Home
Site Map
Contacts

Up

 

 

 

 

T'ai Chi & The Arica® School

The connection between Arica and T'ai Chi started early in the 70's when Patrick Watson began teaching T'ai Chi to Aricans. Soon after, Patrick introduced his two teachers, Oscar Ichazo and Cheng Man-Ch'ing. The depth of understanding and friendship between these two masters led to Professor Cheng recommending that his students study with Oscar Ichazo, and later to Oscar Ichazo asking Patrick to found our School based on a unity of mission between the two disciplines.

The Arica work provides many spiritual, emotional, mental and physical tools which promote the development of ones T'ai Chi practice. Teachers in our School are also students of the Arica work, and this affiliation is one of the major strengths that differentiates our School from other schools of T'ai Chi.

A short description of the Arica School is followed by contact information and then training descriptions. The list is not complete, but rather includes the basic trainings often taught by our T'ai Chi School.

The Arica School

The Arica School was founded in 1968 by Oscar Ichazo as a School of Knowledge. This type of school can be found since antiquity from the Greek Schools to the schools of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Sufi traditions. As in all schools of knowledge, the Arica School provides a method of enlightenment, but what makes the Arica School different from the ancient schools is that it provides a contemporary method of enlightenment, which employs biology, psychology, and physics in order to clarify human consciousness with modern knowledge that produces freedom and liberation.

The knowledge that the Arica School teaches, which is called the protoanalytical theory, system, and method, was originated by Oscar Ichazo. Protoanalysis is the analysis of the complete human being, which starts from the lowest aspects of the human process and progresses systematically to the higher states of consciousness, where enlightenment can be attained. The Arica School provides a clearly defined map of the human psyche in order for each person to discover the basis of their ego process and to transcend this process into a higher state of consciousness that is found in each of us. This state of being is our True Essential Self, which is experienced as an internal state of great happiness, Light, and liberation.

The Arica School presents nine different levels of trainings and practices that clarify step-by-step the human process we all share, while at the same time introducing knowledge to guide us into the higher states where dwells our True Essential Self. Each level clearly defines, analyzes, and processes the psychological aspects of the human psyche or ego by which we gain perspective and understanding about ourselves and others. From this perspective, we clarify our own life's experience which produces a state of self-observation and non-attachment. When the mind is stabilized through perspective, understanding, and self-observation, then meditations are employed to transcend our everyday experiences into the higher states of mind, where enlightenment and real freedom can be attained. In summary, we can say that the Arica School is a School of Knowledge that presents a contemporary method for the clarification of the human process into states of enlightenment and true liberation.

Arica Logos  The Arica School
  founded by Oscar Ichazo

Contact Information

For more information about the Arica work or to find a training in your area please contact:

Arica Institute Inc.
PO Box 645
10 Landmark Lane
Kent, CT 06757
Email: information
Tel: 860/927-1006
Fax: 860/927-1007

First Line of the School Group Trainings

Arica Introductory Programsm

The Arica Introductory Program is a one-and-a-half-hour program that gives specific information about the Arica School, Oscar Ichazo, and the Protoanalytical trainings. It includes a thirty-five minute video called "Ego, Mind, and Sudden Enlightenment," in which Oscar lectures on the origin of the ego. The material covered in the program examines the three main questions about the human process, which is attractive to anyone interested in clarifying their life experience. There is a meditation that relates to these questions, as well as time set aside to register for the trainings available or to have questions answered. Free to all attendees.

Arica Daily Routinesm

The basic unit of work of the Arica School is this everyday routine of exercise and meditation, which, when maintained as the groundwork for our spiritual life, provides immediate short-term benefits, becoming an extraordinarily well-tuned practice for achieving mystical transcendence. Divided simply into morning and evening routines, it is very easy to follow, and by continuing regularly, there is an enormous spiritual strength that develops. This practical format directs our life towards the aim of achieving enlightenment for the benefit of all. Thus the Arica Daily Routine provides what is necessary for transforming our daily life energy into alive spiritual energy.

Psychocalisthenics®

A sequence of twenty-three movement and breathing exercises which activates the flow of vital energy through all muscle groups, organs, glands, and tissue. Psychocalisthenics is part of the Arica Daily Routine and some Arica trainings. Psychocalisthenics is easy to learn and can be completed in sixteen minutes. It is taught in a one-day group training.

Arica Day of Unitysm

An experience of the power of meditation, now being performed one day each month as a worldwide tuning with the purpose of promoting the immense and inconceivable strength of Humanity-One, through mystical transcendence. The day includes the highest forms of meditation, as well as the basic experiences of the Arica Daily Routine. Everyone is welcome.

The Octagonsm

An Octagon consists of eight members. It is a social unit that meets regularly to perform a group meditation that offers the energy of the Octagon to serve and benefit an individual, a higher level of being for society, or the unity of humanity in generalized or specific aspects. The practice takes around thirty minutes for the members to perform with a state of great happiness and Oneness as the outcome of the meditation. An Octagon can be formed and practiced regularly by any group of eight members.

Chua Kasm

Chua Ka is a form of deep bodywork, either a self-massage or one given by a masseur, evolving the body to its highest degree of sensitivity and awareness. Our life experiences create networks of muscular tension (pain) that we remember as fears. Working the tissues with precise hand and finger positions and a stick called a ka, we transmit energy (Chi) to the bone, removing the tension. When we release physical tension, we release psychic tension. A one-day self-massage group training. If you are interested in experiencing a Chua Ka massage, practitioner's names are available from Arica Institute.

Vortex Pointssm

The Vortex Points work is a technique for complete muscular relaxation. Pressure on these seventy-two specific body locations rapidly releases tensions in the muscle groups around each point. In addition, the use of this technique stimulates the flow of lymphatic fluid, thus accelerating the elimination of toxins from the body. By increasing the flow of blood, it enhances the vitality of body tissue which affects the entire organism. An easy technique to learn which is presented in a one-day group training.

The Arica Nine Ways of Zhikrsm

To zhikr is to repeat the name of God. In the Arica Zhikr, Toham Kum Rah, the internal mantram of the Divine, is repeated in nine different ways to specific patterns of music, movements, and breathing to produce a state of mystical ecstasy or union with the Divine. The Nine Ways of Zhikr Ritual and training are presented by Arica sponsors worldwide. (A one-day training.)

The Couple for Evolutionsm

The Couple for Evolution Training is a two-day training for couples and singles alike. This theory, though geared towards the couple process, is also invaluable for understanding relationships in general. The training revolves around the Key of the Couple, which includes the Couple of Fulfillment, the Conventional Couple, the Sentimental Couple, the Couple for Evolution and the Essential Couple. Specific enneagrams relate to each aspect of a couple's process, and the Work builds upon the process of these enneagrams until the antidotes to the negative structures open the way into the State of Awareness that unites us with the Divine. The result of the training is to provide an ongoing method for the participant to practice in order to re-enter the State and attain the highest level of an essential, spiritual life-a life where love, happiness and joy abound.

The training includes breathing and movement exercises, direct meditations, an offering, orientation process, Key Group processes, written processes, meditations with a partner, lecture material and examples. There is a booklet provided for each person in the training that is designed for note-taking, processing and referring to the Key of the Couple, enneagrams, lecture material, meditations, offering and meditation information. Because of the information being presented in the booklet, the training can be easily assimilated and processed by newcomers to the Work. Three yantras are used during the training: Hypergnostic, Divine Ideas and Divine Telesmatta.

The Mentations / Deviationssm Training

An Arica® training by Oscar Ichazo
The Mentations/Deviations training presents the twelve Mentations, which are a method of inquiry and investigation into the basic structure of any matter. The Mentations have a systematic correlation with sense organs, the viscera and the limbs, providing questions of analysis for each of the twelve Mentations. This analysis changes our linear thinking pattern into a multi-dimensional pattern capable of analyzing any specific situation completely.

In the Mentations training, we learn to divide and differentiate the body into twelve parts, each of which provides information about reality, producing a harmonic sequence that is basic to the way our mind structures thought. Thought is not the result of just one specialized organ, the brain. For example, it is with our eyes that we perceive form and with our nose that we smell out possibilities. All twelve Mentations are needed to provide a complete thought. The study of the Mentations sensitizes the different parts of our body and trains us to make thorough analyses. Deviations are distorted perceptions of the Mentations that we all have and that give us comically inaccurate information. These Deviations can be identified and clarified.

 

NEW!: Download May 2008 Mentations Brochure

Second Line of the School Group Trainings

Autodiagnosis Trainingsm

The Autodiagnosis Training is a one-day training to discover and analyze your ego in a process of self-diagnosis in order to establish the basis of its formation and manifestation. Autodiagnosis actually means self-diagnosis and the method employs the nine ego Fixations to clarify the specific structures and mechanisms associated with your personal ego pattern. Since you know yourself better than anyone, the work and exercises are designed to support a self-discovery process based on your experience and perspective about your life. The format of the training includes lecture material, self-diagnostic exercises, group processes, and two meditations. There are slides and handouts to support the presentation of the training material. The breaks are approximately every hour, and the schedule is designed to take you and the group from one process to the next in an effortless way that is easy to assimilate. If you are interested in self-knowledge and want to establish and discover the basis of your ego process from your own experience, the Autodiagnosis Training would be essential for your personal analysis and understanding. This training is the foundation for opening the path of self-realization and discovery.

Levels of Consciousness Trainingsm

Oscar Ichazo proposes in the Protoanalytical theory that there are nine lower levels of the human psyche, which are the subjective levels of the lower ego. There are also nine higher levels of the human psyche, which are the objective levels of the realized state of enlightenment. In this one-day training, these levels of consciousness are fully clarified and studied across enneagrammatic analysis, which supports your understanding of the subjective levels of your ego process, as well as the higher levels of your spiritual development and realization. By orienting our process toward transcending the subjectivity of our lower ego, we are able to attain the objective levels of the higher states of consciousness. During this one-day training, different exercises and methods of clarification are employed to recognize the levels of our personal ego pattern and process. For those who have attended the Autodiagnosis Training or the Advanced Fixations and Autodiagnosis Training, this training is the next in the series.

Doors of Compensation Trainingsm

In this one-day training, you will discover how the nine Domains of Consciousness can become imbalanced and dysfunctional from the everyday pressures of life. When this happens in any one of our nine domains, we find we will compensate for this pressure through one or more of the nine doors of compensation. These compensations are easily recognizable across the Arica theory, and when they are understood, they can be reversed and then used responsibly in a balancing and functional way. With this understanding and knowledge about the doors, we have the support in our everyday process to experience a productive and happy life. In this program, specific patterns of enneagrams are employed throughout the training format to enhance our knowledge about the Protoanalytical theory as it relates to the doors, and how this information can be applied to our everyday experience. The work with the Transcendental Virtues during the day gives us an immediate experience of the higher states of mind, beyond our personal ego pattern and process. This training is open to those who have taken the Levels of Consciousness Training or the Advanced Levels of Consciousness Training.

Domains of Consciousness Trainingsm

The Domains of Consciousness are the nine areas in which consciousness manifests as social structures, and they are the basis upon which we interact with, relate to, and interpret our social surroundings. These nine domains establish the way our ego reacts or responds to society through nine distinct characters and their related dichotomies, which are the outcome of insecurities we experience and project in different social situations. The training employs self-observation and ego-reduction through individual and group processes, as well as theater exercises to recognize and clarify the characters, dichotomies, and/or insecurities associated with each domain. These processes will give you a complete experience of the separate aspects of each domain in order to detach from the roles we all assume from time to time. These processes of detachment will enhance your experience of your True Essential Self. You will find the training moves effortlessly from ego processing the different aspects of the domains into a state of internal happiness and freedom with the introduction and work with the nine Transcendental Virtues. The two-day training schedule includes adequate break time and is open to everyone and has no prerequisites.

The Nine Hypergnostic Systems Trainingsm

The Nine Hypergnostic Systems Training, authored by Oscar Ichazo is the foundation of the Arica theory and practice for understanding and precisely analyzing the parameters of our psyche, and developing the internal witness. Hypergnostic is derived from the Greek hyper meaning over or above, and gnosis, meaning knowledge-hypergnostic means pertaining to, or having the value of, transcendental knowledge.

The Nine Hypergnostic Systems consist of three instincts, four functions, and two poles.

bullet

Conservation is the instinct for self-preservation, and corresponds to our relationship with our mother and our digestive system.

bullet

Relation is the instinct for relating with others, and is connected to our relationship with our father and our circulatory and respiratory systems.

bullet

Adaptation is the instinct with which we adapt to our surroundings, and goes with our relationships with children and our central nervous system.

bullet

The four functions-space, time, expression, and coordination-are the ways in which our instincts interact with society.

bullet

Our entire psyche is supported by the Sexual Pole-our vitality, and the Spiritual Pole-our sense of identity and unity.

The Hypergnostic Systems Training is a carefully balanced daily routine of exercise, clarification of karma, meditation, and ceremonies. Psychocalisthenics, Kath Generation, and the Fire Exercise directly increase our vital energy, tone our bodies, and give us a sense of physical stability. The pressure and emotional charge of past experiences (karma) is released through honest self-observation, using specific questions and concomitant associations for each system. The meditations for improving awareness, contemplation, and one-pointedness include Plantar Audition, Psychic Space Meditation, Hypergnostic Meditation, and the 'Desert'-two days of solitude and self-observation. Through the Eyes of Karma Ceremony, we can obtain a deep sense of pacification with our parents, our children, and our life experience.

The Hypergnostic Systems Training has two parts-a fourteen-day group training (intensive or extended formats) and a twenty-day individual training.

Third Line of the School Group Trainings

Initiation into the Velocity Meditationssm

Velocity Initiation opens the Velocity Meditations (Group Work) and the individual Velocity Meditations practice to all Aricans or those who want to practice this Work, and were unable to attend Reunion 2000. The Initiation takes around 10-15 minutes and includes the Universe of Light Ritual, which requires sunlight either early morning or late afternoon.

Velocity Meditations (Group Work)sm

This is a two-and-a half hour long practice, producing with certitude the State of Pristine Sudden Enlightenment. The degrees of the Lights are actually experienced, making permanent and crystallizing the State of Pristine Enlightenment. The Clear Light or the Diamond Light is discovered as a series of colors, as experienced in the Velocity Initiation with the Universe yantra. The awareness of the Immortal Soul becomes Immovable and Perfect. The experience of unity with the heart of all humanity, past, present and future, becomes a constant companion, which is the source of the most precious moral and virtuous Ethos. There is a profound sense of perfect peace of mind and happiness of heart that arises from the Pure State of Bliss from the fountainhead of our immortal Soul. The achievement of real Mystical States and True Reality in its actuality and transcendentality is perfectly attained.

Initiation into Crazy Wisdomsm

The initiation into the Crazy Wisdom Work, either for individual or group practice, is now available from the Arica Institute. In order to be initiated into Crazy Wisdom, a Proficient must pass the Initiation to the Initiates. Proficients are those who have been initiated into Crazy Wisdom by Oscar at Reunion 2000 or Lectures 2001 and have practiced the individual Crazy Wisdom Work. Initiation indications may be obtained from Arica Institute. It is suggested that the Initiation is done before the day of the Crazy Wisdom Meditations and Contemplation Group Practice as it takes about an hour and requires direct sunlight for the Velocity Initiation and Crazy Wisdom Imprinting and Embodiment Meditation that are an important part of it. Whether someone has been initiated into the Velocity Work or not, they will practice this Work as part of the Initiation to establish the ground for Crazy Wisdom.

Crazy Wisdom Meditations & Contemplation (Group Work)sm

The meditations and contemplation of Crazy Wisdom are the highest State of attainment of the Velocity Work. Crazy Wisdom is a mind that has entered into such a stability and into such a maturity within itself that it no longer moves. What the Crazy Wisdom Meditations and Contemplation does is increase the amount and continuity of the Light by making all reality - internal and external - part of the ongoing practice. Crazy Wisdom can be defined as a mind that understands itself so completely that it does not allow any obscurations to cover its natural radiance of awareness and presence. We can say that Crazy Wisdom is, in reality, the Supreme Freedom.

Fourth Line of the School

The fourth line is formed by Arica Trialectics, or integral logic, philosophy, psychology, theology and doctrines of ethics and values.

Arica Logos  The Arica School
  founded by Oscar Ichazo

Arica training descriptions © 2005 Oscar Ichazo in addition to those listed below include Arica Introductory Programsm,  Arica Day of Unitysm, Couple for Evolutionsm, Vortex Pointssm, Nine Ways of Zhikrsm, Autodiagnosis Trainingsm, Nine Hypergnostic Systems Trainingsm, Levels of Consciousness Trainingsm, Doors of Compensation Trainingsm, and Domains of Consciousness Trainingsm are service marks of Oscar Ichazo. Used by permission.
Site Credits

Site Search

Web Team

Last modified:
03/27/08


[ Home ] [ Up ]
For information contact a teaching location, visit our contact page, or e-mail your questions to .
Copyright © 2008 The T'ai Chi Foundation, Inc. and The School of T'ai Chi Chuan, Inc. The T'ai Chi Foundation® and its logo are registered trademarks of T'ai Chi Foundation, Inc. The School of T'ai Chi Chuan® and its logo are registered trademarks of The School of T'ai Chi Chuan, Inc. The T'ai Chi Presstm is the journal and Eight Wayssm, Traditional Hawaiian Swimmingsm, Children's T'ai Chi Gamessm are service marks of the School of T'ai Chi Chuan, Inc. Drawings of Professor Cheng and Patrick Watson are by Alex Carr.
Arica training descriptions © 2008 Oscar Ichazo. Arica®, Psychocalisthenics® and its logo are registered trademarks of Oscar Ichazo. Arica Daily Routinetm, Nine Hypergnostic Systemstm, Velocity Meditationtm, Velocity Initiationtm, Crazy Wisdom Meditations and Contemplations a Group Practicetm, Crazy Wisdom Initiationtm, Chua Katm, Nine Ways of Zhikrtm, The Octagontm and Arica Day of Unitytm are trademarks of Oscar Ichazo. Used by permission.