My encounter with spirituality or consciousness expansion, if you like, began when I started diving into the humanities — especially philosophy. That interest had already been sparked in me at a very early age, honestly already as a young boy. I always felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland — full of wonder, but also bewildered by the world around me.

I just couldn’t understand how the world I lived in, or perceived, seemed to make so much sense to most people. Frankly, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I also couldn’t link my inner, psychic, and mental world to the state and chaos outside of me. That’s why I decided I wanted to understand, see, and feel the world more deeply.

I figured it would be useful to explore both the world of primary drivers — like money — and also the deeper ones — like essence. So I decided to study economics, alongside philosophy. When I had completed both, many years later, I came to the conclusion that I had read a great deal — really, hundreds of books, the great works of humanity, so to speak. But I wasn’t a bit wiser. I had become an armchair scholar, observing the world from the safety of my own personal library cocoon.

The real turning point came when I came into contact with Ayahuasca and other plant-based medicinal vehicles. That path brought me into deeper layers of myself, of humanity, and of the world — and brought me into contact with a larger being, the still elusive truth. It changed my life irreversibly, especially when I combined it with an immersion in Eastern wisdom, particularly Taoism and mysticism — especially Sufism, during a training I followed as a holistic counselor and generative coach.