Peter Kingsley
Referenced in 3 episodes
Definition
Contemporary scholar of ancient Greek philosophy who argues that pre-Socratic thinkers like Parmenides and Empedocles were mystics and healers practicing journeys into the underworld.
Related episodes
InPresence 0161: Jung’s Underworld Journey – Further Reflections on Peter Kingsley’s Catafalque
New Thinking AllowedOct 16, 2026
Psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove revisits Peter Kingsley's book Catafalque and its account of Carl Jung's perilous journey into the underworld, framed by an ancient 'sacred contract' between the living and the dead. He argues this idea splits parapsychology into two camps: physicalist researchers focused on psychic abilities among the living, and those who study survival of consciousness after death. Drawing on near-death experiences, mediumship, reincarnation research and psychic healing, he suggests that living only for ourselves may be driving humanity toward self-destruction.
InPresence 0160: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity – Reflections on Peter Kingsley’s Catafalque
New Thinking AllowedSep 23, 2026
Psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove reflects on Peter Kingsley's two-volume book Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity, which argues that Jung was not merely a scientist but a prophet akin to Jesus, Muhammad, and Mani. Kingsley claims Jung deliberately hid the mystical, religious nature of his work behind scientific language, and that orthodox Jungians do him a disservice by denying it. Mishlove explores Kingsley's warning that Western civilization is doomed for losing touch with the source of consciousness, and shares a personal moment of insight about self-initiation.
The Body, the Subtle Body, and the Psyche with Erica Lorentz
New Thinking AllowedAug 10, 2026
Jungian analyst Erica Lorentz joins Jeffrey Mishlove to argue that Western culture has turned the body into a 'shadow', a neglected and distrusted part of ourselves, and that Carl Jung's methods offer a way back into embodied healing. She describes how Authentic Movement, a Jungian form of free association through the body, helped cure her chronic headaches through a sudden kundalini-like energy release. The conversation ranges into the 'subtle body', the imaginal realm of the Sufis, a client who believes she communicates with her cancer, levitating mystics, and the possibility that we survive death in a subtle body.