Maps of Consciousness: The Classic Text on Exploring the Mind and Expanding Awareness

A classic guide to expanding perception and consciousness development

• Explores six ancient yet timeless systems for exploring the mind: the I Ching, Tantra, Tarot, astrology, alchemy, and the yoga philosophy of Actualism

• Shares exercises from each system and illuminates the key stages in the journey of consciousness development

• Shows how each of these disciplines can help you become a fully aware and conscious participant in your own spiritual evolution

In this highly acclaimed classic, psychedelic elder Ralph Metzner presents a guide to six ancient systems, once known only to the initiated few, to expand awareness and free your consciousness from exterior limitations and cultural conditioning.

Metzner begins with the I Ching, revered by the Chinese as the oldest and wisest book in the world. He explains how it reveals change as the evolutionary constant and offers a hands-on method of divination and guidance. He explores the Hindu and Buddhist Tantras of medieval India, ancient practices celebrating the union of male and female energies that transmute ordinary sense experience into ecstatic ritual worship. He examines the tarot, revealing how the cards act as culture-transcending mirrors, bringing us through worlds of darkness and light in a complex journey. He looks at the practice of alchemy, explaining how it is a “psychic chemistry” of inner union through which we can transform planetary and cosmic energies. He explores the esoteric aspects of astrology, revealing the rhythmic cycles of the planets and how their phases may be experienced in terms of motion and emotion. He then examines in depth the yoga philosophy of Actualism, centered on the techniques of Agni Yoga, which allow you to use your living “inner fire” to illuminate the shadow parts of consciousness and burn out that which obstructs the free flow of energy.

With a new foreword by UC Berkeley professor of neurobiology David E. Presti and featuring all of the original diagrams, this new edition of Metzner’s classic text shows how each of these disciplines can help the modern individual become a fully aware and conscious participant in their own spiritual evolution.

Ralph Metzner (1936–2019) obtained his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Harvard University, where he collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert on psychedelic research. He was professor emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and president and cofounder of the Green Earth Foundation. Metzner is the author of numerous books, including Overtones and Undercurrents, Searching for the Philosophers’ Stone, and Green Psychology.