Presenza Integrale/en

Integral Presence™ is the original mindfulness protocol of the Paret Method™, developed by Marco Paret over decades of research, teaching, and clinical practice, and submitted for official recognition to Federmindfulness in 2026. It is founded on a cardinal operational principle: Presence is not an idea to be understood intellectually, but a state to be recognized in the body, trained in practice, and transferred into daily and professional action.

The protocol distinguishes itself from other mindfulness approaches — particularly the MBSR protocol by Kabat-Zinn and MBCT — by its point of access: not the breath as a mental object of concentration, but the body as primary intelligence, the kinesthetic sense as the "most primitive sense of all, on which all other senses are founded." On a physiological level, Integral Presence corresponds to the integrated state described in the School's polyvagal-typological map: the configuration in which the ventral vagus organizes sympathetic mobilization and dorsal immobilization in fluid coordination (see Ipnosi, Teoria Polivagale e Liberazione Somatica).

In the historical traditions that the Paret Method integrates, the same state has had different names depending on the vocabulary. In the yogic and contemplative Indian tradition it is called sattvic samādhi (sattva indicates the quality of luminous clarity) or, according to some schools, sahaja samādhi — natural, uninterrupted presence integrated into action. In Buddhist traditions it is fulfilled sati, the lucid and calm attention that stabilizes in samatha. In the Taoist tradition it is the state of wu wei rooted in the dantian. In Christian hesychastic patristics it is called apatheia — the non-reactive stillness of the guarded heart. In Paracelsian alchemy and European Hermeticism it takes the name of Philosophical Mercury or Quintessence. In contemporary neurophysiology the functional correlate is described as superior allostatic homeostasis or a stable ventral vagal state with interoceptive flexibility.

Integral Presence™ is the School's own operational name — the vocabulary that the Paret Method uses for its didactic and clinical practice. For the practitioner coming from an Eastern tradition, the protocol offers a clear and replicable somatic access point to the same state qualities; for the practitioner coming from Western contemplative traditions or clinical mindfulness, the protocol offers the integration of the alchemical, magnetic, and typological dimensions that purely clinical formulations tend to leave implicit.

I. What is Presence

In Marco Paret's language, being "present" means being truly there — not scattered between past and future, not overwhelmed by one's thoughts, not in a state of "autopilot." In the lessons of the Master of Hypnosis, Paret formulates it thus:

"How many times do you think you are there, but in reality you are among your thoughts, thinking about what you have to do next, what you did before? In reality you are not there. And not being there is problematic, because in that state you have less magnetism, less personal power."

Presence is described as the recovery of the real Self. At birth — using Paret's vocabulary — we were "unio non verbale", totally present. Progressively, absorption in thoughts built a "mental citadel" that forgot the true Self. Working on Presence is the path to exit this citadel.

The distinctive characteristic of the method, compared to other contemporary mindfulness protocols, is the somatic point of access:

• not the breath as a mental object of concentration (as happens in many popularized applications of breath attention);
• but the body as primary and primitive intelligence — proprioception, touch, the sensation of the body from within.

The kinesthetic sense is, in Paret's formulation, "the most primitive sense of all, the one on which all other senses are founded."

II. The four elements of the protocol

The Integral Presence™ protocol is structured around four practical elements, each with a specific function and a verifiable psychophysiological basis. They were developed and taught directly by Marco Paret in ISI-CNV seminars continuously from 2011 to 2025.

1. The Charges — breath as body awareness

The Charges are breathing exercises whose purpose is not the control of respiration, but body awareness. Through cycles of conscious inhalation and exhalation, the practitioner progressively brings attention:

• to the feet, legs, lower abdomen;
• to the chest, arms, head;
• and then descends again, retracing the same stations.

The breath serves to reveal the body: tensions, energy flows, blocks, vitality. As Paret teaches: "the task is to be conscious, only conscious."

Physiological rationale. Slow breathing is associated with increased vagal activity and HRV (heart rate variability), robust indicators of autonomic nervous system regulation (Zaccaro et al., 2018). Interoception — perception of the body from within — is central in neuroscientific models of awareness and emotional regulation (Craig, 2009; Farb et al., 2013).

2. The Reference Point — the anchor of attention

The Reference Point is the practice of fixing, with an open and soft gaze, a stable point in space — without closing the eyes, remaining open and present to the world. As Paret describes:

"The voice becomes clearer, more detached, the moment you maintain awareness of yourself while speaking."

The Point is not an object of forced concentration: it is an anchor that stabilizes attention and makes presence visible — in the gaze, in the voice, in body tone. This exercise is also practiced in action, while speaking, working, being in relationship. In this way, the Reference Point becomes the basis for transmitting personal magnetism, as documented in the pages on fascination.

Physiological rationale. Focused attention is one of the central components of mindfulness practices (Lutz et al., 2008). The practice is correlated with reduced activity of the Default Mode Network (DMN), the neural network associated with mind-wandering, rumination, and self-referential thought (Brewer et al., 2011).

3. The Stop — the conscious interruption of automatism

The Stop is an original element of the Paret Method™: a voluntary interruption, brief but intentional, of any ongoing action — thought, movement, automatic reaction. It is not passive immobility, but an active pause.

In that moment of Stop, the practitioner lets their gaze open and kinesthetic sensations enter awareness. As Paret teaches: "open the living gaze, feel the sensations entering — kinesthetic, weight."

The Stop is the passage from autopilot to conscious choice. Within the polyvagal framework, it is the passage from automatic sympathetic execution to re-entering the ventral space of choice.

Physiological rationale. The mechanism of intentional interruption is linked to voluntary inhibition and executive attention regulation (Posner & Petersen, 1990). In the polyvagal model, interrupting a loop of automatic sympathetic activation creates the space for the transition towards the ventral social engagement state (Porges, 2011).

4. Hara and Verticality — the axis of presence

The Hara — the vital center in the lower abdomen — is the fundamental somatic anchor of the method. Verticality — the head-feet axis, the spine as a connection between heaven and earth — is the structural axis of bodily presence.

Paret teaches this through the concrete practice of body weight, the point where one feels grounded, and the vertical as an indicator of state. As he explains in the lessons:

"Remembering during the day to seek presence, to strike a pose, to find the weight of the body and the vertical, is each time an instruction to your unconscious mind."

Bringing attention to the Hara and verticality stabilizes the nervous system and makes presence embodied rather than mental. The principle converges with two independent traditions — the Eastern one, in which hara and tan tien designate the same center, and the Western one, in which verticality and the symbolism of the axis (obelisk, spinal column, Kundalini in its meaning as the axis of personality) have equivalent functions.

Physiological rationale. Bodily grounding, postural tone, and the sensation of weight are cues of safety in the polyvagal model (Porges, 2011). Proprioception and the sense of verticality are linked to sensory integration and the stability of bodily self-awareness (Craig, 2009).

III. Presence in action and relationship

One of the most original characteristics of Integral Presence™ is that it is not taught only as a contemplative practice — it is taught as presence in action: in professional work, in the relationship with the client, in communication.

The experiment of the three identical sessions

Marco Paret empirically demonstrates the scope of this principle with a reproducible experiment in the Master's lessons, described in Lesson Presence 2 (October 2023):

"We place a person on a chair and have them receive the same technique three times. The first time: the operator thinks about their own business. The second: they focus on the person with empathy. The third: the operator is in a state of presence. The subject always perceives the third passage as the best. Yet the technique was identical."

The experiment shows that the operator's internal state is perceived directly by the subject, independently of the technique applied. Presence thus becomes the basic competence that amplifies all non-verbal techniques — from magnetic fascination to hypnotic induction to the work of mesmeric crisis.

Presence is not empathy

Paret clearly distinguishes empathy from presence — a distinction that is one of the method's original contributions. Empathy, though noble, leads to:

• energy dispersion of the operator;
• emotional involvement that is not useful to the client;
• possible contagion of the client's dysregulation into the operator.

Presence, on the other hand, allows the operator to remain vital, receptive, and effective. As Paret explains: "when you are in a state of presence, you are devoid of thought. That doesn't mean being in the clouds. It means you truly listen, because your mind is not elsewhere."

This distinction is particularly important in clinical contexts: the operator in a state of Integral Presence does not absorb the client's trauma, because the operator's ventral vagus maintains the containment of the field, and from that contained field the client draws the possibility of co-vagal re-regulation.

IV. Integrated scientific foundation

Mindfulness

Contemporary clinical mindfulness, formulated by Jon Kabat-Zinn (1994) as moment-to-moment awareness of experience without judgment, is the translation and secularized adaptation of very ancient Buddhist practices — particularly of sati (mindful attention in the Theravāda tradition) and vipassanā (insight). On the side of the Mahāyāna tradition and the Patañjalian Yoga Sūtras, the same quality of state can be traced back to dhyāna (attentive absorption) and samatha (stabilized tranquility).

A major systematic review of meditation and mindfulness programs (Goyal et al., 2014) reports small to moderate benefits for anxiety, depression, and stress, with maintenance at 3-6 months. Specific neuroimaging studies (Brewer et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2015) have shown stable modulations of the Default mode network in experienced meditators, regardless of the specific lineage (Buddhist, Vedantic, Christian contemplative).

Integral Presence™ is situated within this framework with the specificity of the bodily-somatic access, which in popularized MBSR and MBCT protocols is less central, and with the explicit integration of the magnetic-hermetic and typological planes that clinical mindfulness, by methodological choice, leaves outside its field. For the reader coming from an Eastern contemplative tradition, the protocol does not replace the original practice — it articulates it in a contemporary, somatic, and relational operational key, with access points designed also for those without monastic training.

Default Mode Network

Meditative practice is associated with differences in the activity and connectivity of the Default Mode Network (DMN) — the neural network of rumination and self-referential thought (Brewer et al., 2011; Buckner et al., 2008). The Reference Point and the Stop of the Paret Method™ act directly on these mechanisms.

Polyvagal theory

The Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 2011) describes three states of the autonomic nervous system: ventral vagal (safety, connection, clarity), sympathetic mobilization (activation/defense), dorsal immobilization (shutdown/collapse). Integral Presence™ is the ability to consciously return to the ventral vagal state through bodily cues of safety: posture, breath, gaze, non-defensive muscle tone. The explicit map of correspondence between the four elements of the method and the polyvagal mechanisms is:

Element	Polyvagal-neurophysiological mechanism
The Charges	Slow breathing → increased HRV → ventral vagal regulation
The Reference Point	Eye contact / gaze → activation of the social engagement circuit
The Stop	Interruption of the sympathetic loop → space for conscious choice
Hara and Verticality	Postural and proprioceptive cues of safety → non-defensive body tone

Interoception and synchronization

Research on interoception (Craig, 2009; Farb et al., 2013) shows that the ability to perceive the body from within is a predictor of emotional regulation, awareness, and well-being. The School also documents — following the pioneering experiments of Charcot and contemporary work on neural synchronization during hypnosis — that during sessions in a state of Presence, the active brain areas in the operator and the subject show functioning in unison. This phenomenon has been detected in independent studies of neural synchronization during hypnosis and therapeutic dialogue (Hari, Hasson).

V. Consistency with Federmindfulness standards

The Paret Method™ was proposed in 2026 for official recognition by Federmindfulness as an original mindfulness protocol. It satisfies the fundamental required criteria:

Federmindfulness criterion	Paret Method™ response
Personal practice of the facilitator	Presence as daily practice is an explicit prerequisite of the method. The operator who does not work on themselves cannot truly transmit presence: the facilitator's non-verbal is already a direct transmission of their state.
Structured and replicable protocol	Four elements with a defined sequence, explicit psychophysiological rationale, and observable outcome indicators, described consistently in lessons from 2011 to 2025.
Documented scientific foundation	Integration of mindfulness, neuroscience (DMN), polyvagal theory, interoception, with references to peer-reviewed literature.
Personal practice and supervision	Continuous training in group sessions, daily individual practice, peer supervision. The lessons show a progressive and iterative learning process.
Deontological clarity	Integral Presence™ is a practice of regulation and awareness: not diagnosis, not therapy, not a substitute for clinical treatment. Boundaries of competence are made explicit in the lessons.
Specificity of the method	Somatic access (not only mental), use of the kinesthetic sense as a foundation, verticality and Hara as axes of embodied presence: elements not present in standard MBSR/MBCT protocols.

VI. Observable outcome indicators

At the end of a session with the Integral Presence™ protocol, practitioners consistently show and report a set of indicators that the School has systematized:

• Voice clearer, more detached, more grounded.
• Gaze steadier, more open, and "present" — visible even from the outside.
• Reduction of rumination and scattered thinking.
• Greater vitality after the session (not tiredness, not energy depletion).
• Improved effectiveness in applied non-verbal techniques.
• Subjective feeling of centeredness and clarity.
• Reduction of motor dispersion (gestures incongruent with the state).

These indicators are visible from the outside and repeatable in teaching: the student gradually recognizes the signals of their own Presence and those of the experienced operator.

VII. Integral Presence and historical traditions

Integral Presence™ is not a recent invention: it is the Paret Method's own operational name for a state that many traditions have described in different vocabularies. The value of Paret's work is to re-translate this state into a contemporary, didactically transmissible, and physiologically verifiable language.

• Philosophical Mercury in Paracelsian alchemy — the mercurial principle which, separated and purified, contains Sulfur and Salt in a higher unity. See Tria Prima.
• Quintessence as the outcome of spagyria — the fifth principle that integrates the four elements.
• Sattvic samādhi in Indian yoga — the balance of the three guṇa under the lucid primacy of sattva.
• Sthitaprajña in the Bhagavadgītā — "he whose intellect is steady," capable of action without attachment.
• Apatheia in the writings of the Desert Fathers (Evagrius Ponticus, John Cassian) — not impassivity but the "non-pathological state" of the human being. See Logismoi.
• Superior allostatic homeostasis in contemporary science — lower metabolic cost, rapid transitions between autonomic modes, embodied openness.

The School of the Paret Method does not choose among these vocabularies: it recognizes them as converging descriptions of the same phenomenon. Integral Presence™ is the didactic practice that allows the contemporary student to access this state through a structured and verifiable protocol.

VIII. Integral Presence and the six character types

The six character types of the School — based on Wirth's alchemical Tria Prima — describe patterns of non-integrated state: configurations in which one or two of the three principles (Sulfur, Mercury, Salt) stabilize as a fixed predominance.

Integral Presence™ is the practice of return to the state in which the three principles are coordinated. It does not ask the Sulfur type to stop being energetic, nor the Salt type to stop being grounded. It asks each type to recover the mobility that character fixation had taken away, and to be able to activate Sulfur, Mercury, or Salt according to the demand of the moment, instead of remaining stuck in their habitual configuration.

In this light, the School's typological work and the Integral Presence protocol are not two different things: they are the diagnostic side and the operational side of the same practice. Recognizing the type tells where the person is now; Integral Presence indicates where the practice leads them.

Integral Presence™ in the hermetic and magnetic traditions

Integral Presence™ is the School's own operational name for a configuration that the great traditions have known under other vocabularies. The wiki dedicates two complementary axis pages to these two voices of the same thing.

In the hermetic tradition — and specifically in the work of the UR-KRUR Group (1927-1929) and its Reghini-Evola-Giudicelli legacies — presence is the quality of being of immediate recognition, the "command-presence" that is simultaneously the preliminary condition of every authentic magical operation and its fruit. The page La Presenza (tradizione ermetica) exposes this dimension through Reghini's Sub Specie Interioritatis (Palazzo Strozzi 1913), the law of entities, Apathanatismos, image magic, two-vessel operations, and the doctrine of the immortal body. It is the same configuration that the protocol of Charges, Reference Point, Stop, and Verticality reaches through the somatic path: two doors of access to the same place. The difference is what allowed Marco Paret to formulate the version presentable to Federmindfulness — the version that speaks the language of contemporary neuroscience — without betraying the initiatic dimension of which it is the translation.

In the magnetic tradition — that of Mesmer, Puységur, Lafontaine, Donato, Caravelli, Di Pisa, up to Paret's modern Mesmerismus — the operator's presence has always been the primary instrument of magnetic action. No magnetic "pass" works without the presence that sustains it; no mesmeric crisis unfolds safely without the magnetizer's field of presence. Specific techniques of the Paret Method that depend entirely on this training include the Hermetic Caduceus (presence as a postural mise en scène of safety), the Magnetic Alignment (presence as nuchal-sacral somatic co-regulation), and Tummo (presence as an internal safety signal that contains the "fire"). In all these cases, the practice of the Charges, the Reference Point, the Stop, and Verticality is not an accessory propaedeutic — it is the technique itself in its purest form.

The axis page of the hermetic-magnetic cluster, Alchimia e Magnetismo, shows how these two traditions are a single discipline under two names: magnetism is operational alchemy on the other, alchemy is operational magnetism on oneself. Integral Presence™ is the somatic hinge of both.

See also

The three pages of presence

• La Presenza (tradizione ermetica) — the hermetic-initiatic twin of Integral Presence™
• Il Risveglio — the fulfillment (Evola 1943)
• Stato integrato — the corresponding physiological category

Neurological part

• Paret Method
• Ipnosi, Teoria Polivagale e Liberazione Somatica
• I sei tipi caratteriali nella mappa polivagale
• Movimento autonomo della crisi
• Default Mode Network
• Teoria polivagale
• Logismoi
• Mercurio Filosofico
• Guna e Tria Prima
• Tria Prima

Magnetic and hermetic part

• Crisi Mesmerica
• Allineamento Magnetico (mano nuca-sacro)
• Caduceo ermetico
• Tummo
• Alchimia e Magnetismo — axis page of the cluster
• Il Gruppo di UR-KRUR
• Sub Specie Interioritatis
• Apathanatismos
• Franz Anton Mesmer
• Donato — Il Padre della Fascinazione

Sources

School publications and materials

• Marco Paret, Paret Method™ — Integral Presence™. Proposal for recognition, Federmindfulness, 2026.
• Marco Paret, lessons of the ISI-CNV Master of Hypnosis (2011-2025), particularly Lesson Presence, Lesson Presence 2 (October 2023).
• Marco Paret, L'Energia Segreta della Mente, Edizioni L'Età dell'Acquario / Lindau, 2009.
• Marco Paret, Le Flux Magnétique et les Savoirs Anciens (2017).
• Marco Paret, Hypnosis, Polyvagal Theory, and Somatic Liberation (Springer chapter, in preparation).

Mindfulness

• Kabat-Zinn, J., Wherever You Go, There You Are, Hyperion, 1994.
• Goyal, M. et al., «Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: A systematic review», JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(3), 2014, pp. 357-368.
• Lutz, A. et al., «Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation», Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(4), 2008, pp. 163-169.
• Brewer, J. A. et al., «Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity», PNAS, 108(50), 2011, pp. 20254-20259.
• Tang, Y.-Y., Hölzel, B. K., Posner, M. I., «The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation», Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 2015, pp. 213-225.
• Analayo, B., Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, Windhorse Publications, 2003 — standard academic reference on the original Buddhist practice of sati underlying contemporary mindfulness.

Default Mode Network

• Brewer, J. A. et al., «Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity», PNAS, 108(50), 2011, pp. 20254-20259.
• Buckner, R. L. et al., «The brain's default network: anatomy, function, and relevance to disease», Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124, 2008, pp. 1-38.

Interoception and neurophysiology

• Craig, A. D., «How do you feel — now? The anterior insula and human awareness», Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, 2009, pp. 59-70.
• Farb, N. et al., «Interoception, contemplative practice, and health», Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 2013, art. 541.
• Posner, M. I., Petersen, S. E., «The attention system of the human brain», Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 1990, pp. 25-42.

Polyvagal theory

• Porges, S. W., The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, Norton, 2011.
• Zaccaro, A. et al., «How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing», Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 2018, art. 353.
• Sullivan, M. B., Erb, M., Schmalzl, L., Moonaz, S., Noggle Taylor, J., Porges, S. W., «Yoga Therapy and Polyvagal Theory: The Convergence of Traditional Wisdom and Contemporary Neuroscience», Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12:67, 2018.