As a single mother of two little boys, most of my journeys these days don’t take me far from home. That’s why when the opportunity arose to attend the Science and Non-Duality (SAND) Conference in San Jose in mid-October, I didn’t hesitate.

Upon arrival, the amount of information and choices presented was intense. SAND calls forth some of the most forward thinking scientists, philosophers and spiritualists spouting their wisdom to an incredibly open and equally sophisticated audience.

Frankly, I didn’t know where to land. But Spirit had my back that day and plopped me right in the heart of the Mother Mantra Tradition in a workshop entitled “As Weak As A Man, As Tranquil As A God” facilitated by Selene Calloni Williams. 

Needing a break from the often brilliant and lofty lectures on Quantum Mechanics and the Human Cosmos, I felt some visceral play was necessary to ground my energy. I entered a small room reserved for ‘experiential’ sessions. There sat Selene, a small vibrant woman perched meditation style in and oversized office chair. Her effervescent energy filled every corner of the room.

“What does it mean to ‘see’ Gods? How to open the eye able to ‘see’ the invisible?”

She spoke in a heavy Swiss accent sometimes fumbling words and tense, but she radiated her message quite clearly and beautifully nevertheless: the mind keeps us in fear and where there is fear peace cannot exist.

“Love is the answer,” she whispered, “to overcoming any and all subconscious programming.” We’ve heard it before from the Beatles to Lenny Kravitz, but Selene led us through a spiritual breathing exercise of the Mother Mantra tradition that made it palpable, tangible even if for a moment.

“Nature is Soul”

Through her work in the lineage of the great psychoanalyst and philosopher James Hillman, and CG Jung, Selene Calloni Williams proposed we must dissolve the barriers of the mind to understand the complexity of the universe versus perpetuate reductionist thinking. She referred to this as Shamanic Tantric Yoga and it presents a way of experiencing the world where the invisible becomes visible and the many become one.

Everything in nature is made of two aspects: the visible and invisible one.

“Everything in nature has its own spirit: a tree and the tree’s spirit, a mountain and the mountain’s spirit, people and their daimons, their guide spirits.”

Selene Calloni Williams also initiated the “Simbolimmaginale Method” or the “imaginal” approach, characterized as “not part of the ego.” It follows the path of “doing soul”, represented by the ability to de-materialize and de-personalize the real.

Selene asserts that shamanism, yoga, tantric Buddhism, Christian Gnosticism, the Kabbalah, Sufism, the esoteric religions are all founded on the same key and procedures: the “reabsorption of reality”, which is sometimes defined as the “withdrawal of projections.”

According to Selene, the process of withdrawing of projections is Considered “the means” to a free and fulfilled life.

It involves deconstructing oneself, in order to tap into this extremely simple and natural means. And as so many of us experience, society and the institutions are in opposition to this path.

She feels that the Mother Mantra is the best tradition to guide you there, which  in its purest and most original form, has no superstructures. It has has apparently traveled the routes of shamanic-tantric yoga and alchemy for many centuries now, both in the East and West.

What is the Mother Mantra?

To explain it in her own words, there are three mantras for reabsorption, which are effective at opening body, mind and heart to the revelation and to an inspired life.

The first of these three Mantras is the properly said Mother Mantra (MM), the second is the Egyptian Mantra, often referred to as EM, and the third is the Mystical Marriage Mantra – MMM for short.

Selene’s World

Selene spent many years in the East where she was initiated into Shamanic Tantric Yoga by her eastern master, Michael Williams. After her immersion in the forest hermitages of Sri Lanka to learn Theravada Buddhist meditation from hermit monks, Selene founded the Nonterapia Institute in Switzerland, which offers a school of counseling and professional specialization for doctors and psychologists.

She has written about Tantric Shamanic Yoga and creates documentaries and television programs with a focus on anthropological themes. She has authored several books including, “The Path of the Soul and Deep Ecology” and “The Scent of the Moon” which chronicles a journey the author took with her son to the shamanic wilds of Siberia, while attempting to reach the burial site of the Princess of Altay, the Siberian Ice Maiden.

The book tells the story of the passionate love which bonds a boy and a girl, an old man and an old woman, tells of eagles and underworlds, describes the “shamanic journey” and the triumph of love over fear and death.

To be in the presence of Selene is to taste the invisible itself. 

For more information on the work of Selene Calloni Williams and her workshops, visit her website.