INSTITUTE OF
‍ DEVOTIONAL 
ARTS

Swan C. Frayne, PhD, is an experience designer, theatre maker, and psychotherapist. After studying philosophy and theology in Melbourne, Oxford, and Chicago, Swan worked as a lecturer and supervisor at the University of Cambridge, where they wrote their thesis on individual and social transformation. As a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, they published several articles on environmental ethics and comparative religion such as Animals in Christian and Muslim Thought, The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics (Routledge, 2018) and Albert Schweitzer: The Life of Reverence, Animal Theologians (Oxford University Press, 2023). Seeking more embodied and imaginal forms of knowledge, they trained at the Jacques Lecoq school of physical theatre, earned certificates in tantra yoga, breathwork, and hypnotherapy, and founded an organisation that pioneered human rewilding in France. Committed to building a more peaceful, caring, and creative world, Swan has been guiding individuals and groups for over a decade and has led seminars, workshops, and retreats in a dozen countries on three continents.

Jessica Bockler, PhD, is a psychologist, theatre practitioner, as well as the co-founder of the Alef Trust, an organization working in transpersonal and integrative education. Jessica has extensive experience of expressive arts facilitation, including physical and participatory theatre, and experimental movement and voice work. Jessica’s vision and research interests centre on holistic and creative approaches to social change, bridging embodied ritual and imaginal practices with activism and social change initiatives. She is on the academic advisory board of the Inner Development Goals initiative, and she is also a member of the UN’s Conscious Food Systems Alliance. Jessica serves as Programme Leader for Alef Trust’s Master’s programme in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology. She teaches across a range of modules in integral psychology, creativity & transformation, research design, and applied transformative psychology, relating spiritual perspectives to activism and social change.

Jorge N. Ferrer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, author, and educator. Jorge was a professor for more than 20 years at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he served as chair of the Department of East–West Psychology. He is the author many articles and books on transpersonal psychology, integral education, religious studies, and intimate relationships, including Espiritualidad Creativa: Una Vision Participativa de lo Transpersonal (Kairos, 2004), Participation and the Mystery: Transpersonal Essays in Psychology, Education, and Religion (SUNY Press, 2017), and Love and Freedom: Transcending Monogamy and Polyamory (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Jorge was a member of the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research as well as an advisor to the Religions for Peace organization at the United Nation.

Ewa Zurakowska, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist, performer, singer, and theatre director. Ewa attended the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices and graduated from the University of Warsaw with an MA degree in Cultural Anthropology. She wrote her doctoral thesis on traditional songs and site-specific theatre at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where currently teaches performance and ritual at the Anglo-American University. Since 2010 she has been performing as a singer for Korjen, whose music draws inspiration from her ethnomusicological journeys to the Balkans, the Republic of Tuva,Lapland, Eastern Poland, and Ukraine.

Her artistic work explores the connection between space, sound, and body. She performed for the Czech company Divadlo Continuo and for Teatr Novogo Fronta as well as for several other organizations such as Studio Matejka (PL), Budalasultan (Turkey), and Rose Bruford College (UK). She directed the documentary musical performance based on mining folklore and taught at the Milon Mela Centre for Performing Indian Arts. Ewa also works as a coordinator for Polish-Czech cultural partnerships and supports the Gorzanow Castle Foundation in Lower Silesia Poland.

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David Dubois, PhD, is a comparative philosopher, author, and Sanskrit scholar. David is one of the leading scholars on Kashmir Shaivism, a branch of classical tantra. He has translated and commented on numerous tantric texts such as the Vijnâna Bhairava Tantra (Almora, 2015). He is the author of over twenty books on the subject and on other spiritual themes. David studied Sanskrit and Tantra amongst masters of the tradition in India, where he also trained in Indian martial arts and Ayurveda. He believes in an approach rooted both in tradition and democracy. He teaches the yoga of space and the path of desire in the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism but is also inspired by Christian prayer as well as other wisdom traditions from the East and the West alike.

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Enrique Pardo is a theatre director, performer, writer,and visual artist. Born in Peru in 1946, he went to school in France, studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art, and taught Fine Arts at Goldsmith College, University of London. He joined the Roy Hart Theatre in 1968, a utopian avant-garde company known for its radical voice work, with which he moved to Malerargues, Southern France, in 1875. In 1878, he founded Pantheatre (from Pan, the dancer-singer god), which he co-directs with his partner, Linda Wise. Enrique has collaborated with a wide array of artists, thinkers, and psychotherapists. One of his main intellectual sources of inspiration is the post-Jungian psychologist James Hillman, father of archetypal psychology, with whom he created the Myth and Theatre Festival in 1986. Enrique directs and teaches choreographic theatre and voice performance, weaving together movement and dance, music, voice and singing, with a complex poetical approach to the inclusion of text, which he describes as « Cubist, as in Cuba », that is, closer to voodoo than to formal cubes.

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Eliana Perinat is a visual artist and certified art therapist with many years of meditation practice. Eliana finds her main sources of inspiration within the natural world. Art is the path of consciousness that connects her to reality. Through artistic creation, she is able to focus, to see, to open up, and to reflect on herself and on the environment in which she finds herself. It is her way to inquire into existence and into human relationships. She finds awe in micro-macro patterns and in the forms inside and outside our bodies. Eliana offers individual and group sessions for healing through creative expression and for intuitive connection with nature.

Olga Lidia Kozłowska is a licensed psychologist, singer, and voice coach. She is certified in Core Energetics Body Psychotherapist, Process training (A&A Mindell), and holds an MA in education. Drawing inspiration from Alexander Technique and Polyvagal Theory, Olga approaches voice work in a holistic and embodied way. She specializes in traditional Slavic and Georgian singing, choral music, and improvisation. Her teachers include Franke Kane, Natalia Polovynka, Emma Bonnici, Amit Carmeli, Kristin Linklater, and Lane Aryne. She is the founder of Authentic Voice and has been leading workshops since 2011.