How to navigate the dark nights and pitfalls of awakening - Daniel Ingram
Be Mythical
Navigating Spiritual Awakenings and Mental Health
This chapter explores the challenges faced during spiritual awakenings, particularly regarding the stigma of seeking medical help. It highlights the importance of understanding these experiences within the medical field to ensure safe and effective healing.
What you need to know about awakening… it’s not all love and light! This week's show is with Dr. Daniel M. Ingram, MD MSPH, a retired emergency medicine physician who works to improve the global relationship of science, clinical practice, mental health and the public to the phenomena that might be referred to as spiritual, meditative, energetic, mystical, psychedelic, magical, and related phenomena.
To those ends, he is currently the founder, philanthropic supporter, and volunteer CEO and Board Chair of the Emergence Benefactors registered charity, and chief organiser and co-founder of the global Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium.
He is currently involved in neurophenomenological research of advanced meditative states with colleagues at Harvard and has been a participant in numerous fMRI and EEG studies of advanced meditators, including at Harvard, Yale, U Mass, and Vanderbilt. He has published scientific articles in Pediatrics, Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Journal of Medical Toxicology. He is the author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, co-author of The Fire Kasina, and co-founder of the Dharma Overground. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Esquire, Vice, Wired, BBC Radio 4, Evolving Dharma, American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity, Dan Harris’ 10% Happier Podcast, Slate Star Codex Blog, Buddha at the Gas Pump, Meaning of Life TV, Deconstructing Yourself, Spiritual Explained website, Guru Viking, Buddhist Geeks, Cosmic Tortoise, Startup Geometry, Imperfect Buddha Podcast, and many others.
In this conversation, Lian and Daniel explored the challenges and pitfalls associated with spiritual awakening, particularly the dark nights of the soul that many seekers face on their path.
This is ancient wisdom that in some modern western spheres has been forgotten and is now being remembered - which you’ll hear can be surprisingly controversial.
We’d love to know what YOU think about this week’s show. Let’s carry on the conversation… please leave a comment wherever you are listening or in any of our other spaces to engage.
What you’ll learn from this episode:-
Spiritual awakening can lead to significant challenges and disruptions in life - historical texts have long acknowledged the challenges of spiritual practices.
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Recognising this means we can seek traditions that include guidance and remedies for difficult experiences.
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Community support and normalisation of experiences can help individuals feel less isolated in their difficult spiritual experiences, and provide help in navigating them.
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If you want to focus on Daniel’s scientific work related to spirituality and the organisation he helps support:
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If you want to focus on Daniel’s work related to meditation practice and its effects:
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For Books:
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Fire Kasina: The Fire Kasina Meditation Site for books and more on meditation
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Daniels Personal Website: Integrated Daniel
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Daniels Online Community: The Dharma Overground
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Emerge Wiki: emergewiki.org
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Join UNIO, the Academy of Sacred Union. This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul’s calling to truly live your myth.
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