Subscribe to Newsletter

 


Head of Eye Floaters News

"Holistic Vision"
The latest News from www.eye-floaters.info
September 2009 (3/09)


 

Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

Dots and strands in our field of vision: Vitreous opacity or light of consciousness?

This is the latest issue of "Holistic Vision". I am Floco Tausin, author, consciousness researcher, and initiator of this spiritual project. The focus of "Holistic Vision" lies on entoptic phenomena, mainly on so-called eye floaters (in ophthalmology known as vitreous floaters or by the French term mouches volantes, see pictures).We see these as easily floating dots and strands in our field of vision. The close observation indicates that there is a correspondence between altered states of consciousness and specific appearances of floaters. Thus, the novel and provocative main thesis of this project is: eye floaters are the first appearances of a shining structure of consciousness within which we cover a distance to our spiritual origin. We can see and experience this way. As an object of concentration and meditation, these dots and strands are therefore a significant key to our consciousness development.

Read further …

 

Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

News Content


1) Lead Story: Awakening the Inner Sense

2) Reader’s Hints, Experiences, and Pictures: E-Mail from David
3) Nestors knowledge on eye floaters: The basic structure of the picture
4) Quarterly Picture: Spiritual-Religious Art from Giovanni di Paolo
5) About the Author’s Projects: Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters 2; Publications by Floco Tausin
6 ) Last but not Least: Reader’s comments on the Holistic Vision Project

 

Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

Lead Story


Awakening the Inner Sense. Some Methods and Meditation Objects

What is the inner sense and how do we develop it? This article deals with open eye meditation that imply the concentration on both, material and subtle objects. As subtle objects, I present some entoptic phenomena and provide a short introduction on using them in our daily meditation.


Part 1/2: The inner sense and the material meditation objects

What we know as our weekday is a tide of miscellaneous information which we receive with our five senses and put together to an integral picture in the brain. The sense organs are the gates of our body – they connect the outside world with the inner world and determine, dependent on our state of consciousness, how we experience this world.

But is there more to human sense activity than touching, seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting? There is, according to many cultures and religions where we find the notion of an inner sense. This sense is thought of as a mode of perception which directly and intuitively gives insight to the essence or true nature of the object perceived. Often this subtle or inner sense is linked to the eye as a widespread symbol of light, cognition and truth. It is then addressed as the “inner eye”, “third eye” or “eye of the heart”, common among mystics who experienced the divine light. In Indian mythology, for example, this inner sense is expressed as god Shiva’s frontal eye that gives him unifying vision. Accordingly, tantric yogis try to open this third eye by activating the “Ajna Chakra”, located between the eyebrows. Likewise, the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama received enlightenment through a “celestial eye” (prajnacaksus) which permitted him to understand the forces of existence and their manifestation in the chain of causality. The Greek philosophers spoke of an “Eye of the Spirit” which has to be opened and purified to see the truth. While the Old Testament calls the prophets “seers” and refers to an all-seeing eye or “Eye of Providence” that turns to those who fear God and gives them superior insights or strength, the New Testament takes up the Greek philosopher’s notion of the “Eye of the Soul or Heart”: the eye becomes the object of purity (Matthew, 6.22), and the Eye of the Heart has to be opened in order to see God (Acts 9.18). Over the centuries, Desert Fathers, Gnostics, and Mystics alike further reported experiences of the inner sense as inner eye or eye of the heart or soul. Since the early modern period, Western esoterics and scientists interested in unifying the scientific and spiritual traditions are trying to find a physiological correspondence of this inner sense. In recent years, for example, the inner sense was associated with the pineal gland, based on scientific insights about the light sensitivity of this gland.

 

The Eye of Providence at the Aachen Cathedral, Germany.

The Eye of Providence at the Aachen Cathedral, Germany.

The relation between perception, soul and pineal gland after René Descartes (1596-1650).

The relation between perception, soul and pineal gland after René Descartes (1596-1650).

 

Meditation for the development of the inner sense

Developing our inner sense, therefore, is a way to improve our spiritual life. In fact, many of us are doing this already, more or less consciously. For example, while meditating, many have come to experience subjective visual appearances, ecstatic feelings or intuitive insights – first aspects of an inner sense waking up. But if we want to develop that inner sense to its full bloom, years and decades of constant exercise are necessary. In any case, awakening the inner sense means choosing a meditation method which works directly with the inner sense or with its objects and function. Generally, meditation can be carried out on material objects which stimulate the inner sense; or on subtle objects which can be conceived of as objects of this inner sense.


Material meditation objects

Material meditation objects are perceived through the eyes, not through the inner sense, but concentrating on them can stimulate the inner sense and lead to subtle appearances. Meditation on material objects should support the inner sense or third eye in its function to mediate between the two brain or consciousness hemispheres. It should make aware to us our right intuitive emotional side as well as our left analytical rational side, bringing them into harmony with each other. This turns out best by means of squinting techniques which have been developed likewise in Western and Eastern traditions. Two different types of squinting must be distinguished here, though: the letting go of the eyes (parallel viewing) in which the concentration point shifts behind the object looked at, and the concentrative directing inside the eyes (cross viewing) in which the concentration point is drawn in front of the object looked at, in the direction of the observer. To distinguish these two types, we call the second type “doubling”. Doubling is the type of squinting ideal for meditation.

The simplest exercise of doubling is looking at the root of the nose, according to the way of Indian yogis. However, doubling can also be applied to distant material objects. Anthropologist and author Carlos Castaneda, for example, mentions a seeing technology called “gazing” which at first means to focus the view on an object, similar to the yogi’s cleaning exercise “trataka”. Sometimes, though, it is combined with squinting in which the practitioner moves apart the two pictures and thus superimposes two equally formed objects. The concentration on this superimposed object synchronizes the two consciousness hemispheres and, regularly practiced, produces a depth perception which carries the practitioner into other spheres of consciousness.
Another example of this form of meditation is the meditation on the “Tables of Chartres”. The tables are three legendary geometric figures of equal surface area, made from red and blue colored metal pieces shaped as rectangle, square, and circle. They are put down before oneself in two rows of alternating color and shape and doubled until a superimposed third table group appears in the middle. The knowledge around this old meditation type was maintained and passed on by gypsies and published by the French author Pierre Derlon for the first time.

 

The Tables of Chartres.

The Tables of Chartres.

 

to be continued...

 


Source and Literature(both parts):

Literature

  • Bókkon, István: Phosphene phenomenon: A new concept, in: BioSystems 92 (2008): 168-174
  • Chen, Spencer C. u.a.: Simulating prosthetic vision: I. Visual models of phosphenes, in: Vision Research, vol. 49, nr. 12, June 2009, p. 1493-1506
  • Castaneda, Carlos: Voyage to Ixtlan, 1972
  • Castaneda, Carlos: The Second Ring of Power, 1977
  • Derlon, Pierre: Die Gärten der Einweihung. Sphinx Verlag, Basel 1978
  • Lewis-Williams, J. D. / Dowson, T. A.: The Signs of All Times, in: Current Anthropology, vol. 29, nr. 2, April 1988
  • Meslin, Michel: Eye, in: Eliade, Mircea (Ed.): The Encyclopaedia of Religion (2nd ed.), 2005, p. 2.939-2.941
  • Pennington, George: Die Tafeln von Chartres. Die gnostische Schau des Westens, Patmos 2002
  • Sinclair, S.H., M. Azar-Cavanaugh, K.A. Soper, R.F. Tuma, and H.N. Mayrovitz. "Investigation of the source of the blue field entoptic phenomenon." Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 4 (1989): 668-673.
  • Tausin, Floco: Mouches Volantes. Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness, Bern: Leuchtstruktur Verlag 2009
  • Tausin, Floco: Kokons und Fasern – Leuchtkugeln und Leuchtfäden. Mouches volantes als Inspirationsquelle für Carlos Castaneda?, in : AHA Magazin 5/2006
  • Trick, Gary L.; Kronenberg, Alaina: Entoptic Imagery and Afterimages, in: Tasman, William; Jaeger, Edward A. (Ed.): Duane’s Ophthalmology, Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2007 [electronic edition]

 

Inner sense – inner eye

Third eye and pineal gland

Inner sense or open eye meditation

Two kinds of squinting: cross viewing and parallel viewing

Afterimages

Phosphenes

Eye Floaters

Blue field entoptic phenomenon


Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

Reader’s Hints, Experiences, and Pictures


E-mail from David

The following question was asked by reader David.


„What do you think of the bates book, ‘better eyesight without glasses’ opinion on floaters? It is a covert spiritual guide masked as an eyesight improvement book in my experience. A different view on floaters for sure.“

 

Dear David,
I appreciate the ophthalmologist William Horatio Bates’ alternative approach to good eyesight very much – and I indeed think the Bates Method has spiritual significance since it integrates psychological aspects. With regard to eye floaters however, Bates is ambivalent: on the one hand, he judges them as something „bad“, that is, an illusionary non-existent object, produced by mental and eye strain. If we leave it at that, I can’t agree. To me, something I can perceive is perfectly existent.

On the other hand, this opens up a possibility in line with my thinking: if floaters are caused by eye and mental strain – and if we think of the positive aspects of „strain“ –, then they also may be generated by concentration exercises like meditation or yoga. Doing such practices, we voluntarily and consciously develop strain of mind and body which, in my experience, will intensify eye floaters. In that case, floaters would become something „good“ or even spiritually valuable.

 

Better Eyesight - The Complete Magazines of William H. Bates.

Better Eyesight - The Complete Magazines of William H. Bates. (source).

 

However, this doesn’t seem to be the case with Bates. And since Bates is the father of many of today’s alternative or holistic visual schools, this doesn’t seem to be the case with these schools either. Generally, they adopt the traditional notion of floaters as a visual dysfunction. But like Bates, they don’t explain them in naturalistic optical terms, but in psychological or even spiritual terms. As a consequence, alternative visual teachers try to cure floaters with gentle, non-invasive methods like relaxation strategies, a cleansing eating regimen, meditation (!!) etc. – but in their view, this phenomenon is still something to be cured.

So yes, there’s been some recent progress in the Western reception history of floaters, but, IMHO, no breakthrough yet. And I don’t dare say we’re halfway, because that would mean another 2.000 years of bobbing up and down


Floco

 

Thank You, David, for your report!Smile

Dear readers, do you have personal experiences with eye floaters or other entoptic phenomena? Or any suggestions what they could be? Send your hints, experiences and/or pictures to me, I am very interested.

Email: floco.tausin@eye-floaters.info mail me

 

Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

Nestors knowledge on eye floaters


The basic structure of the picture

Eye floaters and their meaning were interpreted differently depending on the time, culture and personality of the observer. We learn a spiritually meaningful perspective about floaters from Nestor, the seer, with whom I have studied and whose teachings I recorded in the book „Mouches volantes – Eye Floaters. The Shining Structure of Consciousness“. In this new category, a particular statement from the book on floaters shall be presented and explained.

"
I told Nestor about my perceptions and didn’t make a secret of my concerns, either. He calmed me down with his usual compelling persua¬siveness and confirmed that he knew quite a bit about the phenomenon, adding that he saw it every day, for years already.
»And what are you doing against it?« I asked.
»Do against it?«
»Yes. Aren’t you disturbed by these things floating in your field of vision?«
Nestor scratched his head; obviously he couldn’t follow me. »How could they disturb me? After all, I want to see them.«
»So then these opacities are part of the perfect restoration,« I as¬sumed.
»They are the key to the perfect restoration,« he corrected me. »You should practice looking at them consciously and deliberately, just like you do with the afterimages.« Nestor went into the kitchen and put a pot with water for some tea on the stove.
»I’m not sure. To me, it feels as if I add to them by looking at them.«
»Yes, more of these dots and strands become visible the more often you concentrate on them,« Nestor confirmed. Obviously this notion didn’t have anything alarming to him, quite the contrary: interpreting his tone of voice, I concluded that he considered it desirable and worth¬while to make them visible and proliferate.
»But I don’t want them to proliferate,« I defended myself. »I just want to get rid of them: they’re reducing my eyesight, they’re distracting me from perceiving the world around me – perhaps they eventually even make me lose my eyesight.«
Nestor knitted his eyebrows and negated my concerns in a way that it seemed I had said something silly. He replied that the dots and strands did not deprive anyone of his eyesight at all.
»They are the basic structure of the picture,« he knew. »That which remains when your small world has completely dissolved in the picture.«
»You call these eye opacities the basic structure of the picture?« I called out, stunned about his naivety.
»They’re not opacities in the eyes,« he countered. »They’re dots and strands lighting up. But at this time you’re still too far away from per¬ceiving the light inside of them. At some point you’ll be able, though, to see it.«

"

From: Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Shining Structure of Consciousness, p. 176 et seq.

From: Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Shining Structure of Consciousness, p. 176 et seq. (Source)

 

In one of our first conversations on floaters, Nestor already held a distinct and seemingly irrational view of these dots and strands. This interpretation lets him act in a way which is in stark conflict with the behavior of most other people. When people start to deal with their floaters, is is often because they want to get rid of them. Nestor on the contrary wants to see them. For him, they are the „basic structure of the picture“, something like a „higher reality“ which can be directly seen. Thus, eye floaters are holding the „picture“ (our sensorially experienceable world) together in the innermost part. Here, Nestor already mentions a central point of his teachings: eye floaters can’t be recognized as „higher reality“ without effort, it needs a visual change. That change takes place along with the „perfect restoration“ (consciousness development) and contains several aspects: the number of eye floaters will increase, as does their luminosity. In addition: this development needs time …

 

Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

Quarterly Picture


Giovanni di Paolo

The category "Quarterly Picture" introduces realistic, artistic, and/or spiritual/religious representations from different cultures and times which could show entoptic phenomena, or be inspired by it. In this issue: Spiritual-Religious Art from Giovanni di Paolo.

 

Giovanni di Paolo: Expulsion from Paradise, 1445, wood, 45 x 52 cm.

Giovanni di Paolo: Expulsion from Paradise, 1445, wood, 45 x 52 cm.

 

In former times, everything was better – that’s what everybody knows. Former times even were paradisiacal, that’s what the Bible knows – and it could still be so today, if Adam and Eve had chosen their meals with a little more respect for the generations to come. Apparently, this was not „in“ back then either, and that’s why we have to carry the can for that faux pas by the sweat of our brow. No wonder, generations of artists tried to grasp that incomprehensibility through depicting, as did the Italian painter Giovanni di Paolo (1403 (?)-1482). His works, stylistically between Gothic and Renaissance, are considered mysterious and visionary. At least, this applies to the scene in „Expulsion from Paradise“: our ancestors have been caught red-handed and banished to the rock desert opening up in the middle of a polycyclic concentric circle. Now, a legion of theologians and historians will make clear that this circle represents the medieval geocentric world view: the Earth in the center, orbited by the sun, the moon, the five planets, the fixed stars, the „prime mover“, and the highest heaven, the empyrean. Visually, however, this nine-spherical „disc world“ has an effect of depth, and it is conceivable that the artist considered it a tunnel which connects our world with Paradise, and which, if found, will lead back there. Anyway, Nestor sees such connections in the floating dots and strands. He speaks of a „source“, a tunnel-like array of spheres in this shining structure, which we may find and enter in our lifetime. What expects us at the other end of the tunnel is uncertain, though, figured and described differently by each religion.

 

You will find this and other pictures in the gallery. Do you have drawings of eye floaters or other entoptic phenomena (flying corpuscles, afterimages etc.)? Do you know of realistic, artistic, and religious representations of such appearances? Then send me the picture or give me the tip; I would like to publish it in the newsletter and/or in the gallery.

 

Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

„Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Nine Lights“

„Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Nine Lights“ (Source)

 

About the Author’s Projects

 

- Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters 2: second book project started

- Publications by Floco Tausin


 

Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters 2: second book project started

The At the beginning of May, the second book project of Floco Tausin started. „Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Nine Lights“ – the anticipated title – picks up the thread of the predecessor. The central subject will be the „principle of the basic structure“ which was mentioned, but not explained, by Nestor in the first book. It turns out that this principle is a constellation of spheres which reveals itself to the seer in intensive consciousness states as a universal principle of being. Guided by the seers, Floco is trying to find that constellation of spheres in the left side of consciousness.

After the failed jump into the left side, Floco continues his efforts to overcome the „Bridge“ – in the basic structure as well as on Mari Egli’s secretaire which he tries to restorate „perfectly“. This time, he’s not the only one trying hard to reach that goal: Floco makes acquaintance with further students who look for the same basic constellation of spheres and, thus, for an answer to the existential questions of life. Everyone of these students has got an individual approach to cross the Bridge in the shinings structure – Floco is searching for the universal principle in the cultural and intellectual heritage of mankind. But the students recognize more and more that their further progress on the path in the basic structure is dependent on their acting together. The seers share their mystic and mysterious warmth and wisdom in many unconventional conversations and exceptional acts with the students and, thus, show them the way …

The date of the publication is not determined yet. The writing ideally will be completed within the next three years. But as always it means: the book will be published as soon as it’s done AND mature.

 


 

Publications by Floco Tausin

Find a complete list with all previous publications (monographs, anthologies, journals) on Website.


Medizin und Religion. Die spirituelle Dimension der Migräne-Aura (German)

A contribution to the dialogues around the merging of religion and medicine. I’m examining the phenomenon of migraine aura from a spiritual perspective, making it a condition of body and mind which is accessible and changeable through the lived spirituality.

Published:
- Extremnews (Part 1)
- Extremnews (Part 2)

 

Stripline  in  the Eye Floaters News

Last but not Least


Reader’s comments on the Holistic Vision Project

„Jesus, what are you smoking!?“

-- Anonymous

 

Imprint of the Eye Floaters News

I would like to remove the quarterly appearing newsletter "Holistic Vision"

 


Further Holistic Vision News: Archive