Western Esotericism
Archive links for this tradition are collected below.
Episodes
The Shoemaker Who Saw Through Reality
A Görlitz shoemaker glimpsed the architecture of God in a pewter dish, then said nothing for twelve years. What did he carry, and what did it cost?
William Blake Lived Inside a Vision for 70 Years
William Blake spent seventy years inside continuous vision, speaking of angels in the same tone he used for bread. What did he keep that we trained ourselves out of?
Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness: The Psychiatrist Who Saw the Infinite
Canadian psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke experienced an unbidden illumination in spring 1872 and spent thirty years building a rigorous taxonomy of what he had seen.