Aaron Cheak
University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles
Dr. Cheak studied classical Sanskrit, German, Greek, religious studies, philosophy and classics at the University of Queensland. His research interests encompass the phenomenology of consciousness, nondual currents in eastern and western philosophy, and the traditional hieratic sciences (magic, theurgy, alchemy, tantra). For the past seven years, Cheak’s research has concentrated on the deep interstices between integral and hermetic philosophy, focusing on the lives and works of two of the twentieth-century’s most neglected phenomenologists of consciousness: French Ägyptosoph, René Schwaller de Lubicz, and German Kulturphilosoph, Jean Gebser. Despite a strong academic background, Cheak believes (with Suhrawardi) that philosophy must go hand in hand with higher modes of experiential apperception, and in this respect he is devoted to the cultivation of nondualistic epistemologies within the academy. Cheak has also been trained in the preparation of spagyric elixirs at the Paracelsus College in Victoria, and is currently undertaking training within the Nyingma and Kagyu lineages of Vajrayana Buddhism. He presently resides on the eastern coast of Australia, where he maintains an active interest in tea, wine, poetry, typography and alchemy. He has appeared in Khthonios (2003), Thunderbolt (2003-4), Journal for the Academic Study of Magic (2004), Occult Traditions (2012), Alchemical Traditions (2013), Heretic (2014), and Clavis (2014).