Dangerous Wisdom

Love is a trainable skill, and luck is an inevitable ingredient in our lives. Our current science challenges the notion of the sovereign individual, the importance of love, and the need for a paradigm shift. The Harvard Study of Adult Development goes together with other data to invite us to question the nature and the role of love, luck, and the true wealth of nations. The Harvard Study also supports the need for a new kind of science.

In this episode we rewrite the headlines: Massive Harvard Study Reveals the True Wealth of Nations. What is the true wealth of nations? Isn’t it gross domestic product?And if nations are comprised of people, what is our true wealth?We’re thinking through the true wealth of nations in relation to our last contemplation. At that time, we considered the famous Grant Study, more formally known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development. If you haven’t heard about the study, it’s worth listening to that other contemplation of it first.The present contemplation considers the paradigm shift we would need in order to make sense of the Harvard study—a revolution in our science and society, all in relation to the Gospel of Love that our science and our wisdom traditions now agree on. 

It’s an impressive study, the longest scientific study of adult development, conducted across decades (it started in 1938). Referred to as the Grant Study or the Harvard Study of Adult Development, this famous research program has gotten several rounds of press.But the press coverage seems to miss something incredibly vital and far-reaching in this study. Even the books have failed to make it clear. In a way, we could suggest the lead researchers of the study missed this finding—didn’t notice it, didn’t fully grok it, or didn’t understand how crucial it is.This unstated finding is the most important finding about happiness and a meaningful and fulfilling life that we have.

A contemplation of healing, wholeness, the challenges of suffering, and the paradoxes of success. We consider some of the essential questions: In what sense is life a self-healing truth? What is the nature of health and healing? What is the nature of sickness—our cultural sickness and our own mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical sickness? What is the role of nondoing in our healing and in our life?

In our culture, we have placed a set of habitual notions about time on top of the soul’s instincts and intuitions about rhythm and temporality. The physicist David Bohm said that, “. . . every thought assumes time. Whether we discuss thought or anything else, we always take time for granted. And we take for granted the notion that everything exists in time. We don’t take for granted that time is an abstraction and a representation, but we take for granted that time is of the essence—reality—and that everything is existing in time, including thought.” What if we have some very unskillful notions about time? What if the evolution of our culture depends on shifting our relationship with time?

Leslie Ellis, Ph.D.,RCCAuthor, A Clinician's Guide to Dream Therapyhttps://drleslieellis.comA delicious discussion of the importance of dreams and some of the basics of how to approach them. Dr. Ellis wrote a book called, A Clinician's Guide to Dream Therapy that provides a highly accessible, yet insightful education on the nature of dreams and how to work with them. By offering a unified model, Dr. Ellis makes it possible for all of us (clinicians and non-clinicians) to begin to understand the importance of dreams, and to begin to work with them so as to receive the profound gifts they can bring to our own life and the life of the world we share.Dr. Leslie Ellis is a leading expert in the use of experiential and somatic approaches in psychotherapy, in particular for working with dreams and nightmares. She is the author of A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy, has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and worked as a therapist in private practice in Vancouver, BC for more than 25 years.She is a certifying coordinator and former president of The International Focusing Institute, and incorporates this gentle yet profound method of internal inquiry into her method of engaging with dreams. Leslie now offers dream study programs online, certifying clinicians in her unique method of embodied experiential dreamwork. She also teaches with the Jung Platform and the Polyvagal Institute.Find out more: https://drleslieellis.com

A little singing and swearing, to help us arrive at our awesome presence.Humus, humility, homo sapiens, and Om share a common root, and considering their interwovenness can help us to touch our basic dignity. In this contemplation, the first to have both swearing and singing, we look at some elements of the dominant culture’s way of living that indicate how Nature has gotten pushed into the shadow. We consider the architectural manifestos of Hundertwasser, the memories of Jung, and the teachings of world philosophers who seek to help us find our awesome presence, even in the most mundane or seemingly profane activities of life.

Jung made at least two incredible discoveries. He wrote about one of them, and we discussed it in our first episode in this series. The other discovery appears nowhere in his writings, but it may have been his greatest by far.In this contemplation of the shadow we ask some questions, take a kind of inventory, that can help us detect the presence of the shadow so that we could begin to bring light to its contents. But first we consider some of what we need to have in place in order to work skillfully with our unconscious, including a sense of the soul or psyche that transcends even Jung's vision.As part of our contemplation, we consider an artefact related to Jung that many people haven’t heard about, but which we should take time to consider. This is an episode you don’t want to miss, as it brings us to the place where philosophy, psychology, and spirituality (including ecology and a sense of the Cosmic and the mysterious) come together. 

Part 2 in a short series. The dominant culture tends to trivialize many of the spiritual teachings and practices that present a threat to it, or a threat to the egos within it. We get McMindfulness because a genuine practice of meditation, as part of a holistic and skillful philosophy of life, results in citizens who want nothing to do with many of the core practices of the dominant culture.Shadow work runs the risk of the same kind of trivialization, such that we'll end up nibbling on McShadow nuggets and thinking we've confronted the vastness of the psyche. Meanwhile, the pattern of insanity will continue to unfold.In this contemplation we try to consider a few things about the shadow and the psyche that help us to understand its importance, and to get some sense of the consequences of any kind of avoidance on our part of the sometimes unpleasant or even frightening work of freeing ourselves from deception—both self-deception and the deceptions of the dominant culture.

If you don’t look for Sophia in the shadows, She might come leaping out of them. The consequences can become severe.“Shadow work” has gotten increasing attention in the dominant culture. This tends to carry the risk of trivialization and increasing spiritual materialism. Here we take a philosophical look at the unconscious and the nature of shadow work. Generally speaking, the dominant culture and most of the people of that culture haven’t come to terms with the unconscious, even though the spiritual and philosophical traditions warn us of its power to keep us in delusion. We avoid in the unconscious in part because, as Freud put it, the revelation of its presence and significance struck a major blow to the western ego. How can we more fully face up to the unconscious and begin to more skillfully work with it? We begin a short series of contemplations into these matters, building up to the sheer terror that the vastness of the psyche can evoke in us. In this first contemplation, we won’t rush into that terror, but begin to gather our senses and our sensibility to consider the questions and challenges the unconscious presents.

A philosophical story, based in fact and imagination, and rooted in the nature of mind and the mind of Nature.

Adam Smith's ignorance remains a major danger--at this point, a danger to life as we know it. We will also consider one more gem of Adam Smith's dangerous wisdom: class war. Long before Karl Marx, Smith recognized class war, and tried to warn us. We look at how that relates to the shift from moral statistics to market statistics, and how infection with the capitalistic style of consciousness and thought begins to shape our world. Examples include slavery, Exxon (and the fossil-fuel industry in general), Ford (and other car makers), and more.

One of Smith's biggest philosophical blunders. We continue with the key elements of Adam Smith's dangerous ignorance, focusing on a major case of that ignorance--one that still haunts us today--and how it relates to his idea of "the invisible hand".

This episode relates to a whole series on transforming our sense of right lifestyle and right livelihood. Check out others in the series: The Magnificent Swindle (56); The Others and the Interwovenness of Earth and Soul (55); The Feedback Loop of Earth and Soul (54); The Deepest, Darkest, Dirtiest Secret of Our Stress, Strain, Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, Imposter Syndrome, Burn Out, and Loneliness (53); Famous Harvard Study misses the most Crucial Finding (47); Massive Harvard Study Reveals the True Wealth of Nations (48); Love, Luck, and the Tue Wealth of Nations: Seeds of a Gaia Scienza (49); and others--with more to come!In this dialogue we continue our inquiry into capitalism, its problems, and the possibilities for evolving ourselves beyond it. Della Z Duncan joins us offer her keen perspective and insights. If you find economics boring, Della will bring it back to life. If you feel very much at home with economic theory . . . Della will bring it back to life.Della Z Duncan is a Renegade Economist who supports individuals working to better align their values with their work as a Right Livelihood Coach, helps transition businesses and organizations to more sustainable, equitable, and democratic forms as a post-capitalist consultant, hosts the Upstream Podcast, challenging mainstream economic thinking through documentaries and conversations including most recently, The Green Transition Pt 1: The Problem with Green Capitalism, and teaches and facilitates retreats and workshops on Systems Change and Economics all over the world. Della is also a Senior Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute in the London School of Economics, the Course Development Manager of Fritjof Capra’s Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, a Gross National Happiness Master Trainer, a founding member of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and a Senior Lecturer at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Santa Cruz Permaculture, Vital Cycles Permaculture, and Gaia Education. She holds an MA in Economics for Transition with Distinction from Schumacher College, a BA in International Relations and Sociology with highest honors from the University of California, Davis, a graduate certificate in Authentic Leadership from Naropa University, and has completed Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects Intensive Program.

Adam Smith's not exactly the most brilliant philosopher, even though he’s rather perceptive and clever in some ways. He’s not even really a philosopher so much as a professor of philosophy, and that kind of writing rarely interests me.But what shocked me about his writing was both the nature of his ignorance and the nature of some of his insights. His writing seems perfectly symptomatic of the dominant culture.By thinking through economic ideas from a philosophical viewpoint, we can come to a little better understanding of the dominant culture, its influence on the world, how we got to this tragic historical moment, and how we can potentially create a shift.Because of the importance of this subject matter, and the central role of capitalism in our lives, we will have a series of contemplations and interviews about all of this, and try to creatively imagine ourselves forward, into a truly wiser, more loving, more beautiful world.

Another installment in one of our ongoing pathways of contemplation: How to bring a little more wisdom, love, and beauty into our work with the medicines of this world.In this episode, Sunny Strasburg, LMFT joins us to discuss ketamine, magic, and more.Sunny Strasburg, LMFT is a psychedelic trainer, consultant, therapist, and presenter. Mrs Strasburg is an EMDR-certified trauma specialist, experienced and certified in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and trained in Internal Family Systems. Mrs. Strasburg is a graduate of the Certification for Psychedelic Assisted Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies, trained in Ketamine, MDMA, and Psilocybin Assisted Psychotherapies. Sunny is the Clinical Director at TRIPP PsyAssist, developing virtual reality psychedelic support for therapists.Sunny offers Ketamine therapy retreats, which she co-leads with Dr. Richard Schwartz, the originator of Internal Family Systems. She is a Senior Trainer at the Ketamine Training Center, co-facilitating KAP training with Bessel van der Kolk, Phil Wolfson, and other leaders in psychedelic and trauma psychology. Mrs. Strasburg also leads psychedelic therapy workshops and trainings around the world.Sunny also specializes in attachment trauma, using an eclectic approach with the Gottman Couples Method and Jungian psychology. She offers Ketamine Assisted Therapy with individual sessions and group therapy retreats.Sunny has developed original protocols using ketamine-assisted therapy and other trauma treatment methods, which she presents at conferences such as the 2021 EMDRIA Worldwide Virtual Conference, EMDRIA UK, and the Boston Trauma Conference. Sunny co-founded the nonprofit organization, Indra’s Net Coalition.She is trained by MAPS, Compass Pathways, Ketamine Research Foundation, and Synthesis. Sunny hosts therapy retreats in Utah, Maryland, California, Wyoming, and Costa Rica. You can find out more at https://sunnystrasburgtherapy.com/

Dean Radin joins us to discuss some of his paradigm-busting research, and he shares a wild story about the magical power of love and the benefits of a trained mind. A dialogue you don't want to miss.Peer-reviewed papers we discuss or that might be of interest:Consciousness and the Double-Slit Interference PatternCompassionate Intention As a Therapeutic Intervention by Partners of Cancer PatientsMetaphysics of the Tea Ceremony: A Randomized Trial Investigating the Roles of Intention and Belief on Mood While Drinking TeaElectrocortical Activity Prior to Unpredictable Stimuli in Meditators and NonmeditatorsYou can learn more about Dean at his website:https://www.deanradin.com/It's worth your time to look up some of Dean's other research in your favorite database.

More Dangerous Wisdom at https://dangerouswisdom.org/In this episode of The Dangerous Wisdom Podcast, artist Nica Quinn and I reflect on art, symbolism, synchronicity, magic, and the natural world. Before the dialogue begins, we consider the nature of symbols, their potential role in our spiritual/philosophical development, and some of the special symbolic and magical potency of the horse in particular.The video version of this episode includes images of Nica's artwork:https://youtu.be/OInMqIrQUYw Nica Quinn is a visionary artist, perpetually inspired by nature and horses and the roles they play in deepening our understanding about ourselves. Her mission is to bridge the gap of the spiritual, ethereal realms with the physical, to inspire others to tap into the magic that lies beyond the tangible. Horses have been her gateways, her guides, and her muses throughout her life and artistic journey, and continue to lead her down this path. She began sharing images on social media with what was going on in her internal world with horses, and found that there were a lot of people resonating with what she depicted; it has now evolved into horses at the forefront, but really the interconnection of everything. She has been a digital freelance artist since 2020, offering custom pet portraits, intuitive personal portraits which has led her to other amazing collaborations with horsewoman around the world. She has also hosted online creative workshops, and co-hosted retreats weaving together creativity and horse wisdom. You can find the majority of her work on instagram at nica_draws_nature, and also her website https://www.nicadrawsnature.com/You can support Nica's art via her website or her Etsy store:https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicaDrawsNature?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=1130192829You can get in touch with her most easily via Instagram.The drawings in the video are by Nica Quinn, the photographs are by nikos patedakis, and the film footage comes from image databases such as Pixabay.

Note: For most listeners, it will be helpful and even essential to start with episode 1 :-)What is the difference between the way human beings think and the way Nature functions? What is the patterning that connects all things? What is the meaning of the phrase, “We are a patterning of primordial awareness?”Patterning. Isn’t an object. In fact, we suffer because we turn our patterning into objects. We mistake primordial awareness, which is open and spacious, for something solid.We treat the manifestations of patterning as objects, rather than as a dance of patterning, a dance of pure relationality, which we ourselves are—intimately.

If we live in a magical way, if we know the world in a magical way, then we can know things that must remain unknowable to someone not living that way.We might think it has to do with mere belief, as if believing in magic becomes a self-fulling prophecy. Not so. A properly philosophical practice of magic seeks experience, not belief.The fundamental wholeness of the Cosmos makes magic possible. Practicing in accord with this wholeness allows magic to happen. Magic is the practice of wholeness.

Whether we love horses or not, whether we have contact with horses or not, they can teach us a lot about wisdom, love, and beauty. How do we get close to an honest openness to the potential magic of horses? And what does it even mean?The horse as a mirror for the soul and a vehicle for the soul could show us our true nature, and carry us into sacred spaces, initiating us into transformational healing and insight. Horses could heal conquest consciousness and help us reindigenize. But, for that to happen, we would have to become initiates. How can we properly seek initiation into the great mystery of life?Be sure to listen to the full series, starting with How Magic Saved My Lifehttps://dangerous-wisdom.captivate.fm/episode/dangerous-magic-1-how-magic-saved-my-life

Yeats tells us, "the borders of our memories are as shifting as the borders of our mind, and that our memories are a part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself." In this contemplation, we consider how that relates to horses, trauma, and the mysteries of remembering something that hasn't happened yet.

The practice of magic is taboo precisely because it draws from the experience of mind as a process that transcends the skin, and the experience of self and world as profoundly relational—which means ecological—rather than solid, or, we could say, economic.

The poet William Butler Yeats had a passion for magic, and he offers us three principles of magic that we will explore through philosophical and scientific perspectives. Can we arrive at a scientific understanding of magic, beyond woo-woo? Following these principles will bring us into an exciting and mind-expanding journey.

In this episode, we go into the wisdom, love, and beauty archives to re-release our series on magic. If you haven’t heard this series, I think you’re in for a treat. It’s like a box of wisdom donuts—paleo superfood wisdom snacks for the soul.We begin with events from my own life, in which the experience of magic transformed a situation of tension and aggression into spaciousness and wonder.If you have listened to some or all of this series before, these podcasts usually require more than one listen. We go into ideas that we try to consider in a very accessible way, but those ideas have a lot of nuance and depth in them. Extensive contemplation will bring a lot of benefits, including some inspiration and insight into the nature of magic.In this series, we try to take a sober look at magic. Can we come to a truly skillful and vitalizing understanding of magic?As we go along, we begin to see magic is an attitude—an attitude of reverence for the Cosmos.The experience of magic arises as we enter into the sacredness and interwovenness of life.

The Burning Man phenomenon involves a lot of good intentions and a lot of wonderful experiences—aesthetic, gastronomic, social, and even spiritual. It emerges from, and thus expresses, the incongruencies and general confusion of the pattern of insanity, even as it stands in defiance of that pattern of insanity. In some sense, it gives us an image of conquest consciousness wrestling with itself. Lia Helena Rubinoff, a friend and fellow philosopher, went to Burning Man this year. She joins us for some reflective dialogue about the wonders and the dangers of the Burning Man phenomenon. We try to honor the good while getting as honest as possible about the not-so-good.

From the Wisdom, Love, and Beauty archives. A breath of fresh air, even if you listened to this one last year.Sometimes we get lucky enough to experience a shocking moment when the great mystery confronts us so directly that we have to say, "This changes everything!" In this contemplation, we consider the nature of "this changes everything," how the dominant culture tries to keep those experiences at bay, and how we can begin to think about them with greater care—perhaps even begin to invite them in.Our guide is Dr. Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer. We reflected on some of her work in our very first episode this year, the one on Apocalyptic LoveWisdom. Her experiences and ideas came up again in a recent dialogue with the composer and jazz musician Carole Nelson. That dialogue is already available, and I promised to make this one available here as well. Enjoy!

Composer and musician Carole Nelson helps us contemplate the dangerous wisdom of jazz and her new album, Night Vision. In honor of our dialogue, Carole and I collaborated on a meditative video project. You can check out the two takes we released here:https://youtu.be/aWN6UDYp86Ehttps://youtu.be/OrnoYWUkVBwIn our dialogue, we make reference to Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, as well as The Diamond Sutra.We also make reference to an older podcast episode titled, “This Changes Everything”. Look for the re-release of that episode soon. Carole Nelson is a Londoner who has lived in Ireland for nearly 40 years. She is a multi-award winning composer, a jazz and improvising musician, pianist, saxophonist and songwriter. Her most recent work is with the Carole Nelson Trio, with whom she has recorded 3 acclaimed albums. Her music reflects the natural world – the woodlands, river and wildlife in her home in southern Ireland. She endeavours to integrate an authentic ecoliteracy into her creative practice and into her engagement with the world.She is a long-time meditation practitioner in the tradition of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh’s socially engaged buddhism and she facilitates days of mindfulness.

A dialogue with the poet Grace Wells, in relation to her latest book of poetry, The Church of the Love of the World (https://www.dedaluspress.com/). Grace is an award-winning eco-poet and nature writer living on the West Coast of Ireland. Nature, spirit-of-place and environmental concern are the large themes of her writing. She is an organic gardener and orchard-planter who hosts The Little Sanctuary a small retreat space for human, plant and creaturely species, and she regularly volunteers with Hometree a native woodland charity, which looks after biodiversity and encourages the reforestation of large landscape areas.We speak about wonder, grief, the sacredness of the world, the fierceness of love, and the mysteries of grasses. A few references from our dialogue:Grace refers to the name the Irish call themselves: Tuath Dé. Long before the publication of her book, Grace and I spoke about this name, and I elaborated it briefly in an essay—an elaboration Grace enjoyed very much, so here it is:---As the poet Grace Wells recently reminded me, the indigenous Irish called themselves Tuath Dé—one of the most wonderful things a human people have ever called themselves, for the word “Tuath” signifies both people and place, and “Dé” signifies the goddess. Therefore, in a gesture of intimacy, in a gesture of wisdom, love, and beauty, they called themselves “the people of the goddess” and simultaneously called themselves “the place of the goddess”. They wonderstood power and place, wonderstood rootedness in place and intimacy with the vast Cosmos. They wonderstood that Sophia abides as landscapes, as ecologies, as the sacred powers and inconceivable causes flowing as “power-and-place,” and they wonderstood that when we attune with sacredness and with living places, Sophia abides in us, through us, as us. Meanwhile, the dominant culture seems characterized by, as Underhill put it for us, those who “stand apart, judging, analysing the things which they have never truly known.”---https://dangerouswisdom.org/dw-blog/who-is-sophiaThe fuller contemplation of, “Who is Sophia?” may resonate with you.We also discuss Dōgen and his insights into, and pointings toward, the teachings of the world—all beings, including supposedly “insentient” beings—and the essence of meditation. These insights and pointings appear in Keisei Sanshoku—Velley Sounds, Mountain Forms—and Jisho Zanmai. That latter term resists translation, signifying something like Self-Experience or Self-Verifying of Well-Put-Togetherness, or, Well-Put-Togetherness of Self-Experience or Self-Verifying. It is like the meditative state of self-arising experience, not dependent on subject or object, or the self-verification of the mystery of the cosmos by means of intimacy—the mystery verifying or experiencing itself.The following essay discusses this meditative state in relation to other themes of the dialogue between philosopher and poet, including the seductions of Indo-European languages and worldviews, and the need for all of us to reindigenize:https://dangerouswisdom.org/dw-blog/hologram-ecogram-mandala-part-iv-drawing-closer-to-visionary-lovewisdomDōgen offered related lessons that we can work with as an elaboration of, and invitation into, the special meditative mind that allows us to fully receive the teachings of the world, and receive the magic and medicine of the world as well. Dōgen there refers to the properly well-put-together mind as 自受用三昧, which has to do with the well-put-togetherness of our true mind. 自...

Horses are both a mirror for the soul and a vehicle for the soul. Even if we don't think of ourselves as being really "into" horses, they are still a spiritual keystone species, and they can teach us a lot about ourselves, and lead us into the great mystery.In this episode, we consider how horses threaten certain aspects of our identity, our sense of love, and in some ways our whole way of life in the dominant culture. Whether you have horses in your life or not, there's a lot to learn here.

It may seem strange to ask it, but one way to put the most important question for humanity right now is this: Can we learn to inhabit reality?By implication, this question suggests we currently inhabit delusion. That’s what the wisdom traditions of the world—including many indigenous traditions—try to make rather clear to all of us living in, or infected by, the dominant culture.This divergence from reality appears in many ways and in a variety of forms. One of the most crazy-making forms comes to us in the economic and political realm, when business and political “leaders” tell us that our need for a thriving and just world isn’t “realistic”. When it comes to justice and ecological health—on which our personal well-being depends—the “leaders” tell us that reality itself isn’t “realistic”. When reality itself becomes “unrealistic,” we face the potential for grave catastrophe—not to mention general unwellness. Sadly, we have become rather accustomed to thinking of reality as “unrealistic”.The greatest experiment of our time will is the one to find out if inhabiting reality is possible for us, before it's too late.

How can we inhabit interwovenness? This is like asking:Can truth be inhabited?Can truth be embodied?We consider these deep questions (in relation to DIY architecture) with Dr. Sarah Breen Lovett. Sarah is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Manager of the Future Building Initative at Monash Art, Design & Architecture MADA. Breen Lovett has instigated and been included in many exhibitions, symposiums and publications at the interdisciplinary meeting point of art and architecture. Her PhD dissertation was titled, “Expanded Architectural Awareness: Exploring Intersections of Architecture and Expanded Cinema.” Recent publications include "Expanded Architecture: Temporal Formal", published in cooperation with the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, by AADR; and a chapters in "Flow: Between Interior and Landscape” published by Bloomsbury;  "Inter and Transdisciplinary Relationships in Architecture" by AITNER'; "Mediated Identities in the Futures of Place: Emerging Practices and Spatial Cultures" by Springer; and "Architecture Filmmaking" by Intellect.

In this dialogue with Lia Helena Rubinoff, a philosopher and certified nutrition consultant, we consider how craving itself can lead to liberation and healing.Enlightened craving means our craving itself is enlightened—it’s just encumbered. When we look directly at it, we can bring the medicine of awareness to our craving and liberate it into bone fide wisdom. In particular, craving has to do with the wisdom referred to as the wisdom of discernment, which helps us to know exactly what we need to eat, based on the ecological intelligence of our mind and body in relation with the world.Similarly, triggers are an encumbered wisdom. We call that wisdom the mirror-like wisdom that reflects things as they are.Everybody has cravings and triggers, and most people are ruled by them. But they actually provide us with unique opportunities for liberation—to achieve genuine freedom, happiness, and wellbeing.The Enlightened Craving process teaches us how to liberate the energy of cravings and triggers and restore our body’s and your mind’s innate wisdom about how to live well, including how to eat well and how to maintain holistic wellbeing. The process is based on the best science we have, and it’s also based on the single greatest untapped cultural resource we have for health and wellbeing, namely the wisdom traditions of the world.

Socrates was initiated by a priestess into the mysteries of wisdom, love, and beauty. A modern-day priestess joins a modern-day philosopher for dialogue and dangerous wisdom.

Picking up the thread of compassion training, as part of A Philosopher's Guide to Working with the Medicines of Our World, we contrast compassion with empathy distress. We also introduce the notion of the tonglen attitude, a special mindset that can empower and liberate our practice with any of the medicines of our World. Finally, we look at one way to understand one aspect of how compassion and tonglen function: a kind of magic mind synchrony in which self-regulation and co-regulation become integrated.

Part of A Philosopher's Guide to Working with the Medicines of Our World, this is the single most important recommendation I can make, for those facilitating work with the medicines of our world, and also for those seeking healing and insight from those medicines. This is a two-part discussion of compassion as a skill that requires training. Learn how compassion differs from empathy, and how it presents a revolutionary challenge to central aspects of the dominant culture. This is part of the shift from conquest consciousness to a culture of wisdom, love, and beauty.

An exploration of the ethics of consciousness—what that means and how it relates to the medicines of our world, including psychedelics.

We can only overcome fragmentation if we can begin to admit how much it has infected us, and if we can admit that we don't fully understand holism. Psychedelics and other medicines demand a revitalized sense of healing and wholeness, learning and culture, mind and Nature, self and World.In this contemplation, we try to sense the ways we may not understand, let alone wonderstand, the notion of a holistic approach to life and love, to healing and transformation. On this basis we can then move on to outline some of the basic elements of a holistic philosophy of life.

What can Plato and Socrates teach us about working with the medicines of our World? In this first chapter of a philosopher's guide to working with psychedelics and other medicines, we look at what Plato and Socrates, and their relationship with psychedelics, initiation, and walking a path of healing, a path of wisdom, love, and beauty.

How can Buddhist philosophy empower us to work more skillfully with the medicines of our world—including psychedelic medicines like DMT, LSD, MDMA, and others?Psychedelic medicines have a burgeoning presence in our culture. People have experienced healing and transformation with them. How can we work with them, and with our whole lives, in accord with wisdom, love, and beauty? With a more holistic approach, these medicines could empower us in ways that might yet surprise us.In this contemplation we begin with the source of the term, “psychedelic”. By looking at where it came from, and what its fuller meaning points to, we can consider more deeply how a holistic philosophy of life like Buddhism can open up potentials for us to become the medicine the World needs right now.Among other things, we will discuss one of the most psychedelic texts in the history of world philosophy: The Avatamsaka Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture. This is one of my favorite books of all time, and I think you will appreciate the way it expands the imagination and vibrates with a kind of field of enlightenment energy.

How can Buddhist philosophy empower us to work more skillfully with the medicines of our world—including psychedelic medicines like DMT, LSD, MDMA, and others?This contemplation was inspired in part by the surge of interest in psychedelic medicines in the past decade or so, and also in part by the dialogue I had with Rick Strassman, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy. Rick found himself turning away from Buddhist philosophy as a framework for modeling and working with psychedelic experiences. While I applaud his work to show how the Hebrew Bible can help support working with psychedelic medicines, I disagree with his suggestions that Buddhist philosophy doesn’t provide every bit as skillful a support for us.In this contemplation we begin to consider the relevance of Buddhist philosophy for maximizing the benefits psychedelic—or any other medicines—offer us. Whether we work with horse medicine, forest medicine, the medicine of music, the medicine of dance, or any one of the psychedelic medicines, we will find profound guidance in Buddhist philosophy for realizing the fullest potentials of our path of healing and transformative insight.After we lay out some juicy philosophical reflections in this and a following contemplation, we will consider a kind of philosopher’s guide to working with the medicines of our world. What are the practices we should have in place as we approach the work we need to do to heal self and world at the same time?

A dialogue on the wisdom, love, and beauty of DMT with Rick Strassman, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, DMT and the Soul of Prophecy, and The Psychedelic Handbook.

Leia Friedwoman is a psychedelic integration facilitator, a trainee in restorative and transformative approaches to conflict, and the host of a podcast called The Psychedologist: Consciousness Positive Radio. Leia holds her permaculture design certificate from Starhawk’s Earth Activist Training, a program that emphasizes social permaculture and spirituality in activism. In this dialogue, we touch on a wide range of subjects related to psychedelics and the soul.You can learn more about Leia at thepsychedologist.com

The megafire narrative . . . Wherever you live, you likely depend on forest ecologies. Even though the western U.S. has gotten a lot of press for wildfires, fire affects us all, forest integrity affects us all, and ecological ignorance affects us all. In this dialogue with Chad Hanson, forest ecologist and director of the John Muir Project, we confront the megafire myths and the bad science done in the name of forest ecology. Chad's book, Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate (University of Kentucky Press), serves as the framework for our dialogue.This is a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it. It reads like a great mystery tale, and Chad gets to the bottom of the downright dastardly intrigues that perpetuate and sow seeds of ecological ignorance while putting us all at risk.This dialogue covers some of the most important ideas in the book, and it serves as an excellent way to begin to heal from unskillful views and limited perceptions. You're in for a treat.

Derrick Jensen brings his unique style of dangerous wisdom to a dialogue about the bright green lies of the mainstream environmental movement. We can think of that movement as an attempt to establish solar-powered samsara, solar-powered suffering, or even solar-powered insanity. We need to get beyond this style of consciousness, but to do that we first have to confront our situation with clarity. Derrick Jensen is the author of more than 25 books, including most recently Bright Green Lies, which he co-wrote with Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert.

UFOs, UAPs, Alien Abduction Experiences…What can they tell us about the nature of reality, the nature of mind, and the mind of Nature? How can we relate to these experiences as a call to journey into mystery and discover deeper truths about ourselves and the vast Cosmos? We can learn a lot just by dropping the dualistic notion that these experiences are either literal “space creatures,” or they are a matter of delusion, deception, hallucination, superstition.In this episode, we consider UFO and abduction experiences as the mystery itself trying to get our attention, inviting us into the superness of Nature, and our own superness too.  UFOs have become more widely accepted as presenting an exceptional set of phenomena that defy our currently available science and technology. Abduction experiences are both vividly real for those who undergo them, and far more widespread than many of us might guess. This is a set of phenomena worth learning about.

What is the great field of new discoveries? Where will the truly paradigm-shifting breakthroughs come from?The great psychologist and philosopher William James invites us to see how our next big breakthrough will come from what we now see as noise in the data, as impossible, as absurd.In this suggestion, James joins a vast group of philosophers who understand the true spiritual meaning of the impossible. He also points us directly at a vast collection of data that right now doesn’t fit in the paradigms that rule the science of the dominant culture. James himself became one such datum, one such gift to our possible transformation. But it terrified him. Together, we will try to understand why, and what it all means for our mutual insight, mutual liberation, and mutual health and healing.

With a little help from Aldous Huxley, we embrace the fact that love is the soul’s compass as we journey the landscape of mystery. We need that love to acknowledge our fear, and to rouse the great passion needed to understand (and wonderstand) reality.When we look around and see conflict, aggression, and injustice, to what degree can we attribute it not merely to fear, but to fear of reality? And how can we begin to turn toward a reality we may unconsciously fear?As Aldous Huxley pointed out: When we look at water, nothing about it tells us it’s made up of two gasses. Why would we guess that water is made of stuff that appears as gasses in ordinary conditions?Our spiritual life is like this. We use our minds all the time, but we don’t know the nature of our mind or the nature of reality. We need education, and we need the tremendous energy of a meditative mind, a passionate mind and heart, in order to experiment in ways conducive to insight.

Wisdom and love can bring us profound revelations about ourselves, our world, the nature of reality, and the meaning of life. But a special kind of fear—sometimes conscious, but mostly operating unconsciously—can keep those revelations at bay. Do we put up scarecrows to keep away reality, intimacy, and wonder—perhaps even magic? In this contemplation we inquire into this spiritual or existential fear and the challenges it presents. It's active in our lives and in our world, right here and right now. Facing it can empower and liberate us and our world at the same time. Time to take down the scarecrows, embrace the mystery, and let the magic start to work.