About Frank Echenhofer.
Throughout my life, I have deeply engaged with internal explorations of spirit and soul, and my external work as a consciousness researcher and professor was a natural extension of this primary focus. While I have investigated consciousness through extensive study across spiritual and philosophical systems, and through doing hands-on research in India with the Dalai Lama’s monks as well as with shamans and seekers in the jungles of Brazil and Peru, all of my external work has been in service of a greater internal aspiration: to discover what would lead to awakening for myself and for others.
What really got me started in my current work was a very early experience. I had a difficult childhood and nature became my teacher. In natural settings, I had profound experiences of oneness that became my way of calming myself — my way of surviving. Those experiences stayed with me until I went to school. They dissipated, then reemerged when I went to university and started studying psychology. Later, these childhood experiences were very similar to what I experienced taking LSD for the first time, which I followed with spiritual practice. Ever since then, I’ve been committed to finding ways of healing for myself and others combining these strands of psychedelics, the best of psychology, and the best of spiritual practice.
I received a doctorate in psychology from Temple University, trained in neuroscience and then did research in India with the Dalai Lama’s guidance studying advanced meditators. I studied Tibetan Buddhism intensively, and was a founding member of a Tibetan Buddhist center in Philadelphia with my Lama, Losang Samten. I also studied and practiced Sufism for 12 years. For more than 20 years, I was a professor of clinical psychology in the PsyD program at the California Institute for Integral Studies, and now am professor emeritis. I have done both neuroscience and qualitative research in Brazil and Peru, examining the benefits of ayahuasca, as well as research in Peru on the San Pedro cactus, investigating and developing an approach to healing centered around love, trust, non-judgment, relaxation and play that honors the individuality of each person.
The individual mentoring sessions I offer are the form that now seems best suited for me to share what I’ve learned in both my internal and external explorations. Rather than teaching in an academic setting the knowledge I’ve acquired, in these sessions I share what I’ve come to understand and integrate about spiritual work in the hopes that this can help others in a practical way as they open to their unique spiritual path. I also periodically offer public talks and workshops. You can find my current offerings on the events page, and can also sign up for my mailing list to be informed when new events are scheduled.
What really got me started in my current work was a very early experience. I had a difficult childhood and nature became my teacher. In natural settings, I had profound experiences of oneness that became my way of calming myself — my way of surviving. Those experiences stayed with me until I went to school. They dissipated, then reemerged when I went to university and started studying psychology. Later, these childhood experiences were very similar to what I experienced taking LSD for the first time, which I followed with spiritual practice. Ever since then, I’ve been committed to finding ways of healing for myself and others combining these strands of psychedelics, the best of psychology, and the best of spiritual practice.
I received a doctorate in psychology from Temple University, trained in neuroscience and then did research in India with the Dalai Lama’s guidance studying advanced meditators. I studied Tibetan Buddhism intensively, and was a founding member of a Tibetan Buddhist center in Philadelphia with my Lama, Losang Samten. I also studied and practiced Sufism for 12 years. For more than 20 years, I was a professor of clinical psychology in the PsyD program at the California Institute for Integral Studies, and now am professor emeritis. I have done both neuroscience and qualitative research in Brazil and Peru, examining the benefits of ayahuasca, as well as research in Peru on the San Pedro cactus, investigating and developing an approach to healing centered around love, trust, non-judgment, relaxation and play that honors the individuality of each person.
The individual mentoring sessions I offer are the form that now seems best suited for me to share what I’ve learned in both my internal and external explorations. Rather than teaching in an academic setting the knowledge I’ve acquired, in these sessions I share what I’ve come to understand and integrate about spiritual work in the hopes that this can help others in a practical way as they open to their unique spiritual path. I also periodically offer public talks and workshops. You can find my current offerings on the events page, and can also sign up for my mailing list to be informed when new events are scheduled.