Ted Esser, PhD has an MA in Philosophy & Religion (from the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness Program) and a PhD in East-West Psychology (with a Concentration in Consciousness Studies) from the California Institute of Integral Studies. A summary of his doctoral research, Lucid Dreaming, Kundalini, the Divine, and Nonduality: A Transpersonal Narrative Study appears in the book Lucid Dreaming: New Perspectives to Consciousness in Sleep (2014) published by Praeger. He is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies. He has taught graduate-level Consciousness Studies and Transpersonal Psychology courses in California for the last seven years. His areas of academic specialization include: Psychology: Transpersonal & Integral Theory, Dream Theory, Psychology of Religion, Spiritual Crisis, and Consciousness Studies; Religious Studies: New Religious Movements, Religious & Secular Mysticism and Esotericism. He was on the Board of Directors for the Grof Foundation and was the operations manager of the Spiritual Emergence Network for the over ten years and helped found the International Spiritual Emergence Network.
Ted has had training and experience in several spiritual traditions including the completion of a 6-year lay version of the traditional 3-year retreat in the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu & Shangpa lineages with Lama Palden Drolma. He has a special interest in the place where secular mysticism and esoteric and transpersonal philosophy syncretically meet in a globalized context—an example of which can be found at The Monroe Institute where he has done several retreats. He lives in Marin County, California, where he has had a spiritual counseling practice for the last 15 years.
