Taking such a different approach than "everyone else knows" to be valid, as is the foundation of the "structural [rather than phenomenological] metaphysics" presented in The Science of the Soul, is a good way of generating unique insights in any field. It will also, however, result in unique missteps. Thus:

p. 83:

Then, above that, our Star-Self, a limitlessly expandable 360-degree sphere of white light at the highest ninth level, of self-awareness. This is the witnessing soul or Self—the "Holy of Holies"—underlying all of our states of consciousness.

This would refer to the relatively witnessing surface Self or Clear Light of the Void, which does indeed witness mayic relativity, but is not itself the absolute, undifferentiated Witness.

p. 85:

That being the case, such clearing—or the reconnecting with one’s "inner child," which has been obscured by those blockages—does indeed have a relation, albeit indirect, to the experience of the witnessing Self. After all, if resting in the Witness and realizing the dream-texture of the cosmos frees one from timidity to radically play in life, and if getting in touch with one’s "inner child" has the same playful effect, can the two approaches really be so far apart? Are they not both ways of allowing higher energies to emerge or flow into one’s daily awareness?

That is, ways of not "avoiding relationship," in repulsion, with any objects in our daily lives, and thereby not splitting subject and object apart.

p. 117:

Yoga records that persons for whom the worship of God takes an impersonal direction will often experience the Divine in the form of an expanding sphere of light. Visions of a personal God occur at the same level as this, however. That is, they are not "lower" than the structural experience of the expanding light-sphere, whether this latter occurs on the causal or the transcendent Self level.

I no longer believe the latter half of that quote, regarding valid visions of a personal God, to be true. That change of opinion is based on research done for, and included in, my forthcoming book, Speak No Evil: Ruined Lives and the Guru Game. More pointedly, when considering the mental/psychological instabilities, hyperbole, and overall unreliability of the vast majority of our world's "sages," coupled with the group-thinking blind beliefs and distortions of their followers and the non-existent amount of "reality-checking" done by both gurus and disciples, it becomes extremely difficult to grant any validity at all to such visions. (One still hopes that descriptions of non-dual enlightenment and perceptions of subtle micro- and macro-cosmic structure might have some validity in any given case.)

p. 162:

When one stands facing North, the West is to one's left, and the East to one's right. For these and other reasons, "wicked witches" come from the West/South, and good ones from the East/North.

L. Frank Baum also had a wicked witch of the East in his Wizard of Oz story. Obviously, I should have researched that more carefully before committing the idea to print.

Of course, had Baum been following metaphysics more closely in his story, he would indeed have had wicked or mayic witches come only from the West or South, and good ones from the East or North. And The Wizard of Oz is, and will always be, merely a story, not a traditional mythology. Nevertheless, "wicked, naughty Zoot."

p. 175:

Note that the Kabbalists refer to the First Sephiroth or Point not only as "white head," but also as the "I Am" level. The feeling that "I Am" or "I exist consciously" is again a product of both consciousness and existence. That is, existence plus consciousness of that existence yields the intuitive feeling that "I Am." And Shankara again characterized Spirit as Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, so that it is exactly from this Star-Self level that the feeling that "I exist"—that is, self-awareness—must arise.

One’s experience of infinite, undifferentiated space, like the experience of a single point in space, would have no sense of distance. In that sense, the point at the center of a sphere of consciousness might be said to be linked with the deep Self.

p. 176-7:

Brennan again described her own experience of a network of such Star-Selves, regarding each such white-light Star as being an individualized but impersonal "you," existing beyond relative time and space, prior to and through all incarnations in bodies of matter. That description, of course, could only apply to the transcendent/non-dual Self.

That "non-dual Self," however, has both "surface" and "deep" components. Both are "non-dual" relative to the mayic spheres of consciousness constituting creation.

p. 178-9:

Each of those (even atomic or lower) spheres again has its own point-contractions—this being the way in which free choice and creativity are born into the cosmos. We may allow, however, that it is only when an individualized Star-Self is "looking through" (i.e., is identified with or attuned to) a specific sphere of consciousness that individualized self-awareness will be associated with that particular sphere. (The same structure again produces the experience of the dilation of subjective time, which is a characteristic of the way in which the witnessing subject or Self "views" mayic reality.)

The dilation of subjective time is indeed a characteristic of the subject, but each sphere of consciousness in the cosmos can act as a subject for all of the other "object" spheres of consciousness overlapping it. It will then have its own experience of subjective time in its "bouncing," even without a surface Self being specifically attuned to it.

p. 217-8:

The dilation of subjective time must then undeniably be inexorably associated with our self-awareness. For in this dilation we simply feel as though that subjective aspect of ourselves which witnesses our internal milieu has a greater amount of time, relative to the passage of objective time, to so witness. Indeed, what else does it mean for this time to be subjective? where we are not witnessing a greater number of mental objects per unit time, or even necessarily perceiving "subtler phenomena" in spite of that literal expansion of consciousness, but rather have an increased amount of personal time to witness the ones present.

Thus, it is, so to speak, our self-awareness that dilates in higher states of consciousness. The attainment of such higher states, then, does not merely present a subtler range of objects—of visions or of the experience of higher levels of reality—to an unchanged witnessing subject. Rather, it effects a necessary metamorphosis in that very subject. That is, the raising of consciousness affects the way in which the Self is able to view the objects via the increase in subjective time—the greater number of "frames" in the subjective motion picture—not a change in the transcendent Self itself....

For all of these reasons, not only is the expansion of consciousness (and so the recognition of good and evil, as we have discussed) not a hindrance to realization of the Self, it is absolutely vital to that realization. And moral proscriptions such as the Ten Commandments, although their rules must ultimately be transcended in the reception of intuitive guidance from the soul, are a valuable first step in considering others’ welfare on a par with one’s own, which is the beginning of the expansion of consciousness.

This would again indeed be true of the relatively witnessing surface Self or Clear Light of the Void, but probably not of slipping into the deep Self or traditional Witness or Absolute Subject.

Also, as with p. 178-9, each sphere of consciousness in the cosmos can act as a subject for all of the other "object" spheres of consciousness overlapping it. It will then have its own experience of subjective time in its "bouncing," even without a surface Self being specifically attuned to it.

p. 228:

Consider also that when the spine is properly aligned we literally feel centered in our inner divinity, i.e., in our Star-Self. And indeed, in some Zen traditions (in particular the rinzai or "sudden enlightenment" school), this alignment of the spine is accomplished by the roshi or guru striking his students appropriately on the back with a stick, to correct for their improper postures and the resulting clairvoyantly-visible energy restrictions. The resulting free flow of important spiritual energies then aids in the attainment of higher states of consciousness.

Many students are not free from the entanglement of objective things. I treat them right at the spot. If their trouble is due to grasping hands, I strike them there. If their trouble comes from their mouths, it is there I strike.

—Rinzai

Such "troubles," of course, are going to be visible in the aura at exactly the level of hands and mouths, i.e., at the specific physical locations where they manifest as energy imbalances or blockages in daily lives.

The most common use of the "Zen stick" is for striking nodding meditators on the back. That practice has nothing to do with the hope of suddenly enlightening them, but is rather claimed to activate a relevant acupuncture point whose stimulation, it is said, keeps one awake.

The concern for energy restrictions, however, is still relevant overall:

The scary-looking monk reached out, grabbed my shoulders, and roughly rearranged my posture.

"Your shoulders are uneven.... All your energy will be trapped in your muscles, and they’ll be so tense that you won’t be able to meditate properly now, or sleep properly later."

—Deborah Boliver Boehm, A Zen Romance

p. 236:

The point/infinity pairing is not actually paradoxical, since both one’s transcendent Self and one’s causal-level sphere of consciousness are potentially infinite, and are linked by that Point even when the latter sphere is finite.

As for p. 175, one’s experience of infinite, undifferentiated space, like the experience of a single point in space, would have no sense of distance. In that sense, the point at the center of a sphere of consciousness might be said to be linked with the deep Self or Absolute Subject.

p. 243:

A good source of disillusionment in this regard is Wilber, Anthony and Ecker’s Spiritual Choices: The Problems of Recognizing Authentic Paths to Inner Transformation; not to mention www.yogananda-dif.org, www.anandainfo.com, www.anandaanswers.com, and www.rickross.com.

Upon further reflection and understanding, Wilber's book is not a good source of disillusionment in that regard; rather, it is "part of the problem" with the apologists' understanding of the guru-disciple relationship. The reasons for that are many and varied, and are discussed in detail in my forthcoming book, Speak No Evil: Ruined Lives and the Guru Game.