“Practical Mysticism: strategies for experiencing the sacred in everyday life, based on the perennial philosophy.”
Asher Walden is the founder and director of the Empyrean Project, an organization dedicated to promoting Sacred Psychology and its principle tool, the Empyrean deck. Sacred Psychology is a new approach within the counseling philosophy movement that helps us make sense of our lives by consciously connecting our desires, plans, and relationships to the different aspects of the soul where they are grounded. The Empyrean Deck is a set of images/ideas that highlight the process by which the inner logic of our psyche is manifested in conscious wants and interpretations. Sacred Psychology is not just coaching or problem solving: its a way to experience for ourselves the sacred energies that rise up through the unconscious into the decisions we make and the world we encounter as a result.
Dr. Walden has studied and published articles on Christian theology, East Asian philosophy, and the philosophy of psychedelic experience. He devoted several years to intensive meditation practice as a Zen Buddhist monk before returning to school to finish his doctorate. He now focuses on promoting the Empyrean Deck and using the deck in his counseling philosophy practice.
