Cynthia Bourgeault

Cynthia Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader. She is the original creator of the Wisdom School and has been organizing and teaching schools since 1999. Founding director of the British Columbia-based Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School, she has now returned home to the East Coast to divide her time between Wisdom teaching, writing, and solitude at her small hermitage on Eagle Island in Maine. To find out what Cynthia's up to, you can view her master teaching calendar.

A Wisdom Reading List

Cynthia Bourgeault | July 20, 2021

There are rich currents flowing through the Wisdom stream, so it’s hard to offer a “one size fits all” reading list. Some people will be more drawn to the esoteric […]

Evolutionary Theory and the Common Good: The Beginnings of a Wisdom Inquiry

Cynthia Bourgeault | June 27, 2021

One of the more surprising revelations to grow out of our winter’s pilot “Civics for Wisdom Students” project has been the growing realization that while our Constitution pays lips service […]

Enstasy: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson XIV

Cynthia Bourgeault | May 23, 2021

The term “ecstasy” comes from the Greek ec-stasis, “standing outside of oneself.” Its opposite is “ENSTASY,” a term I first encountered in Valentin Tomberg’s profound discussion of the subject in Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 309-311). It means centering in oneself: becoming fiercely, alertly coiled within one’s own “I Am” presence, such that one becomes a center of gravitation in one’s own right.

Go Beyond the Mind: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson XIII

Cynthia Bourgeault | May 18, 2021

When I say that the ability to access and sustain the Integral structure of consciousness is developmental, I mean just that: it is fundamentally a question of physiology, rather than of moral virtue or mystical yearning. We cannot think, pray, meditate, or conceptualize our way to it. It is fundamentally a matter of preparing the entire body to receive it. To e

Following the Path Laid Down for Me – A Letter from Cynthia

Cynthia Bourgeault | May 1, 2021

Dear wisdom friends, By now the word is out that I am officially stepping back from active duty as a core faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation. […]

Further to Time: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson XII

Cynthia Bourgeault | March 2, 2021

There are two other things you should know about Gebser’s “aperspectival” time: it is non-exclusionary, and it is purposive. Linear or perspectival time, the time we’re used to, is exclusionary. Its linear, unidirectional […]

The Faces of Time: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson XI

Cynthia Bourgeault | February 25, 2021

Whatever you may take Gebser’s Integral structure of consciousness to be, its most striking characteristic is that it entails a radically different approach to time. Time presents in a strikingly […]

Afterword to Lesson X: Jean Gebser

Cynthia Bourgeault | February 9, 2021

In Beelzebub’s Tales, in the chapter on Beelzebub’s Fourth Sojourn on the Planet Earth, Gurdjieff describes the founding of the original Wisdom School in Atlantis, under the inspired conscience of Belcultassi. […]

The Horse, The Carriage, and the Driver: A Gurdjieffian Slant on a Gebserian Conundrum, Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson X

Cynthia Bourgeault | February 9, 2021

In my last post I invited us all to begin thinking more specifically in terms of the gifts and strengths contributed to the whole by the magic and mythic structures […]

Online Options to Study with Cynthia Bourgeault: Available Now!

Cynthia Bourgeault | February 7, 2021

It occurred to me that people may want a little guidance as to how to pick and choose among the sudden embarrassment of riches of Cynthia Bourgeault online course options […]