Stand by for magical moments and happenings in Tokyo's Ogikubo next Sunday. All manner of wizards, occultists and sages -- barring Harry Potter, who is otherwise engaged -- are coming to town for Japan's first International Symposium of Western Inner Traditions. According to the Tokyo-based organizer, Inward Bound (an event management company promoting well-being and personal development), the symposium will launch "the most interesting journey of your life!"
Thinking people are tired of dogmatic religion. They no longer accept truth based on faith or science alone, but seek answers to life's mysteries -- why are we here, what is the purpose of existence -- and a personal and practical approach to spirituality. In response, exponents of ancient Western inner traditions will gather publicly to explain esoteric theories and practices passed on verbally from teacher to student over thousands of years.
As quantum physicist Fred Alan Wolf is quoted as saying on the symposium's flier, "As smart as we are in the modern world, we apparently can never pass behind the veil which divides the seen from the unseen, except by engaging ourselves in the way appointed by the Ancients -- the Mysteries."