Oscar Ichazo 1931 – 2020

Oscar Ichazo was an exceptional teacher and scholar. He gained widespread recognition for his innovations in developing a complete system called Integral Philosophy. The goal of Integral Philosophy is to achieve the highest levels of spiritual attainment and transcendence. In doing so, we are able to understand and transcend human suffering. With an astonishing breadth and depth of realized mastery, Oscar moved effortlessly across a wealth of subject matter and world tradition. He helped to define our 21st century spiritual landscape with this new tradition. In 1968 Oscar founded the Arica School, a School of Knowledge, that is a repository of his complete method of self-understanding towards the goal of higher states of mind and a realization that we are one humanity. Today his unique teachings are presented through Arica Institute, Arica Training Sponsors, and The Oscar Ichazo Foundation.

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Oscar Ichazo was born in Bolivia in 1931. At the age of six, Oscar started to have traumatic near-death experiences between waking and sleeping that lasted until he was thirteen. Finding no explanation or remedy through an intense study of western physiology and medicine, his condition was finally relieved through contact with indigenous Shamans, Indian medicine men, who introduced him to a cure through plant medicine. Determined to find an explanation, his path led him to intensive study of Tantra and the Kabbalah. Oscar went on to study Martial Arts, Zen and Bushido. He studied at the University of La Paz and at 19, by a chance meeting, he was recognized as a ‘spiritual prodigy’ by an international group of elders who met in Buenos Aires to share their knowledge of esoteric consciousness-developing techniques. They trained Oscar for two years, then opened doors for him to meet masters in Tibet, Japan, Hong Kong and India where he expanded his study of Kabbalah, Vedanta, Buddhism, Sufism, and the wisdom of the I Ching. Returning to La Paz, Oscar spent a year assimilating what he had learned before experiencing a seven-day “divine coma”. When he came out of it, he knew that he should teach. Over the next decade, Oscar shared his mystical insights across the major cities of South America, and founded the Arica School, a classical school of wisdom and knowledge, in 1968. In 1969, he presented to the public, at the Institute of Applied Psychology in Santiago, his doctrine of The Ego Fixations, nine mechanical patterns of dysfunctional behavior arrayed around a nine-pointed circle, an enneagram, as well as a complete map of the human psyche, from the lowest levels of human behavior to the highest states of enlightenment. In 1970, Oscar was discovered by a group of American seekers at Esalen, CA who heard about his work and traveled to Arica, Chile to study with him for ten months. Following that, he moved to New York City, where the educational non-profit, Arica Institute, was established in 1971. Over the next several decades, Ichazo’s work reached 250,000 people, making a profound impact on the culture’s thirst for self discovery, and in 1991, the United Nations Society of Writers presented him with their Award of Excellence, inviting him to lecture on his theory to the United Nations. For over 55 years, Ichazo taught meditational practices, lectured, gave interviews, wrote over 100 training manuals and produced books on his original teachings. In 2020, he died at his home on Maui, Hawai‘i at the age of 88. He is survived by Sarah Ichazo, his wife and workmate of 40 years, who continues to publish and offer his teachings for the benefit of all humanity.