About Dr. Kirk Templeton

PhD Philosophy and Religion, Asian and Comparative Studies (California Institute of Integral Studies)

MA Philosophy, Concentration in Islamic Philosophy ((San Francisco State University)

BA Philosophy/Computer Science (Sonoma State University)

We are staring into the Abyss. Increasingly, our scientists are telling us that the extinction of the human species on this planet is a real possibility.

I do not know what will be sufficient to surmount this crisis – no one does – but I do know what is necessary: that each of us do the very best she can to be the very best she can be. For, as Nietzsche reminds us, if we are staring into the Abyss, it is also staring back into us.

As for me, mere survival is not good enough. I intend to use the planetary crisis as a means and opportunity to re-enchant the world.

I was born in Pennsylvania but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area after the death of my father in 1966. That put me at the epicenter of the 1960’s counterculture at age 17. Like many of my generation I was deeply transformed by what I learned and experienced at that time.

In 1972 I dedicated my life to serving humanity in surmounting the planetary crisis which even then I recognized was already upon us. I set for myself a program of integrated development of body, mind, soul and spirit.

For physical training, I chose the martial arts traditions of East Asia: the Chen style of Taiji quan and traditional Japanese swordsmanship.

For the arts, I became a drummer in the Raqs al-Sharqi style – classical Egyptian Bellydance.

For the world of the mind, there was philosophy and logic, computer science, history and literature, myth and the imaginal.

I began with Islamic philosophy and the Arabic influence on the early western esoteric tradition in Medieval Europe.

From thence, I moved on to study the Persian illuminationist tradition of Suhrawardī: the Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq.

“Tantra” is a western term that properly refers to an evanescence that occurred in Central and South Asia in the middle of the first millennium of the Common Era. It is best thought of as inner science rather than religion or spirituality.

Tantra is a form of Primordial Wisdom, the result of human beings coming to recognize the Great Mystery that lies at the heart of our own being.

Primordial Wisdom takes a multitude of forms at different times and places. I have chosen tantra as my primary instrument for the Great Work of our times because it seems to me to be the most powerful and the most true.

In the words of William Chittick, the pre-eminent western scholar of the sage Ibn Arabi:

“Somewhere along the line, the Western intellectual tradition took a wrong turn….Many important thinkers have concluded that the West never should have abandoned certain teachings about reality which it shared with the East. They have turned to the Oriental traditions in the hope of finding resources which may help revive what has been lost and correct the deep psychic and spiritual imbalances in our civilization.”

That is the task. It is to investigate, appropriate, assimilate and integrate Primordial Wisdom into our culture as a means to be open to possibilities that will allow us to surmount the crisis in which we find ourselves. 

To this end, I am creating space around myself for the formation of a collegium or sampradaya – a community of learning.

The purpose of the community will be to use Primordial Wisdom to empower, instruct and initiate future leaders in the four areas that have been the primary foci of my own praxis:

  • Sustainable Economics

  • Integrated Science and Spirituality

  • Enlightened Warriorship

  • Performing Arts: Dance, Drama and Music.

My role is the one appropriate to my time of life: to teach the teachers, counsel the counselors, advise the advisors; to convey the knowledge I have assembled and integrated over fifty years of dedicated study and practice to the younger generations who must face and surmount the planetary crisis directly in the coming decades of this century.

For questions or inquiries, please feel free to contact me at kirktempletonbooks@gmail.com

Finding the western academy inadequate to meet the crisis, I joined the alternative education movement. Since there was little money in restoring the planet to health and balance and bills had to be paid, I made my living in a wide variety of occupations, from ranch hand and horse wrangler to systems analyst at Bank of America.

Finally in the mid-80’s I cut myself loose from the business world to establish my own school of integral studies, Wind Mountain Institute, on a horse ranch in Sonoma County.

I was unsuccessful in finding the patronage necessary to make the school financially viable and it ceased operations in 1993. I cast about for the next step and eventually returned to graduate school.

I had been deeply interested in middle eastern culture since the “golden age” of the San Francisco belly dance scene in the 70’s and 80’s. This led me to begin the intellectual and spiritual “journey to the east” that defined the trajectory of my graduate research.

This brought me to Northwest India and the great tantric systems of Kashmir Shaivism and the Tripuravidyā, and other Śākta systems in which the Goddess predominates. This was not merely an intellectual journey but was informed throughout by an ongoing regime of practice, culminating in śaktisvadīkṣā in 2013.