated with the praesence of one's is.t.a-devata "or tutelary deity (guiding Devata)" (SYM&T, p. 80).}

{Persons who are deficient in faith in the providential beneficence of the divine universe (deficient on account of their having been seduced by the fallacious "philosophy" of atheistic materialism) tend to be filled, instead, with a sense of dread while witnessing the divinely-provided vision accompanying sleep-paralysis. This dread is appropriate for their cases; for, indeed, the soul of an atheistic materialist is bound-for-"Hell" (viz., for Naraka/Niraya).}


and looking at my bedroom filtered through an exquisitely complex and colorful man{.}d{.}ala --


like a filter of lace made of the most delicate, complex and multihued

{That the grand vision witnessed during sleep-paralysis is aequivalently rendred (when viewed by saints approved-by-Heaven) as either green or variegated, is indicated by the description in Apokalupsis of Ioannes : "a rainbow in sight like unto an emerald".}


spider web (perhaps equivalent to Gillespie's "lattice imagery").

{This web may be that of the spider-gods (ER&E 5:317b) Kala-khan~ja-s. The lattice, in contrast, may appertain to the Nivata-kavaca-s, deities who are allied with (PE, s.v. "Kalakeya(s) 4)") the Kala-khan~ja-s.}


It was a living thing and pulsed in synchrony with the rhythm of bliss I felt coursing through my body. ... The ambient light in my bedroom was dim, but I could discern the normal objects in the room through the gauze-like filter of the man{.}d{.}ala. {Alike unto a spiderweb,} the man{.}d{.}ala had a distinct center and radians from the center outward to the periphery. ...

As it turned out, this was the first of many such experiences that I was to have over the years ... . The experiences in those early days were always spontaneous ... .

p. 410

They ... all shared a common structure :

The Visual Aspect. An intense, pulsing visual experience consisting of


an intricate pattern of brightly colored, nearly infinitesimal lines ... .

{This sort of pattern is customarily defined (described), in the Skt vocabulary of art, as "yantra"; instead of as a "man.d.ala". Yantra-s consist only of lines, whereas every man.d.ala (usually subdivided by concentric circles with few or no internal straight lines) is composed of solidly colored regions.}


The pattern is so intense that it may be perceived for a few minutes or longer


after awakening with the eyes open or closed,

{This would suggest that the vision, by extending beyond the limitations of sleep-paralysis, had entred also realm usually confined to hypnopompia.}


even in a lighted environment.

The Affective Aspect. An intense and active state of pulsing euphoria ... similar to the state of bliss I later ... experienced under deep meditation or trance."

Gillespie 1997 = George Gillespie : "Hypnopompic Imagery and Visual Dream Experience". DREAMING 7.3:187-194.

SYM&T = L. R. Chawdhri : Secrets of Yantra, Mantra and Tantra. New Dawn Pr (imprint of Stirling Publ), New Delhi, 1992.https://books.google.com/books?id=ngmw3CDm4MkC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=

ER&E = James Hastings (ed.) : Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

PE = Vettam Mani : Puran.ic Encyclopaedia. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1975.


{As concerning the aequivocation between "green" and "variegated" (in the expression "a rainbow in sight like unto an emerald") : "green signifies truth obscured. Divine truth in its splendor appears in various colours disposed in beautiful order, as those of a rainbow; but when it is obscured, it appears of the colour of an emerald." (Emanuel Swedenborg : The Apocalypse Explained According to the Spiritual Sense. 2nd edn. London : J. S. Hodson, 1834. arcanum # 269 : vol. 1, p. 451. https://books.google.com/books?id=2TA9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA451&lpg=PA451&dq=) That in my case the sense was indeed deliberately obscured was manifest in its message's being written in a language not intelligible to me : a message in such a language could only have been intended for the praeternatural entities who were viewing it through mine eyen; I myself serve merely as a relay in the process of transmittal divine messages (which are always so coded as to be indecipherable to me) from one divine agency to another divine agency. (Not totally unalike my father, who worked as a telegrapher transmitting ultrasensitive, viz., relating to embassies, coded messages -- unintelligible to him -- for an office of the U.S. Army Intelligence in the mid-1930s. It was, of course, on account of this work of his that I was designated to be sent into this incarnation as his son, so that designated praeternatural entities would, decades later, be on the lookout for coded messages being transmitted through me.) [written 15 Feb 2018] N.B. Emanuel Swedenborg was likewise a secret governmental (Swedish) agent carrying secret messages to other governments (in France and in Spain).}


{The spider-deities Kala-khan~ja-s (similarly as did Nimrowd -- LB, p. 84) built (Kat.haka Samhita 8:1; Maitrayani Samhita 1:6:9) a tower (reaching toward Heaven) of IS.T.Aka 'brick' ("CIV", p. 164) : therewith suggesting one's IS.T.A-devata ('one own deity', i.e., guardian-angel); and the yantra (which in Laughlin's case is a praeternatural spiderweb) is "considered as the "body" of the personal deity" is.t.a-devata ("YHSG"; this is stated in the Kula-arn.ava Tantra ["IASY"]). [This is tolerably firm proof that it is not a man.d.ala, but instead a yantra, which Ch. D. Laughlin witnesseth in his divine visions.] Incidentally, Laughlin's spiderweb-vision is somewhat reminiscent of the "back stitched spider’s web" "used to make an ancient symbol by the Huichol Indians of Mexico and the Aymara Indians of Bolivia. This symbol is a reprentation of the ability to see and understand the unseen, and so like the eye of god." ("GES")}

LB = Louis Ginzberg : Legends of the Bible. Konecky & Konecky.

"CIV" = Maurice Bloomfield : "Contributions to the Interpretation of the Veda". J OF THE AMER ORIENTAL SOC vol. 15 (1893), pp. 143-88. https://books.google.com/books?id=yca0VA99fTsC&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=

"YHSG" = "Yantra, the Hindu Sacred Geometry". http://www.yogaenred.com/en/2013/07/09/yantra-la-geometria-sagrada-hindu/

"IASY" = "It All Starts with the Yantra". http://ecs.com.np/features/it-all-starts-with-the-yantra

"GES" = "God’s Eye Stitch". http://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/tag/back-stitched-spiders-web/


pp. 410-1 universality of "man.d.ala symbolism"

p. 410

"The appearance the man{.}d{.}ala motif ... is -- as C. G. Jung (1951/1959) noted in Aion -- a virtual cultural universal. ... It is present in the iconography of Buddhist sects, the Autralian aborigines, the various plains {Amer}Indian groups ... (see Krippner 1997; TenHouten 1993)."

p. 411

"Jung ... his study of man{.}d{.}ala symbolism was profound and significant ... in ... Jung's book, Mandala Symbolism (1969f).

... I was struck by the remarkable similarity between four of those images and my own mandala experiences. So ... did I discover ... tha the four plates that I had identified were the very four, and the only four, that Jung himself painted from his own dream recall."

Jung 1959 = C. G. Jung : Aion : Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self. Princeton Univ Pr.(COLLECTED WORKS, no. 9)

Krippner 1997 = Stanley Krippner : "The Role Played by Mandalas in Navaho and Tibertan Rituals". ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 8.1:2-31.

TenHouten 1993 = Warren D. TenHouten : "... Mandala Symbolism". ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 4.4:10-16.

Jung 1969f = C. G. Jung : Mandala Symbolism. Princeton Univ Pr.


pp. 413-4 the author's hypnagogic visions of otherworldly tunnels

p. 413

"I concentrated first upon a neon red ... letter 'A' at the base of my throat ..., and later simplified this image to a red bin{.}d{.}u (Tib : Tig Le) or radiant bubble the size of a pea at the base of my throat (Chang ... 1963 ...:61). ... Using these simple techniques, I was able to enter sleep onset -- the hypnagogic state ... -- in an alert, energized and focused state of awareness, and eventually found that the hypnagogic, lasting but a few seconds in the normal sleep onset, began to stretch out into minutes. I was eventually able to remain in the hypnagogic ... state for up to half an hour, and experienced intense kaleidoscopic imagery which began as a kind of gorgeous two dimensional slide show, but then deepened into dynamic, four dimensional experiences. The rather two dimensional man{.}d{.}ala[-]s I first encountered in the hypnagogic ... became


dynamic tunnels down which I would travel

{Travel through a tunnel into the postmortem world for souls is commonplace in near-death experience, and even usual in ayahuasca-induced spiritual experience.}


and that led to various events, places and landscapes (see

p. 414

Green 1968:60-61 for a similar tunneling experience)."

Chang 1963 = Garma Chang : Teachings of Tibetan Yoga.

Green 1968 = Celia Green : Lucid Dreams. Oxford : Institute for Psychophysical Research.


p. 414 experiencing the [Skt ]Antara-bhava ([Bodish] Bar-do)

p. 414

"Once the man{.}d{.}ala[-]s succeeded in gaining my undivided attention, they morphed into portals into the spiritual realm. I also learned ... the phenomemology of a bardo ..., the dream equivalent of the intermediate state of being between this life and the next, described in the Bardo Thodol {bTags-grol}, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Sumegi 2008:82)."

{If he really ever experienced in is dreaming any events paralleling those in the Antara-bhava, then wherefore (pray tell!) doth the author decline to mention his having experienced in dreaming any of the typical events of the Antara-bhava (skies of various colors; vast hordes of the assembled dead; numerous many-headed and many-limbed deities; the divine mirror reflecting one's deeds in one's just-now-finished mortal life; animal-headed deities conducting the dead to the divine judgement-and-sentencing courtroom; etc. etc.)??}

p. 414, fn. 7

"Incidentally, it became very interesting to me as an anthropologist {read instead : "as a wild speculator in unwarranted hypotheses"} that there are no phenomenal experiences described for the bardo of dying that cannot be had in a dream bardo,

{This is misleading PRAEVARICATION! DO NOTE that the the author (Ch. D. Laughlin) is making no allegation of his ever witnessing any whatsoever of the typical scenes described in the Bar-do bTags-grol : therefore, his assertion that dreams can duplicate (nor even simulate) the Bar-do, is quite utterly unwarranted.}


leading me to the hypothesis that Tibetan dream yogi[n-]s in ancient days {and, incidentally, as yet to-day also} projected their living dream experiences upon the process of dying." {Irrelevant and FALSE! : the Bar-do is not containined within "the process of dying", but is instead entred into SUBSEQUENT TO the completion of the process of dying.}

{Those maneuvres which adepts actually (not merely "in ancient days", but even still to-day also) perform (with direct divine assistance) in order to entre the Antara-bhava described in the Bar-do bTags-grol, are either simply to view it remotely; or, alternatively, to project the astral body in such a fashion as to arrive thereat. Astral worlds are distinct and different from dream-worlds; dream-worlds are never entred by means of astral projections.}

Sumegi 2008 = Angela Sumegi : Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism. Albany : State Univ of NY Pr.


{One authentic autobiographical account of actual travels by a living person within the world of the dead (and closely approximating traditional accounts thereof) is, e.g.., Kurt Leland : Otherwhere : a Field Guide to Nonphysical Reality for the Out-of-Body Traveler. Hampton Roads Publ Co, Charlottesville (VA), 2001. On his website are a "crash course" (http://www.kurtleland.com/dream-interpretation/crash-course) in dreaming, and his subsequent (2002 onwards) "astral projection log" (http://www.kurtleland.com/astral-projection-log/2002). Throughout his book (and his website), he describeth that postmortem world as very real, unlike the unwarrantedly speculating Ch. D. Laughlin, who very speculatively is in dogmatic denial of the reality of a world for which the experiential and sensory evidence is at least as strong as is any evidence for the existence of a material universe.}


p. 415 understanding the distinction between actual reality and actual illusion {our comments (including interrogatives) written 16 Feb 2018}

"Apropos of ... Tibetan yoga techniques in particular (Sumegi 2008:81), I began thinking of dreaming as reality ... . ...

In any event, the goal from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view is to realize that all states of consciousness are illusory (Sumegi 2008), or

{In respect to such techniques, do they at any point make any firm distinction whatsoever between "reality" and "illusion"? -- for, are such terms to be regarded as synonyms with merely slight and variable distinctions in their connotations?}

products of the mind driven by karma,

{The basic meaning of \karman\ is 'work' : one's works may drive one's mind; but the products of the mind (such as, one's philosophical outlooks) may (in at least other circumstances) be quite unrelated to one's works. If faith without works be a dead faith, in what way, and which particular, "products of the mind" are relevant?}

and the ultimate goal is

the experience of Nirvan.a

{litterally 'extinction' : but of what? -- mental faculty itself?}

that is, the realization of

the essence of mind

{How is the "essence" of mind (and of whose mind? -- the deities' mind?) to be distinguished from the mind's ancillary incidentals?}

that projects or builds all these illusory "realities.""

{Why not regard the "builder" of reality to be the consensus amongst deities, but the systematic illusion to be the notion that consensus amongst deities cannot "build" reality?}


pp. 415-6 sense of the "real"; "sense of self"

p. 415

"True to the method's intent, my waking life really did take on the feeling and surreal qualities of the dream state, and the lucidity I attained in dream states was far more vivid and "real" than the waking state."

p. 416

"My sense of self ... was ... I knew ... not an entity, but a "complex above complexes," as Jung would say, or as A. N. Whitehead put it, a "presiding occasion.""


p. 416 particulate awareness {bin.d.u to be entred}

"It was ... in my "insight" practice that I fully came to realize that our phenomenal world is constructed ... as a field of flickering particles ..., regardless of state of consciousess." {The phrase "regardless of state of conscious" would imply the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states, as well as any other trance-states of that ilk.}

{In the Bodish reckoning of 5 varieties of sus.upti 'dreamless sleep', one such variety consisteth of stars in the night-sky -- such stars being apparent as if luminous particles. One mode of entring the WILD (wake-induced lucid dreaming) is via merging into a single such visibly luminous dot witnessed in an otherwise-darksome hypnagogic state -- as I have done (some decades ago in Ch, IL), resultant in, at high velocity entring, a dream dominated by a goddess hundreds of feet tall (Revati, I assume).}


p. 416 Maha-maya & Maha-maya

"my yidam {= is.t.a-devata}, or personal protector {guardian angel}, was called

Mahamaya, the Great Sorcerer,

{inaccurate translation! The meaning of the feminine name \Maha-maya\ is 'Great Magic', not 'great magician' ("Great Sorcerer"), which would be, instead, \maha-mayin\ (thus in the masculine; but \maha-mayini\ in the feminine). [\Mayin\ is an epithet of Varun.a's.]}

who is depicted in Tibetan paintings (thangka) as a huge light blue figure dancing in flames with four multicolored heads ..., two sets of arms ... ."

{The male deity Maha-maya's "dark blue form ... has four faces ... four arms ... ." (D&D&D:MT).}

D&D&D:MT : Damron, Dalton & Doctor (transll.) : The Mahamaya Tantra (Toh 425). bibleoteca.narod.ru/tantra/Mahamaya-Tantra.pdf


{Maha-maya is the male counterpart to the female Maha-maya -- somehow, in their tantra they are not mentioned as appearing together : possibly this could be an instance of a circumstance which I have (a number of years ago) myself witnessed, whereby (in a peculiar dream) a deity of one gendre is suddenly replaced by a deity of opposite gendre (as though they could not appear together, but only separately, in the sort of dream wherein they -- in order to be honored by the mortal dreamer -- both appear, albeit not together). [\Maha-maya\ is the name of the mother of Sarva-artha Siddha.]}


p. 417 devil/jnuwn and helical staircase

"I also experienced ... once the devil himself climbing up a spiral staircase with his minions following behind him." {A helical staircase is usual within an ecclesiastic bell-tower (tolling for the dead).}

{"The sepulchral voice

Of the jinn! ... What a sound!

We flee beneath the spiral

Of the deep staircase!" (Victor Hugo : "Les Djinns", in his Les Orientales. [poe:m translated in LFS, p. 233]}

LFS = Robert Lebling : Legends of the Fire Spirits : Jinn ... . I. B. Tauris & Co, London & NY, 2010.


p. 417 automatic transmogrification of visionary images

"With repeated encounters the images begin to incorporate ... cultural ... attributes ... . Objects lose their universal form and become common everyday objects --

pure bubbles may become ... milk bottles,

{pun : BubbLE / BottLE}

geometric forms become gem stones,

{pun : GEoMetric / GEM}

and so forth."


p. 417, n. 9 mental visualization of imagery

"I had learned ... that in doing Tibetan style "arising yoga" ... one internalizes ... -- ... using a picture ... to gaze at it and then shut the eyes and hold the image before the mind's eye".

{This is a practice of laya yoga : "After concentration on this image with eyes open, the eyes are closed and the image is constructed internally in every detail." (RB, p. 65)}

RB = Kurt Leland : Rainbow Body. Ibis Pr, Lake Worth (FL), 2016. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0892542195/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=spiritualorie-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=


{The purpose of visualizing (which may be facilitated by means of certain herbs) of pictures (or of statues) of deities is to invite them to appear (in person if feasible, or at least as a picture or statue) in one's dreams (where they may grant, to one's self, blessings).}


pp. 417-8 encountres (in dreamings) with divine entities, including with bat-winged goddess

p. 417

"they first ... take the appearance of "radiant" beings ... . They are beings of light ..., perfect in every way (no flaws, blemishes, ... etc.). ...

p. 418

Moreover, when they first present they may be accompanied by a sense of numinosity, ... and the feeling of ecstatic bliss."


"the goddess figures {i.e., conventionally-embodied goddesses -- and not merely manifesting as indistinct vague glows} I encountered were lovelier than any real {i.e., waking-world-abiding} woman could ever be in the flesh (Laughlin 2001). They were perfect ..., garbed in veils of light, and able to morph into other forms before my mind's {or read rather, "my dream-body's"} eye. ... I recall one dream in which such a lovely goddess figure came toward me and as she entered a gate in a picket fence that had been between us,


she morphed into ... dull gray with leathery wings, fangs {"Bats' teeth are like ritual stakes : repel the demons of the lord of death." ("R&ITCh", p. 19)} ... . She spread her wings {"Bats' wings are like goblets (...?) : repel the advancing demon-btsan of the demons!" (Ibid., loc. cit.)} and flew at me and over my head."

{By praesenting her bodily form in such a guise, she was most likely intending to disclose to him her function as his protectrix in repelling harm away from him : a goddess worshipped in the Bon religion -- which religion greatly aboundeth in bat-winged deities.}

Laughlin 2001 = Charles D. Laughlin : "Mandalas, Nixies, Goddesses, and Succubi". INTERNAT J OF TRANSPERSONAL STUDIES 20:33-52.

"R&ITCh" = Charles Ramble : "Real and Imaginary Tibetan Chimeras and their Special Powers". https://www.academia.edu/12962109/Real_and_Imaginary_Tibetan_Chimeras_and_their_Special_Powers

In :- Daniel Berounsky` (ed.) :- Indigenous Elements in Tibetan Religions. = MONGOLO-TIBETICA PRAGENSIA, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2014; Special Issue). pp. 13-33. https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/B%C3%B6n_religion?page=2


p. 419 tribal psychic-energy experiences

"see Laughlin 1994b on Tibetan dumo practice;

for descriptions of psychic energy experiences among other peoples see

Tedlock 1981 for the Quiche` Maya;

Lederman 1991 for Malay shamans;

Brown 1992 for the Aguaruna;

Katz for the Kalihari {read : "Kalahari"} Bushmen".

Laughlin 1994b = Charles D. Laughlin : "... Structural Account of the Tibetan Dumo Practice". In :- David E. Young & Jean-Guy Goulet (edd.) : Being Changed by Cross-Cultural Encounters. Peterborough (ON) : Broadview Pr. pp. 99-134.

Lederman 1991 = Carol Lederman : Taming the Wind of Desire. Berkeley, Univ of CA Pr.


p. 419 the author's ecstatic expanded consciousness

"I had a lucid dream in which I was starting a prostration before a colorful altar

{Experience of the "Clear Light of Sleep" may commence with (be immediately praeceded by) a dream of one's entry, through "double-doors" into "a small chapel ... overlooking barren land" having "the colors brilliant." (DRCA, p. 481)}

at the end of an in-breath and by the time that I had reached the end of the out-breath

{"Patan~jali's Yogasutra connects ... pran.ayama (breath control), with dreams; it defines knowledge of dreams and sleep as pran.ayama's object of study." (DIL, p. 130)}

{"A 10 minutes of yoga (+breath control) before the ... procedure seems also helpful. ... When you lie down in bed after meditation, CONCENTRATE with your eyes closed on the center of your screen [viz., visual field]. ... When the dream comes, you are already awake [viz., "lucid", in "wake-induced lucid dreaming"] and you can consciously try to control what happens." (ThP:"AT")}

and completed the prostration, my dream body had discorporated and my consciousness expanded into a vast, infinite plenum void, accompanied by intense ecstasy."

{"The ascending stages of dreamless sleep : ... experience of the voidness ... the light of the universal void ... . It is ... the clear light or the radiant light. ... These experiences of voidness are associated with feelings of bliss, the greatest bliss being the final experience of light." (DRCA, p. 478)}

DIL = Serinity Young : Dreaming in the Lotus : Buddhist Dream Narrative, Imagery, and Practice. Wisdom Publ, Somerville (MA), 1999. https://books.google.com/books?id=fuBP0y-Ipv0C&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=

ThP:"AT" = Thiaoouba Prophecy : "Astral Travel". https://www.thiaoouba.com/astr.htm

DRCA = Anthony Shafton : Dream Reader : Contemporary Approaches to the Understanding of Dreams. State Univ of NY Pr, Albany, 1995. https://books.google.com/books?id=90Vh8wUThAgC&pg=PA478&lpg=PA478&dq=


{ROSCH, E. (2014). "Tibetan Buddhist Dream Yoga And The Limits Of Western Psychology". In :- Ryan Hurd & Kelly Bulkeley (edd.) : Lucid Dreaming : New Perspectives On Consciousness In Sleep. Volume 2: Religion, Creativity, And Culture. Santa Barbara (CA) : Praeger. pp 1-22. {pagination of this book-text is thus somewhat different from (shorter than) the on-line internet form}

Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/70g9147s

p. 21"The practices to induce lucidity in dreamless sleep18 are similar to those of lucid dream, basically sustainina lucidity-inducing visualization as one falls asleep. However here the visualization is in the heart center rather than the throat and may be composed of a progression of images whose purpose is to conduct the practitioner into the sleep state with awareness unbroken."

p. 22 "The clear light ... (more properly the clear light awareness) is the final stage of lucid ... sleep practice. ... The fruition of this is that when experiences with content again spontaneously arise, whether in dreams or waking life, those experiences can be seen as the expression of the clear light ... and all-good. Or, in the words of the Nyingma master ..., “... But for those who have apprehended the clear light, like rays of sunlight cast upon a clear sky, all appearances arise in clarity ..., joyfully ... .19"

p. 23 "As someone dies ..., at the moment of death, his mind enters a state analogous to that of

dreamless sleep ..., but the person who has practiced constant lucidity in life has the opportunity to

recognize this as the clear light ... as the clear light nature of his mind joins the mother clear light nature of the ground of reality."

p. 24 "I confess ... that ... I saw my root teacher a day after his death."}


pp. 419-20 black-and-white dreaming

p. 419

"I did have two different "past lifetime" dreams in which I recognized in which I recognized myself in another human form from another era of history. The quality of these dreams was quite unique as they were in black-grey-white tones ... like the old black and white, documentary-style

p. 420

Pathe' News films of the '40's and '50's. ... The imagery emerged in both cases out of a mist or cloud and into crystal clarity.


{A deity of whom the only manifest body-part is a shank (calf of leg) emerging from mist, is implied in the Eddic deity-name \Mist-ka`lfi\. Solely the feet of this deity are capable of being hacked off.}

{As for H^urrian god Ulli-kumi (standing atop a mountain, apparently to imply that, above the shanks, this god's body is concealed in montane mist), solely the feet are capable of being hacked off.}


Both figures were warriors, one from the East long ago, and the other a naval officer on the bridge of an early 20th century German warship".

{The name \Ulli-kumi\ is glossed 'destroyer of the city Kumiya (Classical name : \Kommagene\); but \kumi\ could = Hellenic \kume\ 'wave (in sea)', name of a city in Aiolis of Anatolia.}

{Cf. the repeated mention in the Hawai>ian Kumulipo of a mythic devastation of the land by a "warrior wave" (tidal wave).}

{The author may well have been witnessing a modernized form of an antique archetypal myth, quite unrelated to any "past lifetime" of anyone's. (The only feasible way for finding any information concerning any "past lifetime" would appear to be by searching the archives of the Akas`ik Record.)}


p. 420 the author's experience in his own projection of the astral body

"Out-of-body experiences were commonplace in dreams during the sleeping box period. I could look down at my physical body in the box, and consciously leave my {material} body to wander about and return to it -- just as described ... in traditional societies. ...

I never tested the experience ..., always interpreting {according to his praejudiced dogmata, which were, and are, always totally at variance with, and in contradiction of, all known-and-established factuality} ...

{The author's admission of his neglect to make any attempt to test out the material-world counterparts of such experiences (which could have readily been accomplished : verifying, as many other adepts astral-projection have often done, proving the verisimilitude of their experiences, namely, by either traveling in the material body to the sites indicated, or by seeking out ae:rial or other photography of such sites from governmental, or other, archives) is a commentary on the author's incompetence for the task whereto he had set himself, namely proving the reality (or otherwise) of transcendent extraordinary experiences.}

(see Blackmore 2005 on his issue)."

{Said book is merely another such slovenly, incompetent conglomeration of dogmata-dominated, utterly unsubstantiated materialist hypotheses.}

Blackmore 2005 = Susan J. Blackmore : Consciousness : a Very Short Introduction. Oxford Univ Pr. https://www.worldcat.org/title/consciousness-a-very-short-introduction/oclc/856681342/viewport


pp. 420-1 the author's seeing of his guru in a dream

p. 420

"I called out mentally to Rinpoche, and almost immediately I was looking over Rinpoche's shoulder (in the lucid dream) and saw that he was concentrating upon a mirror upon which energy formed

p. 421

and dissipated like clouds of colorful rice grains. ...

Tiberia (1977:87), citing Bell (1931:25), described a similar experience had by a Tibetan monk : "The monk ... prayed earnest to his 'guru' ... eventually ... one night in a vision. ...""

Tiberia 1977 = Vincenza Antionette Tiberia : "The Feminine Component of the Masculine Psyche as Anima Projection". INTERNAT J OF SYMBOLOGY 8.1:1-16.

Bell 1931 = C. A. Bell : The Religion of Tibet. Oxford : Clarendon Pr.


p. 421 in order to be usable, dream-experiences must be explained in terms disclosed by mortal guru-s, rather than in terms expressed by deities

"For Tibetan Buddhists, the interpretation of experiences had in dreams is always couched in terms of textual material

{Experiences had in dreams invariably involve divinities ensconced therein -- why not rely on those deities own contemporary declarations as to the significance of dreaming, instead of relying on strained interpretation of some litterary text composed long ago by long-dead authors living in forgotten circumstances and writing in forgotten circumstances for forgotten agendas?}

or "whispered" teachings from their {b}lama (guru) ... ."

{One reason why explanation by mortal guru-s may be more useful to other living mortals; is that, whereas mortals are naturally inclined to expound in terms of how to overcome mortality (by way of postmortem survival), yet never-the-less immortals are naturally inclined to neglect detailing how anyone (including the mortals whom they are purportedly pragmatically instructing, such as in dreams) can evade the gross effects of death.}


pp. 421-2 awareness as illusion

p. 421

"Buddhist psychology. All phenomenal experiences are illusion -- a symbolic play that represents ... extramental reality, and as such

p. 422

"... exemplify the nature of the phenomenal world -- fleeting, changeable, insubstantial, not ultimately valuable or reliable" (Sumegi 2008:79)."

{The understanding of all developed traditional idealist systems of ontology is that the material universe is the only illusion; but that all ideas (including, to be sure, the realization that the material universe is mere illusion) are reality.}

{This characterization of a "world" as "fleeting, changeable, insubstantial, not ultimately valuable or reliable" is actually a good description of the impression that the hereditary-nobility-dominated culture of mediaeval Bod (and/or of mediaeval Europe, or wherever) must make on the philosophically-minded observer well-aware from experience of the hypocrisy and unreliablity of a ruling-class caring only to promote its own material interests, while at the same time feigning otherwise so as to deceive (as much as feasible) any and all other social classes.}


-----------------------------------------------------------

Charles D. Laughlin : Communing With the Gods : Consciousness, Culture, and the Dreaming ... . Daily Grail Publ, Brisbane, 2011.