Welcome to Ousia Analysis

 

“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.”—Vulcan philosophy, Star Trek

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Recursive dialectical inquiry, education, and mentorship with William Apple

 

Ousia Analysis is a nonclinical educational, philosophical, social, and spiritual practice of recursive dialectical inquiry. William Apple works within this practice as an educator, mentor, and guide. He is not a licensed psychologist, therapist, counselor, or mental-health provider, and Ousia Analysis is not psychotherapy, counseling, diagnostic assessment, psychological treatment, or mental-health care. (More about what Ousia Analysis is.⁠)

 

The practice of Ousia Analysis is devoted to examining the substance of the “I”: what has formed your sense of self, how you have learned to understand the world, and what becomes possible when the assumptions underlying both are opened to inquiry.

 

This is an ontological undertaking, meaning that we question what it means to be, including the conditions through which someone comes to experience themselves as a person, an individual, a member of a collective, and a participant within the larger Whole of existence.

 

Your life, relationships, desires, fears, beliefs, and contradictions give us somewhere to begin, and each may lead into questions about what we have been taught a Human Being is supposed to be. (More about what is meant here by the Human Being.⁠)

 

What are we questioning?

 

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” —Audre Lorde

 

Lorde’s critique of racism and exclusion within feminism asks us to confront how inherited structures of power can remain active within the very methods intended to challenge them. And, this is very much a foundational cornerstone of understanding when we undertake an examination of ourselves, because at the core of Ousia Analysis is a taking seriously the notion that "we cannot serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24). 

 

As such, Ousia Analysis continually returns to the question, Who am I?, entering a conversation with longstanding traditions of self-inquiry.

 

Ramana Maharshi places this question at the center of his teaching, while Meher Baba describes creation through the original Divine Whim, which manifests as a means by which to Know Thy Self, expressed likewise as Who am I?

 

Within Ousia Analysis, the question of Who Am I? therefore concerns both the individual seeking to understand themselves and the possibility that Being itself is participating in that inquiry through its infinitely differentiated expressions. (More about “Who am I?” and its place within the Work.⁠)

 

And, when we ask this question, we must notice that we are already asking through a language, a history, a body, and relationships that have participated in forming the “I” seeking an answer.

 

Family, religion, politics, economics, culture, and education have all offered definitions of who we are, what we should desire, and which possibilities we should permit ourselves to consider; and, those definitions participate in shaping what the question can mean to us and what we are prepared to recognize as an answer.

 

The defining commitment of Ousia Analysis is to bring those definitions into the question alongside whatever we are trying to understand. We examine the experience, the interpretation, and the conditions through which that interpretation becomes persuasive, including what it may reveal, exclude, distort, or protect.

 

And, because I am participating within that same process, the assumptions, interpretations, and methods I bring must remain available for examination also.

 

This is a major aspect of what makes the dialectic recursive: the inquiry continually returns to include what is doing the inquiring. (Explore Ousia Dialectics and recursive inquiry.⁠)

 

“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations” expresses something essential about this orientation.

 

We belong to a shared existence whose differences continually form new relationships and possibilities, and learning to recognize that belonging asks us to become more capable of encountering difference without immediately arranging it into either superior and inferior. All of which is the structure by which holds up the Ego (More about infinite diversity in infinite combinations⁠ and the topic of Superior and Inferior as the sturucture that holds up the Ego).

 

This is part of what is meant here by ontological hospitality⁠, and it informs the non-supremacist orientation of the Work⁠, including our willingness to examine supremacy wherever it appears within ourselves. (More on Ontological Hospitality and Non-Supremacy).

 

Now…why are you here?

 

I do not know; perhaps you do.

 

Or, perhaps the answer becomes less straightforward when you give yourself enough room to consider it.

 

You may have a question about a relationship, a recurring experience, a spiritual commitment, something you desire, or something about yourself that you find difficult to admit. You may simply want somewhere to think aloud with another human being who will take the question seriously enough to ask further questions.

 

Whatever brings you here, we can begin with how you understand that material which has brought you here, while allowing room for aspects of your experience that may complicate that understanding. You are welcome to arrive uncertain, and you are equally welcome to arrive convinced; either orientation gives us something to examine together.

 

Where does Ousia Analysis come from?

 

Ousia Analysis is deeply rooted in and inspired by the teachings of Meher Baba. Its analytical and dialectical methodology has taken form through decades of sustained study of C. G. Jung, alongside pre-Socratic and Socratic inquiry, psychoanalysis, alchemy, and engagement with philosophical, political, mystical, esoteric and occult traditions. (More about the history and influences of Ousia Analysis.⁠)

 

The methodology has been articulated through that study and practice, while the recursive process it attends to is understood here as already occurring within Being. As such, the undertaking  of Ousia Analysis is to become more conscious of our participation within it, including how we question, how we arrive at an answer, and how that answer participates in forming the “I” that continues asking.

 

When we sit together, I bring that education into relationship with a life (yours) I cannot know in advance.

 

As such, we take time to build rapport, so that increasingly direct and sometimes difficult questions can be held within a relationship where you have reason to know that your humanity remains welcome. (Read about the practice and what to expect.⁠)

 

One-on-one sessions are offered through a Pay What You Choose model.

 

A complimentary 30-minute Discovery Call gives us an opportunity to meet, ask questions, and consider whether to begin. (Learn about beginning the Work.⁠)