Esoteric teachings frame imagination as creative technology, not mere fantasy. Through concentration, visualization and sensory detail, high imagination transforms invisible potential into material reality. The sixteenth-century alchemist Paracelsus offers us this metaphor: “Imagination is like the Sun. The Sun has a light which is not tangible; nevertheless, it may set a house on fire.” This…
My writings about the invisible forces that shape visible experience. Collected here.
I’ve become allergic to the word ‘should’. When someone uses it on me, I recoil. The certainty behind it reveals something: the speaker has confused their opinion with my reality. Everyone has thoughts about your life choices. Your family thinks you should call home more often. Your co-worker has strong opinions on how you should…
Mystery schools taught that sound functions as both creative force and transformative fire, capable of elevating consciousness toward divine union or scattering attention into base patterns. In the hidden chambers of ancient mystery schools, initiates discovered that sound possessed the power to transform consciousness. This understanding forms a consistent thread connecting diverse esoteric traditions across…
Spotlight On & The Tonearm Best Live Episode, Silver 2025, Live at The Royal Room: improvisation in music and life General-Music Website, Silver 2025, The Tonearm
Miracle-dependent planning feels good in the moment. It’s optimistic. It makes us feel capable and confident. We tell ourselves we’re being ambitious, not unrealistic. But we are confusing hope with strategy. Good plans account for normal human limitations. Bad plans assume everything will go perfectly. Build in extra time, because things take longer than expected….
September 24, 2025 Jazz Forward Award Winners All About Jazz, a driving force for jazz music since 1995, is thrilled to honor and celebrate industry trailblazers who actively promote jazz awareness, discovery, and culture through its prestigious Jazz Forward award program. Carefully selected by a team of industry visionaries, recipients don’t just receive an award;…
Musicians describe their instruments as having ‘personality’ and painters talk about how different brushes ‘feel’ in their hands. These artists are picking up on something real, their materials actually do respond to specific vibrational inputs. The Western mystery traditions got something right about creativity that modern culture has mostly forgotten: vibration creates reality, not the…
What I learned from a childhood obsession with the impossible As a child I would stay up all night, reading books like Chariots of the Gods, Erich von Däniken’s book that popularized the “ancient astronaut” theory of extraterrestrials who meddled in paleo-human affairs. Later, I collected UFO books with names like The UFO Cover-Up, Above…
I believe love is just chemistry and evolutionary programming and I believe it’s the most real thing we experience. I believe the universe is meaningless matter following physical laws and I believe my choices matter profoundly. In a recent podcast interview with my longtime friend and colleague Jeremy Sirota I told him, “I like to…
Western esoteric teachings demonstrate how sound functions as both physical phenomenon and metaphysical principle, providing a framework for understanding the receptive states that enable profound creative and spiritual transformation. Sound holds a central position in esoteric traditions because it functions as both physical phenomenon and metaphysical principle. Ancient mystery schools understood that perception operates across…