Erik Jampa Andersson

17/04/2025

Exploring history, ecology, spirituality, myth, and what it means to be human in a more-than-human world, from the author of 'Unseen Beings.'. Click to read The Spirited and Storied Earth, by Erik Jampa Andersson, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

29/07/2024

We humans are a storytelling species. The stories that we tell have a powerful impact on the ways we view and live in the world. They form a kind of 'operating system' through which our sensory data is translated into narrative and embedded with meaning. Even a simple story - something we watch on the TV or in a film - can completely change our perspective on reality, for better and for worse.

I talk a lot about stories in 'Unseen Beings' - including the anthropocentric myth of human exceptionalism, which forms the basis of our present 'Epoch of Humans', i.e. the Anthropocene. I talk about the formation of our dominant religious myths, as well as the secular instrumentalist myths that (partly) replaced them. It's clear that many of these myths have had a remarkably negative impact on the health of our world. But they are not the only kinds of stories that exist.

Myths may lie at the root our existential disease, but they are also the key to our recovery. If we can change the stories we tell ourselves (about ourselves and the other-than-human world around us), we can begin to liberate ourselves from the ontological shackles that bind us to our ever-plummeting spiral towards oblivion. If we can re-invigorate a sense of natural wonder and enchantment with the living Earth itself, we can begin to take our first steps towards authentic recovery.

This is why I decided to teach this course - 'Into the Perilous Realm: Faërie and Fantasy on the Path to Recovery' - which is now available as a self-paced online course.

Based on a highly influential essay penned by J.R.R. Tolkien ('On Fairy-stories), this course explores the profound nature, origins, and functions of "fantasy" and fairy tales. While often marginalised in self-important fields like literary criticism, fantasy literature is one of the most radical and subversive art-forms that we have. As Ursula K. Le Guin once wrote, "What fantasy generally does that the realistic novel generally cannot do is include the nonhuman as essential [...] realistic fiction is drawn towards anthropocentrism, fantasy away from it."

Tolkien's essay, first composed shortly after the publication of The Hobbit, remains one of the most important academic works to approach 'fairy-stories' as a serious form of literature. In it, he discusses the nature and origins of fairy tales, particularly in relation to the great mythic traditions of the world, as well as the specific values and functions of such works to the modern reader. In his view, fantasy literature accomplishes many of the same aims as more 'conventional' art forms, but it also has some rather distinct capabilities - namely its ability to facilitate an experience of 'escape,' 'recovery,' and 'consolation.'

We tend to think of this 'escapism' as a bad thing - an escape from reality, or from the important topics of life. But for Tolkien, this 'escape' was in fact far more profound. Rather than an escape *from* reality, he saw it as an escape *into* reality. An escape from the shackles of disenchanted instrumentalism into the wild and mysterious more-than-human world. Escape is, in this sense, a radical and revolutionary act. But to get there, we first need to recover. We need to recover a sense of wonder and love for the 'others' in our midst. We need to learn to see the familiar 'things' around us with new eyes so that we can really *see* them anew - with a clear vision. We must learn to really see those that we have unseen. If we can do this - if we can recover and find a way to escape - then we may just find our own happy ending. We might learn to live *and* die fully, in collaboration with all our myriad kin on this wondrous planet. In this consolation, we may find hope - even in this horrendously dark moment.

Whether or not you're a Tolkien fan, this course is really worth attending. It is, most interestingly, Tolkien's own 'manifesto for mythopoeia' - an argument for the transformational art of sub-creation. But it is also much more. It is a brilliant investigation into the human psyche and the foundations of our story-centred world. It is one of my very favourite pieces of literature, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to share it with others.

Click on the link below for more info and to sign up.

An exclusive online course on Tolkien's seminal essay 'On Fairy-stories', investigating the nature, origins, and functions of fairy-stories and fantasy literature.

29/04/2024

https://www.shrimala.com/events-and-workshops/the-dharma-of-deconstruction

A two-hour workshop exploring the role of religious deconstruction on the Buddhist path, and the construction of a no-nonsense approach to spirituality.

17/04/2024

Check out this recent interview I did with Yoga Aktuell magazine in Germany, on 'Unseen Beings' and related topics.

Here's a quick excerpt:

"[Nina:] Our anthropocentric approach to life has brought us to the edge of our own extinction. While some aspects of this causal connection may be quite obvious to most people by now, there are also aspects many of us are still not aware of. Could you sum up some of these links between our callous and often ignorant view of our co-creatures and our current multiple crises?'

[Erik:] I think it’s the very core of the problem. We have a terribly difficult time framing our crisis in terms that don’t centre around the human. When politicians talk about the climate crisis, we hear them talk about the future of humanity, leaving a clean and abundant world for our descendants. We talk about the sustainability of resources – we don’t want to run out of ‘resources’. These are the primary concerns that take centre stage in conversations about the environment, which causes us to focus on very specific things like energy procurement. Of course, this is truly very important. We absolutely need to divest from fossil fuels. We need cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy. But that itself is not going to fix the problem. It was there long before the internal combustion engine – long before we started making plastics and microplastics and so on. This problem has been brewing for thousands of years, arising from a tendency to view ourselves at the centre of everything, and reducing everyone else to a resource that we can freely exploit at our own discretion. In that view, the only limitation is running out of resources. We don’t see exploitation as a problem, only unsustainable exploitation.

This is why I cringe when I hear people talking about ‘sustainability’. We need to have a less destructive impact on the environment, but framing it as an issue of sustainability really ignores the elephant in the room, which is: ‘What are we trying to sustain?’ When you get down to it, what we want to sustain is exploitation. The ‘solution’ that so many of our politicians and big thinkers are dedicated to is, ‘How can we make our systems of exploitation more sustainable so that we don’t run out of resources?’ But that’s not the root problem. The root problem is that our systems are built upon the suffering of others. Making that system last a bit longer doesn’t make it less horrendous. It just makes the suffering last longer. So I think we’re really missing the primary problem.

This view also causes us to think about climate disaster as a pending future possibility – something that will happen if we don’t change things quickly. But there are already consequences – horrible ones – and there have been for at least hundreds of years, affecting both human and non-human beings. After all, we are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction on this planet, specifically orchestrated by our own exploitative practises. We think that apocalypse is something that might happen in the future if we don’t change course, but there have already been a billion apocalypses, particularly for black, brown and indigenous people around the world. This isn’t a brand-new issue that started in the past fifty or even the past 200 years. This has been a long, slow burning, chronic disease that’s existed for a very long time. I think a shift in perspective is really important.

For example, it’s very common to hear people say, oh, we need to protect the Amazon because it’s the ‘lungs of the earth’. And that’s not actually true, first of all – that’s not where most of our oxygen comes from. But this is what we think. We think that the air we humans breathe comes from trees, and that this is the reason we should protect the Amazon. We don’t think about the fact that the Amazon is a massive ecosystem of billions and billions of forms of life, all of whom are alive, all of whom can experience suffering, all of whom have needs and desires. We don’t really care about them. What we care about are resources, sustainability, and human flourishing. How can we really address the horrors of mass extinction if all we care about is human extinction? In order for us to deal with the climate crisis meaningfully and earnestly, we have to reframe what the problem actually is. And we need to be able to see the history of it a little bit more clearly."

Erik Jampa Andersson has recently published his first book, Unseen Beings, in which he impressively points out how recognising and truly appreciating the more-t

16/04/2024

For those that may be interested -

Exploring history, ecology, spirituality, stories, and what it means to be human in a more-than-human world, from the author of 'Unseen Beings.'. Click to read The Spirited and Storied Earth, by Erik Jampa Andersson, a Substack publication. Launched 2 months ago.

11/02/2024

The first *video* episode of my Unseen Beings podcast is now live, featuring a very special guest (and our first!), Dr. Jack Hunter.

Dr. Hunter's work explores the intersections of consciousness, religion, ecology, and the paranormal. He is the author of some truly incredible books, including 'Ecology and Spirituality: A Brief Introduction,' and 'Greening the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology of Extraordinary Experience' (two of my favourites). In addition to his ongoing research, he is a tutor with the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, where he teaches on the MA in Ecology and Spirituality and MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology courses, and at the Alef Trust on their MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology.

It was, quite expectedly, a wonderful and fascinating discussion, covering an array of topics including animism, extraordinary experiences, spirits, spirituality, mythology, mediumship, non-human consciousness, and our place as living beings in a psychodiverse world. We also get some of Dr. Hunter's insights into UFOlogy, the potential sentience of AI, and ongoing revolutions in our understanding of plants, plasmas, and beyond. Don't miss this fascinating discussion, and major thanks to Jack for coming on the show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTuTm8vDfX8

You can find out more about Jack's work at https://jack-hunter.webstarts.com

We have a few new episodes (with lovely guests!) coming in the weeks ahead, so please do like and subscribe on YouTube and your favourite podcast platform. An audio feed is also available at: https://unseenbeings.buzzsprout.com

In our first video episode of the Unseen Beings Podcast, Erik Jampa Andersson is joined by Dr. Jack Hunter for a fascinating discussion about a wide array of...

11/02/2024

Registration is open for my upcoming online retreat with . If you’re interested in the intersection of ecology and spirituality - especially Dharmic spirituality - then this course is for you! We’ll look at how frameworks like animism and Buddhist philosophies of the mind challenge the conventional instrumentalist ideologies at the heart of our current environmental and social crises - and also how and cutting-edge scientific and historical research can guide us towards a more pragmatic and balanced approach to spirituality.
I hope to see some of you there!
Registration at https://www.taramandala.org/programs-2/15516/

21/10/2023

Check out this interview I did recently with Livsenergi, who is publishing a Swedish translation of Unseen Beings next month. I really enjoyed this chat with Alexandra, and hope you all enjoy

Erik Jampa Andersson är författare till boken Osynliga världar. Spännande läsning om hur mänskligheten och naturen vävs samman.

10/10/2023

A few folks have asked whether I'd be bringing back my online Chöd sessions, and I'm excited to announce that it's finally happening!

Starting tonight, I'll be offering weekly(-ish) Chöd workshop sessions on Zoom. These will include a group practice of the Yuthok Nyingthig Lujin as well as discussion and clarification of many aspects of the practice based on the teachings of Machig Labdrön and others.

These sessions are best suited for Yuthok Nyingthig or Chöd practitioners who have some basic familiarity with the practice, but it is open to all. Check out the page below for more info.

Please note that participants are invited to make a £10 contribution for the session, but it is also possible to use the code LUJIN to bypass payment.

A weekly online session with teachings, discussion, and group practice of the Yuthok Nyingthig Chöd with Erik Jampa Andersson.