The New School at Commonweal

Dean Radin, PhD Entangled Minds: Are We Linked Together More Deeply than We Imagine? One of the most surprising discoveries of modern physics is that objects aren’t as separate as they may seem. When you drill down into the core of even the most solid-looking material, separateness dissolves. All that remains, like the smile of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, are relationships extending curiously throughout space and time. These connections were predicted by quantum theory and were called “spooky action at a distance” by Albert Einstein. One of the founders of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, dubbed this peculiarity entanglement, saying “I would not call that onebut rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics.” In this conversation with host Michael Lerner, Radin describes the surprising reach of the substantial scientific literature on psi phenomena, and wonders whether psi phenomena are not ultimately an example of the universe talking to itself. Dean Radin, PhD Dean is chief scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University. Before joining the research staff at IONS in 2001, he held appointments at AT&T Bell Labs, Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, and SRI International, where he worked on a classified program investigating psychic phenomena for the US government. He is author or coauthor of more than 200 technical and popular articles, a dozen book chapters, and three books including the award-winning The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997), Entangled Minds (Simon & Schuster, 2006), and most recently, Supernormal (Random House, 2013). Find out more about Dean on his website. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Peter Warshall The Spiritual Labor of Earth Healing Join Michael Lerner in conversation with ecologist, activist, and essayist Peter Warshall, editor of Whole Earth Review, and teacher at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute. Peter Warshall Peter was an ecologist, activist, and essayist whose work centered on conservation and conservation-based development. After receiving his A.B. in Biology from Harvard in 1964, he went on to study cultural anthropology at l’École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris with Claude Lévi-Strauss, as a Fulbright Scholar. He then returned to Harvard where he earned his Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology. Warshall’s research interests included natural history, natural resource management, and conservation biology. He worked as a consultant for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Ethiopia; for USAID and other organizations in ten other African nations; and he worked with the Tohono O’odham and Apache people of Arizona. Warshall was an editor of one of the later editions of the Whole Earth Catalog series, and served as an editor of its spin-off magazine, Whole Earth Review. He taught at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute. Warshall died in 2013. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Fredi Kronenberg, PhD Herbal Therapies and Integrative Approaches to Women's Health Join host Michael Lerner in conversation with Dr. Fredi Kronenberg, founding director of the The Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at Columbia University. Dr. Kronenberg has done research on herbal treatment of menopause and other women’s health issues using ethnobotany, Chinese medicine, nutrition, and integrative medicine approaches. Dr. Fredi Kronenberg Dr. Fredi Kronenberg is professor of Clinical Physiology and director of the The Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons. She received her BS from Cornell University in neurobiology and behavior and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in physiology, where she researched thermoregulatory and reproductive physiology. Her postdoctoral research at Columbia University initiated her work in women’s health and menopause. She is a leading expert in the endocrinology and thermoregulatory physiology of menopausal hot flashes, and alternative therapies to treat them. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Ram Dass and Rachel Naomi Remen, MD Healing, Aging, and Dying Now living on Maui, Ram Dass talked with Rachel Naomi Remen and host Michael Lerner about what his 1997 stroke taught him, and how he now works with others around issues of healing, aging, and dying. From our podcast: Compassion is when you’re one with the person… then their suffering becomes our suffering and my suffering becomes our suffering… and then we are both souls dealing with the consciousness of the incarnation. The heart is where the oneness is. Ram Dass Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert) is an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He continues to teach via his website. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Ted Schettler, MD Implications of Ecological Health This conversation with host Michael Lerner and Ted Schettler explores how Ted’s exploration of the effects of chemical contaminants on environmental health have led him into a comprehensive perspective on the interaction of genes, gene expression, nutrition, stress, income disparities, chemicals, and many other factors in human health. From our podcast: But I do think if we’re able, in the far distant future, to look back on this period of time we will see that the period of time in which we’ve been living was characterized by an extraordinary and unjustified faith in the development of technologies that were not at all invented in the wisdom of the world. What I think, at least for me, has characterized the indigenous ways of knowing, thinking and behaving, is that it was born out of a real wisdom of how to be in the world. You know if we look at certain species that have been around for sixty-five million years, there’s a certain wisdom that’s imbedded in these organisms and similarly certain social ways of organizing that are based on a wiser understanding of the world, and so I think that it’s truly essential that we try to rediscover that as part of this effort toward restoration and building resilience. Ted Schettler, MD Ted is science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. He has a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and a masters in public health from Harvard University. He is co-author of Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment, which examines reproductive and developmental health effects of exposure to a variety of environmental toxicants. He is also co-author of In Harm’s Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development, which discusses the impact of environmental exposures on neurological development in children. He has published a number of articles on related topics in peer-reviewed journals and has served on advisory committees of the U.S. EPA and National Academy of Sciences. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.