Isaac Portilla's Biography

ISAAC PORTILLA, FRAS, is an author, scholar of divinity, and teacher of exploratory mysticism. He is author of the forthcoming book, What Christ Said: Revisiting the Countercultural Sayings of Christ Jesus (2022); in it, he presents a provocative Christian path based on truth a freedom.  Isaac's project covers four areas: academic studies; development of spiritual teachings; contemplative practices; explorations of integral and divine life.*

            He has authored various books on spiritual practices (in Spanish), a verses book (in English, Spanish and Portuguese), and a major work (in English) — The Possibilities of Spiritual Experience: An Autobiographical and Philosophical Exploration (2017) — where he proposes a path for the "modernization" of spirituality (i.e., the adoption of a unique methodology to understand mystical experience) arguing that "the science of Enlightenment [spirituality] never reached the Enlightenment Age."
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            He has given talks on spiritual topics in a variety of environments, from yoga studios, to international conferences and universities.  He has lived in three continents and travelled extensively, exploring a great variety of cultural environments and visiting spiritual places in Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia.  Currently, he spends most of his time in Scotland, Portugal and Spain (his natal country).  He speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

​​More information: lineage.

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*Isaac has made contributions to spiritual practice, teaching, and scholarship: he developed an original yoga based on Spirit-descent and spiritual alignment (from a Christian ecumenical perspective), has made substantial spiritual-teaching developments (e.g., yoga of forgiveness) through a process of mystical exploration, and is currently developing the academic study of mystical experience through the combination of hermeneutical phenomenology and theological-philosophical inquiry (see academic profile at the University of St Andrews).