Deep Transformation

Ep. 82 (Part 2 of 2) | Constitutional law expert and criminal justice professor Mark Fischler has a thirst for justice and a gift for teaching. With cogency and passion, Mark explains that law is not the absolute that we perhaps thought, but an ever changing reflection of the values we hold as a society. Law is a developmental process, and will benefit from our own dedication to inner moral development. Mark shows how the law can (and has) become ever more inclusive, with the potential to serve and uphold the dignity of all peoples, all beings. Because of its abstract clauses, there is room in the Constitution to interpret the law in ways that are attuned with our pluralistic society. Mark calls on us to come together and decide what we value as a people—there is no mandate in democracy that all decision making power must reside in the hands of the Supreme Court, which has only had the sort of unilateral power it enjoys today since the 1950s.

This is no dry, legalistic conversation, but a truly illuminating vision of the potential of the law to embody justice, inclusivity, compassion. It is also a solid overview of where we have come from and where we are now, referencing many landmark rulings of the Supreme Court. Finally, this is spiritually inspiring as well—Mark tells the story of the transformational epiphany he had as a young man that led to his career as a public defender, onto the spiritual path, and eventually to become a well-respected, award-winning professor of criminal justice. Mark’s perspective on the law is far ranging, embracing human rights, animal rights, the rights of all beings. It comes from a place of deep care and compassion: “What is the happiness that the Declaration of Independence talks about, what is suffering?” Be inspired by Mark’s wise and knowledgeable teachings and the potential of the law to create a just society for all. Recorded January 4, 2023.

“Law is our collective coming together and deciding what we value as a people.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• The 4th branch of government: administrative agencies like the EPA that implement policies are now under very specific guidelines from the legislature (01:40)
• Abstract language in the Constitution requires interpretation and the challenge of finding balance between restrictively specific guidelines and abstract directives (06:45)
• The history of the Supreme Court and how the Court is 10–20 years behind the rest of the culture’s center of gravity (09:44)
• The doctrine of originalism: is the Constitution a fixed document? (12:36)
• Ronald Dworkin, primary legal philosopher of his generation: “The law is absolutely an act of interpretation.” (15:55)
• Originalism’s effect on Brown v. Board of Education, the Equal Protection Clause, and Plessis v. Ferguson (16:35)
• Abraham Lincoln was competing with the courts on slavery—his point of view was far more holistic, respecting the equal dignity of all people (20:47)
• We all need to be involved in the determination of fundamental human rights and not leave it up to the Supreme Court (24:24)
• Our Constitution, because of the abstract clauses, allows us ways to start to relate differently to our environment and all beings (26:00)
• The law is a social institution embodying the ways we agree to relate to each other as a society (28:09)
• We need to become conscious that law is a developmental process, becoming more and more inclusive over time (29:18)
• Theories of justice and how to build a just society: integrating Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, universalizability, Aristotle’s virtue-based right action, Steve McIntosh’s observable piece, the utilitarian what’s the greatest good for the greatest number, and John Rawls’ justice as fairness (31:59)
• Using Integral to help us apply inclusivity to the law (35:32)
• Animal rights and our relationship to property, to the Earth (37:39)
• Is there a legal way to support people in the pursuit of self-actualization? (43:17)
• What is the happiness that the Declaration of Independence talks about, what is suffering? (46:15)
• Law is our collective coming together and deciding what we value as a people and this requires inner moral development (47:40)
• Peacemaking ethics: care, connection, mindfulness (53:22)
• The collective trance we live in (55:51)
• A call to participate in our democratic process: we can influence our laws, our communities, and make this world a better place (58:34)

• Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015 decision to guarantee the fundamental right to marry to same-sex couples
• The Federalist Society, a group of conservatives and libertarians dedicated to reforming the current legal order
• Frederick Douglass, social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, statesman
• The theory of originalism is that all statements in the Constitution be interpreted according to the understanding at the time the statements were adopted 
• Ronald Dworkin, primary legal philosopher of his generation, advocate of a moral reading of the U.S. Constitution
• Brown v. Board of Education, the Equal Protection Clause
• Plessis v. Ferguson ruling that racial segregation does not violate the Constitution
• Hammurabi’s Code, Babylonian legal text
• Hanzi Freinacht, The Listening Society*, Nordic Ideology*
• Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative
• Steve McIntosh, co-founder Institute for Cultural Evolution, author, Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself*, see also Deep Transformation episode #20, Consciousness Evolves, Politics Can Too
• Justice as Fairness, John Rawls and His Theory of Justice (Constitutional Rights Foundation)
• John Alexander, Capabilities and Social Justice: The Political Philosophy of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum*
• Jonathan Rowson, anthology Dispatches from a Time Between Worlds: Crisis and Emergence in Metamodernity*, for more on metamodernism, see also Deep Transformation episode #17, Jonathan Rowson – Making Friends with Conflict, Metamodernity, Construct Awareness, and Other Ways of Facing the Current Metacrisis
• Eudaimonia translates to the state or condition of ‘good spirit,’ commonly understood as happiness, welfare 
• Tao Te Ching*, when the Tao declines, morality appears, when morality declines, the law appears
• Michael Braswell, Belinda McCarthy, Bernard McCarthy, Justice, Crime, and Ethics, textbook with chapter on peacemaking
• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quote about the “fierce urgency of now”

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Mark Fischler is a Professor of Criminal Justice and current program coordinator for the criminal justice and criminology programs at Plymouth State University. Prior to joining the Plymouth State faculty, he practiced law, representing poor criminal defendants for the New Hampshire Public Defender’s Office. Mark left the law after being guided by the Universe to focus on his Spiritual Awareness for almost two years. Upon his return, he was called to become a teacher and accepted a job at Plymouth State in 2003.

Since then, Mark has worked extensively with alternative theoretical models in law, constitutional law, and higher education, and has published on integral applications to teaching, being a lawyer, and legal theory. In his time at the university, he’s been a chair, Dean, and Interim VP. His focus in the classroom is ethics and criminal procedure and constitutional law. He is well respected for a teaching philosophy that emphasizes recognizing the humanity and dignity of each student. Professor Fischler was awarded the outstanding teaching award at his university in 2014. He currently offers a weekly Spiritual Inquiry class for college students.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 81 (Part 1 of 2) | Constitutional law expert and criminal justice professor Mark Fischler has a thirst for justice and a gift for teaching. With cogency and passion, Mark explains that law is not the absolute that we perhaps thought, but an ever changing reflection of the values we hold as a society. Law is a developmental process, and will benefit from our own dedication to inner moral development. Mark shows how the law can (and has) become ever more inclusive, with the potential to serve and uphold the dignity of all peoples, all beings. Because of its abstract clauses, there is room in the Constitution to interpret the law in ways that are attuned with our pluralistic society. Mark calls on us to come together and decide what we value as a people—there is no mandate in democracy that all decision making power must reside in the hands of the Supreme Court, which has only had the sort of unilateral power it enjoys today since the 1950s.

This is no dry, legalistic conversation, but a truly illuminating vision of the potential of the law to embody justice, inclusivity, compassion. It is also a solid overview of where we have come from and where we are now, referencing many landmark rulings of the Supreme Court. Finally, this is spiritually inspiring as well—Mark tells the story of the transformational epiphany he had as a young man that led to his career as a public defender, onto the spiritual path, and eventually to become a well-respected, award-winning professor of criminal justice. Mark’s perspective on the law is far ranging, embracing human rights, animal rights, the rights of all beings. It comes from a place of deep care and compassion: “What is the happiness that the Declaration of Independence talks about, what is suffering?” Be inspired by Mark’s wise and knowledgeable teachings and the potential of the law to create a just society for all. Recorded January 4, 2023.

“Law is our collective coming together and deciding what we value as a people.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing professor of criminal justice and constitutional law expert Mark Fischler (01:31)
• How did Mark get into constitutional law? (03:45)
• At the foundation of legal theory is the question: natural law or positive law? How Ken Wilber reduced the cognitive dissonance going on around this for Mark (06:44)
• Law is a lawyer-driven process and the action is in the criminal courts (07:52)
• Mark’s 1996 transformational epiphany of self-knowledge around the judgmental character of his mind (09:16)
• How psychotherapy relates to Mark’s practice as a public defender and taking a bodhisattva approach to being there for all beings (13:59)
• The deepening of Mark’s spiritual practice: Am I supposed to leave everything behind, give it all up? (21:08)
• “The demon spoke” (Socrates): leaving public defender hood and the beginning of Mark’s spiritual journey (25:03)
• Miguel Luiz’ Four Agreements: principles upon which to life your life (29:35)
• Being of service to others is the foundational piece driving Mark to deepen his understanding of the law and in his role as professor (35:08)
• “We’re in a stage of pluralism, but we sure don’t act that way;”Justice Alito’s decision in the Dobbs case, overturning Roe v. Wade (37:02)
• Can we start to have a conversation about the law, from a 30,000’ point of view, transcending and including perspectives, even the Integral one? (38:20)
• Giving the Supreme Court so much power to make legal decisions is only as old as the 1950s (39:46) 
• Was Roe v. Wade the best way to go? We needed to have a more honest conversation from the start (43:37)
• Human rights and how developmental stages play out in the justice system (46:35)
• Roger highlights the points Mark has brought up and their antidotes: absolutism, pluralism, the need for honest conversations, integrating different points of view (48:12)
• Teaching civil liberties to a class of diverse first generation students so that they feel heard and valued (51:47)
• Understanding Alito’s point of view, emotional contagion, and how Alito and other Supreme Court justices do not feel respected or heard (55:18)
• Black nationalism: being completely independent of the system (58:40)

• What’s the Future (WTF) and What Can We Do About It? Integral Conference, Sedona 2022
• John Kaiser, professor whose teachings stand at the crossroads between social & political philosophy, human rights, and ethics
• Plato, The Republic*
• Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrants (Integral Life)
• Melvyn Zarr, professor who represented Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Hayden Valley, Yosemite
• Roshi Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen*
• The Third Patriarch of Zen, “…and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness” 
• Gerry Spence, founder of the Trial Lawyer’s College, who tried and won many nationally known cases, including the Karen Silkwood case
• Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person*
• The practice of tonglen
• Pema Chodron, Reggie Ray, Ram Dass, Shunryu Suzuki
• Bob Fogelnest, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
• Plato’s Apology
• Bo Lozoff, We’re All Doing Time: A Guide to Getting Free (foreword by The Dalai Lama)
• Miguel Luiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom*
• Gini Gentry, ​​spiritual leader of the Toltec Eagle Knight Lineage 
• Don Miguel Luiz: Events, Workshops, Retreats
• Dobbs v. Jackson, where Justice Alito’s decision overturned Roe v. Wade 
• Jeff Salzman, beloved Integral pundit, The Daily Evolver podcast
• Marbury v. Madison, Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States
• The Warren Court and Brown v. Board of Education
• Corey Robin, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas*
• Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad
• Thomas Sowell, author, philosopher, economist, Discrimination and Disparities*

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Mark Fischler is a Professor of Criminal Justice and current program coordinator for the criminal justice and criminology programs at Plymouth State University. Prior to joining the Plymouth State faculty, he practiced law, representing poor criminal defendants for the New Hampshire Public Defender’s Office. Mark left the law after being guided by the Universe to focus on his Spiritual Awareness for almost two years. Upon his return, he was called to become a teacher and accepted a job at Plymouth State in 2003.

 Since then, Mark has worked extensively with alternative theoretical models in law, constitutional law, and higher education, and has published on integral applications to teaching, being a lawyer, and legal theory. In his time at the university, he’s been a chair, Dean, and Interim VP. His focus in the classroom is ethics and criminal procedure and constitutional law. He is well respected for a teaching philosophy that emphasizes recognizing the humanity and dignity of each student. Professor Fischler was awarded the outstanding teaching award at his university in 2014. He currently offers a weekly Spiritual Inquiry class for college students.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 80 (Part 2 of 2) | Connie Zweig, award-winning author, depth psychologist, master shadow guide, and longtime contemplative practitioner asks some good questions—and answers them too, with unusual clarity and deep insight born of long experience and a cutting-edge mind. Why is it that we meet darkness on the spiritual path? What do we banish into the shadow? How do we reclaim what we project onto charismatic leaders? Learning to recognize and resolve the shadow is a powerful practice, and one that is all too often overlooked in a time when psychology is focused on objective approaches, neglecting the fact and force of the unconscious. Cultivating shadow awareness, we can begin to look beyond projections and stereotypes, recognize the risks of black and white thinking, and learn how to reclaim what Carl Jung called the “unlived life.” Connie discusses the psychodynamics between spiritual student and spiritual teacher, and other situations where people have disproportionate power over others, shining a bright light of illumination on the nuances and complexities of these relationships.

This is an intimate look into the challenges of the spiritual path, where we need both psychological practice and spiritual practice to advance our awakening, and a very relevant, timely conversation with shadow currently erupting in our culture in epidemic proportions. Connie’s dedication to helping people find their way through the dark nights we inevitably experience on our spiritual journey comes through strong and clear. Her authenticity, caring, and wisdom is palpable, inspiring us as to how the lights really go on when we start to see the dynamics of our inner world and relationships with more nuance, deeper insight, and shadow awareness. Recorded April 5, 2023.

“When you meet the shadow, it means something else is required of you.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Let’s talk about awakening: it’s not just about meeting the shadow (01:25)
• Connie’s intention is to help people move through and past the inevitable challenges on the path of spiritual growth (03:30)
• Spiritual shadow work: how do we reclaim our projections & gifts that we tend to give away to charismatic leaders? (04:44) 
• How do we uncover what we banished into the shadow? Bringing forth our “unlived life” (06:11)
• Connie’s distress about the state of the field of psychology today: medicalization, the cognitive/behavioral/neuroscience approach, and a complete discounting of the role of the unconscious (09:12)
• Ken Wilber’s work (and the work of A. H. Almaas) provides a bridge for integrating depth psychology and spiritual practice (12:02)
• Importance of your own inner guidance: what feels right? (13:22)
• Taking up a practice without taking on the whole enchilada (15:14)
• What would an integrated spiritual regime look like? Contemplative practice, reflective practices, depth psychotherapy, group practice & relationships, study, and bodywork (17:23)
• Lifestyle is another crucial element of a well-rounded practice (22:25)
• Trump’s malignant narcissism is in some ways analogous to how spiritual leaders attract followers: appealing to our pre-rational selves (23:17)
• How many teachers empower their students to leave the community and go teach? (28:20)
• Cultural shadows: e.g., independent America’s shadow is dependence (30:32)
• The concept of salvation in our spiritual sub-cultures (31:38) 
• The #MeToo movement wasn’t extended into the spiritual arena; the complexity of the issue of consent (34:19)
• Sexual relations with a spiritual leader trigger an identity crisis: Who am I? Victim, consort, special one? (40:50)
• What is the shadow side of the #MeToo movement? (41:49)
• Lonely spiritual teachers and systemic causes of abuse (43:07)
• Roger’s summary of Connie’s new book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path (45:39)

• Buddha at the Gas Pump podcast
• Ken Wilber’s Lines of Development (Integral Academy website)
• Carl Jung quote about The Unlived Life, Robert A. Johnson, Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life*
• A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), creator of The Diamond Approach, see also Deep Transformation episode #43, Nonduality and Beyond: The Exhilarating Adventure of Discovering the Nature of Reality (or watch on YouTube)
• Arthur Deikman’s test of enlightenment: ask the spouse
• Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom*
• Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death*
• Association for Spiritual Integrity
• The #MeToo movement
• Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening*
• Connie Zweig, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul*
• Connie Zweig, The Holy Longing: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Yearning*
• Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life*
• Connie Zweig & Jeremiah Abrams, editors, Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature*
• Connie Zweig, A Moth to the Flame: The Story of the Great Sufi Poet Rumi*
• See also Deep Transformation episode #19, Connie Zweig –The World Needs Elders: How Inner Work Transforms Aging into a Developmental Process, a Life Culmination, and a Gift*
• Connie’s blogs on Medium: https://medium.com/@conniezweig
• Connie’s website: conniezweig.com, Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drconniezweig/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReinventingAge, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dr.ConnieZweig/, YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdvX4rtyOC4SA75JU98qaA?view_as=subscriber

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Connie Zweig, Ph.D. is a retired therapist and co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow. Her award-winning book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends her work on the Shadow into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice. It won the 2022 Gold COVR Award, the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, the 2021 American Book Fest Award, and the 2021 Best Indie Book Award for best inspirational non-fiction. Her new book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening, will be available in May 2023. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years. She is a wife, stepmother, and grandmother. After all these roles, she’s practicing the shift from role to soul.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 79 (Part 1 of 2) | Connie Zweig, award-winning author, depth psychologist, master shadow guide, and longtime contemplative practitioner asks some good questions—and answers them too, with unusual clarity and deep insight born of long experience and a cutting-edge mind. Why is it that we meet darkness on the spiritual path? What do we banish into the shadow? How do we reclaim what we project onto charismatic leaders? Learning to recognize and resolve the shadow is a powerful practice, and one that is all too often overlooked in a time when psychology is focused on objective approaches, neglecting the fact and force of the unconscious. Cultivating shadow awareness, we can begin to look beyond projections and stereotypes, recognize the risks of black and white thinking, and learn how to reclaim what Carl Jung called the “unlived life.” Connie discusses the psychodynamics between spiritual student and spiritual teacher, and other situations where people have disproportionate power over others, shining a bright light of illumination on the nuances and complexities of these relationships.

This is an intimate look into the challenges of the spiritual path, where we need both psychological practice and spiritual practice to advance our awakening, and a very relevant, timely conversation with shadow currently erupting in our culture in epidemic proportions. Connie’s dedication to helping people find their way through the dark nights we inevitably experience on our spiritual journey comes through strong and clear. Her authenticity, caring, and wisdom is palpable, inspiring us as to how the lights really go on when we start to see the dynamics of our inner world and relationships with more nuance, deeper insight, and shadow awareness. Recorded April 5, 2023.

“When you meet the shadow, it means something else is required of you.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing depth psychologist, illuminator of the shadow, and award-winning author Connie Zweig (01:17)
• What brought Connie to the subject of shadow: exploring the psychology of spiritual yearning (02:10)
• Why is it that we meet darkness on the spiritual path? (05:18)
• What Carl Jung meant when he used the term shadow (06:45)
• The negative traits (and our unlived gifts) that are in the shadow are always in relation to the ego (08:02)
• Why don’t we recognize the shadow? By definition, the shadow is hidden, unacceptable—locked in both body & mind (10:03)
• The shadow has erupted in our culture, but it’s not so apparent in the spiritual arena (12:43)
• Psychodynamics & psychological defense mechanisms: projection, repression & denial are not recognized in the wisdom traditions (16:44)
• Dreamwork is a way to begin exploring the unconscious (19:19)
• How does developmental psychology fit in? Self-observation is the beginning, turning inward (20:13)
• Connie’s book is a call for spiritual awakening, deepening practice, and also shadow awareness (22:45)
• Shadow awareness includes recognizing our projections—both negative and spiritually bright (24:37)
• What is it in us that wants to make the human divine? Projection and the psychodynamics of our relationship to spiritual leaders (26:08)
• Archetypal projection: attributing godlike power to leaders (28:36)
• How does it feel to have large numbers of people projecting perfection on you? (29:21)
• Narcissism, secrecy, and spiritual bypassing in spiritual communities (32:03)
• What leads a spiritual community to become cult-like, where people lose their critical thinking? (37:48)
• The practice of guru worship, idealization, or visualizing inner gods and goddesses (43:00)
• Cultivating shadow awareness in spiritual contexts (45:56)
• Taking the risk of stepping into liminality and uncertainty, trusting life (50:06)
• Follow the yearning beyond the ego self while also remembering to be aware there will be dark nights on the journey: when you meet the shadow, it means something else is required of you (52:58)

• Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening*
• Connie Zweig, A Moth to the Flame: The Story of the Great Sufi Poet Rumi*
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem The Holy Longing (translated by Robert Bly)
• Connie Zweig, The Holy Longing: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Yearning*
• Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life*
• Connie Zweig, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul*
• See also Deep Transformation episode #19, Connie Zweig –The World Needs Elders: How Inner Work Transforms Aging into a Developmental Process, a Life Culmination, and a Gift*
• Connie Zweig & Jeremiah Abrams, editors, Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature*
• Carl Jung, “The Relationship Between the Ego and Unconscious” in The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol. 9 Part 1)*, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol. 9 Part 2)*
• Sigmund Freud, On Murder, Mourning, and Melancholia*
• The #MeToo movement
• Defense Mechanisms in Psychology Explained (+ Examples) (Positive Psychology.org)
• Ken Wilber, “shadow material in every chakra,” The Religion of Tomorrow: A Vision for the Future of the Great Traditions*
• Dick Anthony, Bruce Ecker & Ken Wilber, Spiritual Choices: The Problem of Recognizing Paths to Inner Transformation*
• A.H. Almaas, creator of The Diamond Approach, see also Deep Transformation episode #43, Nonduality and Beyond: The Exhilarating Adventure of Discovering the Nature of Reality (or watch on YouTube)
• Keith Raniere, the NXIVM guy
• Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time*
• Connie’s blogs on Medium: https://medium.com/@conniezweig
• Connie’s website: conniezweig.com, Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drconniezweig/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReinventingAge, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dr.ConnieZweig/, YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdvX4rtyOC4SA75JU98qaA?view_as=subscriber

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Connie Zweig, Ph.D. is a retired therapist and co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow. Her award-winning book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends her work on the Shadow into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice. It won the 2022 Gold COVR Award, the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, the 2021 American Book Fest Award, and the 2021 Best Indie Book Award for best inspirational non-fiction. Her new book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening, will be available in May 2023. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years. She is a wife, stepmother, and grandmother. After all these roles, she’s practicing the shift from role to soul.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 78 (Part 2 of 2) | Greg Thomas, brilliant cultural analyst, educator, musician, speaker, and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, is passionate about the power of culture to transform us as individuals and collectively. Where race is concerned, Greg presents an illuminating, multiperspectival view of the many layered issues around racism in this country. Early on, Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, and realized that the issues that plague us are not just about race or racism, but the overarching systemic racial worldview. Greg offers that the way out of this morass lies in adopting a cultural lens to replace the racial lens. And Greg points out that when we further embrace a cultural worldview in a participatory way, it opens up all the doors and windows: creating room for individuals to shine, for groups to experience group flow, for all of us to enjoy beauty and appreciation—the way soloist, band, and audience come together in a shared musical experience. 

When Greg talks about the power of culture, sharing illustrative anecdotes about blues masters, blues philosophy, and great moments in jazz history, it becomes clear just how effective culture is at dissolving boundaries and heightening connection, and how music (in this case) allows us to transcend our differences, our daily burdens, and experience unbounded joy. This is a lively, impactful, and poignant dialogue, with wisdom ranging from the deeply spiritual, the psychological/developmental, to the political and universal. Recorded January 25, 2023.

“Out of the many…one: this is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Antagonistic cooperation: competition is part of the American, democratic experience, but there are ways it can be a cooperative competition, e.g. cutting contests in jazz, cypher in hip hop (01:30)
• Where individuality and the group flow dynamic come together: jazz and the ring shout tradition (04:34)
• Entropy, consciousness, and culture: the tragic dimension and the comic perspective (05:33)
• The power of culture: pushing people towards excellence, orienting towards self-actualization, and the Greek notion of arete (06:57)
• How do we get to arete? The importance of striving for and developing both mastery and wisdom (11:11)
• The tension between virtues like liberty and equality (15:27)
• The healing power of music: Art Pepper & Sonny Stitt’s cutting contest (18:00)
• Stomping the blues and how music merges secular & sacred, reminds us of our range of human feelings, gives resonance to memory, and brings healing and transcendence (21:11)
• Music affirms the gift of life: moments of utopia allow us to transcend our everyday cares (25:00)
• The role of creativity, the arts & humanities, is crucial in getting through the meaning crisis and the metacrisis (28:53)
• Cultural forms and ideas can be picked up at any time and reinvigorated: bringing back the wisdom (29:52)
• If there are enough of us who can model what it takes to be in flow together, despite our differences, we could tap into higher dimensions of human possibility (32:52)
• The blues idiom wisdom tradition, great orators Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Frederick Douglass, and the embodiment of American democratic ideals (33:36)
• Striving to achieve the realization of democratic ideals in a multiracial democracy—it’s never been done before (38:34)
• The fundamental contradiction of being a slave owner in a country based on the principle of liberty (41:30)
• Ultimately neither slave owner or slave is psychologically and spiritually free in a slave society (42:20)

• Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey*
• Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture*
• Albert Murray, blues philosopher, Reading Albert Murray in the Age of Uncertainty (Tune in to Leadership blog)
• Ring shout, an ecstatic, transcendent religious ritual, first practiced by African slaves 
• Institute for Cultural Evolution, think tank with the mission of advancing the evolution of consciousness & culture in America
• Greg Thomas’ Omni-American Future Project
• Arete, Greek expression for the notion of excellence, ultimately bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose, the act of living up to one’s full potential
• Robert Greene, Mastery*
• John Vervaeke, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis (YouTube video)
• Duke Ellington, one of the greatest jazz composers of all time, who viewed music as a form of activism
• Steve McIntosh, Developmental Politics*
• Jimi Hendrix, master of the blues, master guitar player, singer/songwriter
• Art Pepper & Sonny Stitt, West Coast Sessions! Volume 1*
• Charlie Parker, one of the top jazz improvisers in American history, Ko-Ko [1945]
• Albert Murray, Stomping the Blues*
• Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening*
• John Vervaeke, After Socrates (YouTube video)
• James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games*
• Plato, The Dialogues of Socrates*
• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., beloved Nobel Peace Prize-winning orator and leader of the Civil Rights Movement
• Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest orators and statesmen of the 19th century
• Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, founding fathers and signers of the Declaration of Independence
• Danielle Allen, Justice by Means of Democracy*
• Greg Thomas, CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, a private company that uses jazz music as a model to enhance leadership success and team excellence
• Tune in to Leadership blog (powered by the Jazz Leadership Project)
• The Omni-American Future Project, fighting against bigotry and anti-semitism through cultural, moral, spiritual excellence

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Greg Thomas is CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, a private company that uses jazz music as a model to enhance leadership success and team excellence. Along with his wife and partner Jewel, the Jazz Leadership Project works with notable firms such as JPMorgan Chase, Verizon, TD Bank, and Google. The leadership blog TuneIntoLeadership.com features their writings. Greg has been a professional journalist for over 25 years. He is currently a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Cultural Evolution. As an educator, Greg recently taught a course, “Cultural Intelligence: Transcending Race, Embracing Cosmos,” and co-facilitated a six-month class in 2022, titled “Stepping Up: Wrestling with America’s Past, Reimagining Its Future, Healing Together.”

As Co-Director of the Omni-American Future Project, Greg co-produced a two-day broadcast and awards ceremony, “Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together: Shaping an Omni-American Future” in October 2021 and the second annual event in November 2022, “Straight Ahead: An Omni-American Future, Fighting Bigotry Together.” In September 2022, Greg co-facilitated a one-day conference, “Resolving the Race-ism Dilemma.” He also serves on the advisory boards of The Consilience Project, and FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. 

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 77 (Part 1 of 2) | Greg Thomas, brilliant cultural analyst, educator, musician, speaker, and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, is passionate about the power of culture to transform us as individuals and collectively. Where race is concerned, Greg presents an illuminating, multiperspectival view of the many layered issues around racism in this country. Early on, Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, and realized that the issues that plague us are not just about race or racism, but the overarching systemic racial worldview. Greg offers that the way out of this morass lies in adopting a cultural lens to replace the racial lens. And Greg points out that when we further embrace a cultural worldview in a participatory way, it opens up all the doors and windows: creating room for individuals to shine, for groups to experience group flow, for all of us to enjoy beauty and appreciation—the way soloist, band, and audience come together in a shared musical experience. 

When Greg talks about the power of culture, sharing anecdotes about blues masters, blues philosophy, and great moments in jazz history, it becomes clear just how effective culture is at dissolving boundaries and heightening connection, and how music (in this case) allows us to transcend our differences, our daily burdens, and experience unbounded joy. This is a lively, impactful, and poignant dialogue, with wisdom ranging from the deeply spiritual, the psychological/developmental, to the political and universal. Recorded January 25, 2023.

“Out of the many…one: this is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing Greg Thomas, jazz & blues scholar, musician, educator, and cultural sage (01:02)
• The blues speaks to everyone: as the Buddha said, life is suffering (03:04)
• The experience of Black Americans and their relationship with absurdity (05:07)
• Cultural appropriation is a misunderstanding of the way culture works: the difference between plagiarism and cultural appropriation (06:42)
• Flourishing happens when different ideas and cultures come together (09:05)
• Recognizing the fundamental tributary that the Black American experience and culture is to American history and American culture: using a cultural lens instead of a racial one (13:46)
• Greg Thomas’ spiritual journey: integrating traditionalism, modernism, postmodernism, Integral Theory, a pre-traditional experience, and studying African syncretism, Taoism, Kabbalah, and more (17:38)
• How Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, the blues wisdom tradition, and the 4th zone of the Integral Map (22:21)
• Dealing with the range and depth of the wicked problems we have today is ultimately going to take wisdom (25:37)
• How indigenous wisdom was lost during the Age of Enlightenment and the challenge of the Integral movement to provide a framework for integration (26:08)
• One of our fundamental problems stems from the notion that we are separate from nature, separate from the divine (29:24)
• Out of the many…one: this is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity (32:22)
• Is ethnocentricity (and therefore racism) a natural part of the evolutionary ladder? (35:54)
• The concept of rooted cosmopolitanism (40:15)
• Ken Wilber’s “dignities and disasters” of modernity (45:20)
• Beyond ethnocentrism and how each stage has its traps: one trap is the denial of any differences between races, which isn’t right either (47:21)
• Deracialization and the fundamental concept of our identity: making sense of the complex terms race and identity (50:06)
• It’s not just about race or racism, but the overarching systemic racial worldview (53:57)
• Perspectival and participatory knowing are crucial, so we can engage with one another and develop skills of interaction (56:09)
• The swing era of the 1930s, stomping the blues, and group flow (58:29)

• Greg Thomas, CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, a private company that uses jazz music as a model to enhance leadership success and team excellence
• Tune in to Leadership blog (powered by the Jazz Leadership Project)
• The Omni-American Future Project, fighting against bigotry and anti-semitism through cultural, moral, spiritual excellence
• Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man*, The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison*
• Albert Murray, blues philosopher, Murray Talks Music*, The Hero and the Blues*, Stomping the Blues*, The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy*
• Ralph Ellison & Albert Murray, Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray*
• The Glenn Show (Glenn Loury), Debating Deracialization with Glenn Loury, Greg Thomas and John McWhorter
• What’s the Future (WTF) and What Can We Do About It? Integral Conference
• Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrants (Integral Life’s What Are the Four Quadrants?)
• Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything*
• Religion in Africa, Syncretism 
• Kabbalah’s Tree of Life
• The 8 zones of the Integral Map (Integral Life’s The 8 Perspectival Zones of Emergence)
• The Age of Enlightenment
• Ken Wilber on The Pre/Trans Fallacy (Integral Life)
• John Vervaeke, award-winning lecturer on subjects like Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
• Rick Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind*
• Aesop’s fable The North Wind and the Sun
• Integral Spirituality series course A Deeper Cut
• Spiral Dynamics, a model of evolutionary development
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers*, The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity*
• Danielle Allen, Justice by Means of Democracy*
• Henry Murray’s system of needs
• Confucious’ rectification of names
• Greg Thomas, Considering Deracialization, first published in the Institute for Cultural Evolution’s journal The Developmentalist 
• Steve McIntosh, director & co-founder, Institute for Cultural Evolution, author, Developmental Politics* (see also Deep Transformation podcast episode 20, Consciousness Evolves, Politics Can Too)
• Greg Thomas, Deracialization Now: A Response to Glenn Loury & Clifton Roscoe, published at Tune into Leadership.com, Greg’s Jazz Leadership Project blog, and also at Free Black Thought
• John Vervaeke, cognitive scientist, philosopher, psychologist, new YouTube series After Socrates
• Jack Kerouac, On the Road*

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Greg Thomas is CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, a private company that uses jazz music as a model to enhance leadership success and team excellence. Along with his wife and partner Jewel, the Jazz Leadership Project works with notable firms such as JPMorgan Chase, Verizon, TD Bank, and Google. The leadership blog TuneIntoLeadership.com features their writings. Greg has been a professional journalist for over 25 years. He is currently a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Cultural Evolution. As an educator, Greg recently taught a course, “Cultural Intelligence: Transcending Race, Embracing Cosmos,” and co-facilitated a six-month class in 2022, titled “Stepping Up: Wrestling with America’s Past, Reimagining Its Future, Healing Together.”

As Co-Director of the Omni-American Future Project, Greg co-produced a two-day broadcast and awards ceremony, “Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together: Shaping an Omni-American Future” in October 2021 and the second annual event in November 2022, “Straight Ahead: An Omni-American Future, Fighting Bigotry Together.” In September 2022, Greg co-facilitated a one-day conference, “Resolving the Race-ism Dilemma.” He also serves on the advisory boards of The Consilience Project, and FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. 

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 76 (Part 2 of 2) | Enneagram expert, teacher, master facilitator, and transformational coach Leslie Hershberger leads us into the world of the Enneagram, not typology point by point—here Leslie paints a broader, deeper picture of the Enneagram and its uses as a psycho-spiritual tool than is commonly understood. Leslie explains how the Enneagram provides the psychological foundation for each individual to navigate their inner world more skillfully. A wealth of knowledge comes with recognizing the center you orient from—head, heart, or body—and your type’s tendencies, freeing up energy within us to move out of negative patterns into virtuous ones. With the insights the Enneagram provides, we can develop practices tailored to our specific personality structure that help with everyday challenges and vicissitudes, with being more present in our relationships, and with opening to spiritual presence.

Listening to Leslie, one feels the energy of rising awareness as her anecdotes about various different Enneagram types’ ways of relating to themselves, others, and the world ring decisively true, matching our own experience. Leslie’s passion for guiding people who are ready to make “the inward turn” in using the Enneagram as a map is clearly palpable. And though she is a longtime contemplative, Leslie is all about boots-on-the-ground action: meeting people where they are at, providing support and guidance, and reflecting back to all whom she encounters a truly awe-inspiring, Enneagram-informed, and integral understanding. Recorded January 9, 2023.

Please enjoy a 20-minute guided meditation, led by Leslie, at the end of part 2 of this podcast. Leslie originally led this meditation for Roger, John, and the Deep Transformation team right before the podcast was recorded, so they could experience her Enneagram-informed techniques that help us ground, center, and connect with our inner being, somatically and emotionally.

“The Enneagram is a vehicle for spiritual presence—for spiritual experience.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Truth decay: when insights decay into dogma, practices devolve into ritual (01:34)
• Leslie’s disappointment with the dilution of the value of the Enneagram in popular culture and the common tendency to over identify with one’s type (05:39)
• Building in practices for making the inward turn when our type gets triggered (07:34)
• How everyone interprets the Enneagram according to their stage of development: language matters (09:58)
• How knowledge of the 3 centers (head, heart, body) enables us to understand different perspectives and be more present with others (13:23)
• Recommended books for people new to the Enneagram: The Complete Enneagram by Dr. Beatrice Chestnut, The Essential Enneagram by Dr. David Daniels, and more (see resources below) (16:39)
• Is there any research on the Enneagram? (18:06)
• Looking at the Enneagram from the centers perspective is a good portal of entry, and the differences between heart, head, and body types (19:23)
• Back to research: more research could refine the value of the Enneagram (25:00)
• Working with your core vice within a contemplative practice is when things really start to cook (33:48)
• How does your type change over time with an ongoing contemplative practice? The challenge of embodying a healthy type structure 24/7 (36:02)
• The reality is we all have limits (38:27)
• The importance of understanding the centers approach to the Enneagram and understanding that our psychological structure is housed in the body (47:12)
• What do women want from men? A heart connection and kindness (49:21)
• 20-minute guided meditation led by Leslie to help us ground, center, and connect with our inner being, somatically and emotionally (55:56)

• Spotlight, 2015 film following the Boston Globe’s investigation into the pedophilia crisis in the Catholic church
• Ken Wilber’s Altitudes of Development on the Daily Evolver website
• Muhammad: “Speak to people only according to their level of knowledge…”
• Beatrice Chestnut, The Complete Enneagram* (Leslie’s recommendation for a good comprehensive overview of the Enneagram, looking at the Enneagram through an archetypal lens)
• David Daniels, The Essential Enneagram* (Leslie’s recommended book for understanding the structure of the types)
• Ginger Lapid-Bogda, Bringing Out the Best in Yourself at Work* (Leslie’s recommendation for applying the Enneagram’s wisdom in the workplace) 
• David Daniels, Terry Saracino, Meghan Fraley, Jennifer Christian & Seth Pardo, “Advancing Ego Development in Adulthood through Study of the Enneagram System of Personality”
• Ginger Lapid-Bogda, PhD, Enneagram author, teacher, keynote speaker, and organization development consultant, trainer, and coach
• Sandra Maitri, The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul* (Leslie’s recommendation around the spiritual dimension of the Enneagram)
• Helen Palmer, The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life*
• Scared straight! therapy and the Barnum effect 
• Michel (Roland) Gauquelin,  A Killer Horoscope
• Dr. David Daniels, co-founder of The Narrative Enneagram training school 
• Ken Wilber, The Marriage of Sense and Soul*
• Jack Killen, David Daniels & Kristin Arthur, “Biology and Personal Transformation: Bridging Science and the Enneagram” (informed also by the work of Dan Siegel)
• Jack Killen, Toward the Neurobiology of the Enneagram
• The International Enneagram Association 
• Benedictine nun Suzanne Zuercher, Enneagram Spirituality: From Compulsion to Contemplation*
• Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging*
• Aldous Huxley, Island* and The Perennial Philosophy*
• Leslie Hershberger.com: Transformational Consulting, Facilitation, Coaching
• Leslie’s course Foundations of the Enneagram: The Centers Approach, a self-paced course and online space to learn the Enneagram in all 3 centers: head, heart, body
• Leslie’s YouTube channel
• Recommended typing test: https://www.narrativeenneagram.org/enneagram-test/#test-section

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Teacher, theologian, spiritual guide, and master facilitator, Leslie Hershberger is the founder of The Three-Centered Enneagram, and offers both corporate and contemplative workshops, retreats, and keynotes throughout the U.S. and in Europe. She designed the online course The Foundations of the Enneagram: The Centers Approach, which is both a deep and a practical way of developing embodied emotional and social intelligence. Leslie integrates the Enneagram, three-centered contemplative practice, and Integral Theory in her work.

Leslie’s core mission is facilitating practice based in all 3 centers: head, heart, and body. She supports others in integrating psychological awareness and opening to wise, embodied spiritual Presence, especially during times of significant transition: social change, religious transition, second half of life, changing bodies, illness, grief, loss and the inevitable relationship challenges with those we care about most. She also supports many “post-church” pastors and people who have experienced a religious deconstruction and are looking for a way forward. Leslie was recently honored by Xavier University with the William and Anna Madges award for distinguished contribution to society.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 75 (Part 1 of 2) | Enneagram expert, teacher, master facilitator, and transformational coach Leslie Hershberger leads us into the world of the Enneagram, not typology point by point—here Leslie paints a broader, deeper picture of the Enneagram and its uses as a psycho-spiritual tool than is commonly understood. Leslie explains how the Enneagram provides the psychological foundation for each individual to navigate their inner world more skillfully. A wealth of knowledge comes with recognizing the center you orient from—head, heart, or body—and your type’s tendencies, freeing up energy within us to move out of negative patterns into virtuous ones. With the insights the Enneagram provides, we can develop practices tailored to our specific personality structure that help with everyday challenges and vicissitudes, with being more present in our relationships, and with opening to spiritual presence.

Listening to Leslie, one feels the energy of rising awareness as her anecdotes about various different Enneagram types’ ways of relating to themselves, others, and the world ring decisively true, matching our own experience. Leslie’s passion for guiding people who are ready to make “the inward turn” in using the Enneagram as a map is clearly palpable. And though she is a longtime contemplative, Leslie is all about boots-on-the-ground action: meeting people where they are at, providing support and guidance, and reflecting back to all whom she encounters a truly awe-inspiring, Enneagram-informed, and integral understanding. Recorded January 9, 2023.

Please enjoy a 20-minute guided meditation, led by Leslie, at the end of part 2 of this podcast. Leslie originally led this meditation for Roger, John, and the Deep Transformation team right before the podcast was recorded, so they could experience her Enneagram-informed techniques that help us ground, center, and connect with our inner being, somatically and emotionally.

“The Enneagram is a vehicle for spiritual presence—for spiritual experience.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing gifted Enneagram teacher, contemplative practitioner, and transformational coach Leslie Hershberger (01:10)
• How 1’s are driven by the inner critic and the desire to perfect themselves and others (04:11)
• Given our Enneagram type, we tend to contract in a certain sector of reality—this is a literal, physical contraction (05:15)
• The Enneagram provides a map of the 9 different tendencies of contracting against life force, against spiritual presence (08:56)
• Each type has a cognitive habit that sits upon the energy of an emotional habit; this energy is there for spiritual conversion (09:59)
• The skillful response is inherent in the awareness of the contraction (13:12)
• Each type has a particular defense mechanism which is the glue that holds our structure together (15:13)
• Anger, fear, and sadness (the 3 afflictions) are in everyone, but each of us is driven by one of these predominantly, according to our type (19:19)
• Where the Enneagram fits in the larger field of personality typing and how it shows up in early contemplative traditions (24:44)
• The Enneagram is a useful, practical, psychological typology—but it’s also a spiritual tool (26:38)
• The Enneagram types you from your blind spots and the places that are hard to see (28:47)
• The 3 instinctual subtypes: social, sexual, and self-preservation (29:52)
• On 6’s: doubt, projection, and amplified hazards (30:56)
• Teaching people their ego structure using panels of types in the narrative tradition (34:33)
• The importance of meditation and somatic experiencing and how the type structures are housed in the body (36:29)
• The vice to virtue conversion for each type: each type has a predominant vice and a predominant virtue (37:00)
• Our fundamental root dysfunctions give birth to wisdom—our vices contain the energy for us to transform (42:14)
• How Integral Theory’s teachings on higher states of consciousness and the difference between stages and states complement the teachings of the Enneagram (48:29)
• Illuminating the essential elements of the psychological structure: “Mysticism and spirituality are not enough…Social action and therapeutic caring are not enough…” Jacob Needleman’s teaching is foundational to Leslie’s integral approach (50:02)
• Finding one’s core piece of suffering, relaxing into it and giving it some space, then tasting the virtue (52:09)
• How Leslie discovered Buddhist meditation, the contemplative (well-hidden) arm of Catholicism, and Centering Prayer (53:15)
• What’s a portal for people with a real allergy to religion? The Enneagream provides a bridge for the inward turn (55:42)

• Leslie Hershberger.com: Transformational Consulting, Facilitation, Coaching
• Leslie’s course Foundations of the Enneagram: The Centers Approach, a self-paced course and online space to learn the Enneagram in all 3 centers: head, heart, body
• Leslie’s YouTube channel
• Leslie’s courses Coming Home: An Integral Christian Practicum and Between You and Love: An Enneagram Course, hosted on Integral Life
• Integral Enneagram web course Patterns of Being, co-facilitated with Helen Palmer, also hosted on Integral Life
• The Narrative Enneagram Lifelong Learning programs, co-facilitated by Leslie Hershberger
• Helen Palmer, The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life*
• Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers*
• Evagrius Ponticus (Evagrius the Solitary), Christian monk and ascetic
• Virgina Wiltse, PhD & Helen Palmer, Hidden in Plain Sight: Observations on the Origins of the Enneagram
• St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul*
• Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
• Jacob Needleman, Lost Christianity*
• Jack Kornfield’s audio The Inner Art of Meditation*
• Thomas Keating, Centering Prayer, Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer*
• Cynthia Bourgeault, Christian contemplative, internationally acclaimed retreat leader, and author of The Corner of Fourth and Nondual* et al.
• Ian Cron & Suzanne Stabile, The Road Back to You*
• Richard Rohr, Franciscan priest and writer, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer*
• Beatrice Chestnut, The Complete Enneagram* (Leslie’s recommendation for a good comprehensive overview of the Enneagram, looking at the Enneagram through an archetypal lens)
• David Daniels, The Essential Enneagram* (Leslie’s recommended book for understanding the structure of the types)
• Ginger Lapid-Bogda, Bringing Out the Best in Yourself at Work* (Leslie’s recommendation for applying the Enneagram’s wisdom in the workplace) 
• Sandra Maitri, The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul* (Leslie’s recommendation around the spiritual dimension of the Enneagram)
• Recommended typing test: https://www.narrativeenneagram.org/enneagram-test/#test-section

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Teacher, theologian, spiritual guide, and master facilitator, Leslie Hershberger is the founder of The Three-Centered Enneagram, and offers both corporate and contemplative workshops, retreats, and keynotes throughout the U.S. and in Europe. She designed the online course The Foundations of the Enneagram: The Centers Approach, which is both a deep and a practical way of developing embodied emotional and social intelligence. Leslie integrates the Enneagram, three-centered contemplative practice, and Integral Theory in her work.

Leslie’s core mission is facilitating practice based in all 3 centers: head, heart, and body. She supports others in integrating psychological awareness and opening to wise, embodied spiritual Presence, especially during times of significant transition: social change, religious transition, second half of life, changing bodies, illness, grief, loss and the inevitable relationship challenges with those we care about most. She also supports many “post-church” pastors and people who have experienced a religious deconstruction and are looking for a way forward. Leslie was recently honored by Xavier University with the William and Anna Madges award for distinguished contribution to society.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 74 (Part 2 of 2) | Daniel Schmachtenberger, one of the most brilliant and integrative thinkers of our time, expresses here his deep love and appreciation for reality itself. Daniel’s inquiries have led him to perceive the intrinsic beauty of the wholeness of reality and to the realization that everything is interesting—just like when you love someone, everything about them becomes fascinating. Along with this deep appreciation comes the desire to serve and protect, and Daniel is focused on investigating the drivers of the metacrisis and how best to meet the difficult challenges it presents, a subject interwoven in this conversation with Daniel’s findings and ideas about reality, human psychology, education, and the future of the planet.

Daniel is a wonderful testament to the far reaching effects of the right kind of education. He relates how he was homeschooled by parents who set him on the path towards goodness, meaning, and beauty right from the start, and who were dedicated to facilitating his interest wherever it led, to include systems theory and how to create a better world. This is a beautiful, rich conversation filled with gems of knowledge and insight—about our human family (actually, the lack of one), the horrible deficit of fathering in modern culture, how we can orient to the sacred and the meaningful, the fact that we actually didn’t evolve to deal with the crises we face now but to negotiate successfully as members of a tribe of around 150 people, and much more. Recorded January 10, 2023.

 “I cannot imagine a context in which one’s choices matter more.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Does Daniel believe in God? (01:48)
• In Daniel’s “The Dance of the Tao and the 10,000 Things,” he asks, “Do atoms exist? Kind of! (08:23)
• The traps of reductionism in facing the metacrisis and how Daniel transcends them (10:49)
• The relation of physical crises to crises of consciousness: co-informing and co-arising facets of an integrative reality (13:11)
• Omni determinism, omni influence (16:31)
• Marvin Harris’ framework for understanding civilization: infrastructure, social structure, and superstructure (17:19)
• What in the interiority of human psyches, experiences & cultures are key drivers of the problems of the world? And how does our changed human genome, microbiome, and neurochemistry fit in? (19:00)
• We evolved to have attachments to 150 people—our tribe—so everything about bonding, attachment theory, the ideas of co-dependence & interdependence evolved in a tribal setting, in fact, we did not evolve to deal with what is going on now (21:22)
• The psychological generator function of the metacrisis results from perceiving the world as fragmented or made up of parts: conflict theory & mistake theory (23:34)
• The Realpolitik assessment of humans: we are dumb and nasty (25:54)
• It’s all based on a trade-off—we’re either trying to benefit ourselves now at the expense of our future selves, individually or collectively, or we just don’t realize the harm that is caused by what we do (27:26)
• Can we survive the current unprecedented metacrisis? No chance can we make it through without the catastrophes intensifying (30:08)
• The human family is not a real thing right now: there is no “we” (34:59)
• How to live a meaningful life? Deeply appreciate and honor the beauty of life, be in service to the beauty of reality, and deepen the capacity for both (37:33)
• Dharma inquiry and the vow of the bodhisattva (41:47) 
• Where is the vow of the bodhisattva missing something? (44:09)
• It’s not just what is my unique calling but also what needs doing that no one else wants to do? (46:19)
• One beautiful peak experience is worth all the pain (50:00)

• Learning theory describes how people receive, process, and retain information
• Tao Te Ching* (new English version translated by Stephen Mitchell)
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, The Dance of the Tao and the 10,000 Things
• Werner Heisenberg, theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics
• Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel Prize-winning physicist who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theory, including the Schrödinger equation
• Buddhist Śūnyatā and Huayan philosophies
• “Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design,” overview of the work of Marvin Harris, Marshall McLuhan (on Consilience Project website) et al.
• Marvin Harris, anthropologist and writer, highly influential on the subjects of cultural materialism and environmental determinism
• Marshall McLuhan, philosopher who focused on the relationship between media and culture and developed the concept of technological determinism 
• Nate Hagens’ 5-part podcast with Daniel Schmachtenberger on the environment, energy, and how does one deal with the reality of the metacrisis? (YouTube)
• David Bohm on Wholeness & Fragmentation (YouTube)
• R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth*
• Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space*
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, How to Live a Meaningful Life?
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, Dharma Inquiry
• The vow of the bodhisattva
• Alex Grey, Sacred Mirrors*
• Poets Hafiz and Rumi
• Daniel Schmachtenberger’s website Explorations on the Future of Civilization
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue 

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse, as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science.

Motivated by the belief that advancing collective intelligence and capacity is foundational to the integrity of any civilization, and necessary to address the unique risks we currently face given the intersection of globalization and exponential technology, he has spoken publicly on many of these topics, hoping to popularize and deepen important conversations and engage more people in working towards their solutions. Many of these can be found at http://civilizationemerging.com/media/. You can find more information about The Consilience Project at https://consilienceproject.org/.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 73 (Part 1 of 2) | Daniel Schmachtenberger, one of the most brilliant and integrative thinkers of our time, expresses here his deep love and appreciation for reality itself. Daniel’s inquiries have led him to perceive the intrinsic beauty of the wholeness of reality and to the realization that everything is interesting—just like when you love someone, everything about them becomes fascinating. Along with this deep appreciation comes the desire to serve and protect, and Daniel is focused on investigating the drivers of the metacrisis and how best to meet the difficult challenges it presents, a subject interwoven in this conversation with Daniel’s findings and ideas about reality, human psychology, education, and the future of the planet.

Daniel is a wonderful testament to the far reaching effects of the right kind of education. He relates how he was homeschooled by parents who set him on the path towards goodness, meaning, and beauty right from the start, and who were dedicated to facilitating his interest wherever it led, to include systems theory and how to create a better world. This is a beautiful, rich conversation filled with gems of knowledge and insight—about our human family (actually, the lack of one), the horrible deficit of fathering in modern culture, how we can orient to the sacred and the meaningful, the fact that we actually didn’t evolve to deal with the crises we face now but to negotiate successfully as members of a tribe of around 150 people, and much more. Recorded January 10, 2023.

 “I cannot imagine a context in which one’s choices matter more.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing brilliant integrative thinker Daniel Schmachtenberger (01:32)
• Finding meaning in the sacred dimensions of our world and the integrated wholeness of reality (03:52)
• Part of love is the desire to know everything about your partner—when loving reality, everything becomes interesting (05:47)
• The fractal nature of reality, looking at it through different lenses and receiving different insights, and how the more perspectives you take, the more depth and richness you perceive (07:13)
• Is there something about the nature of the effort to solve world problems that is at fault in their getting worse? (08:36)
• Daniel’s homeschooling parents set him on the path to following what is good, meaningful, and beautiful right from the start (10:22)
• If you facilitate children’s interest, they end up deep learning in many subjects (12:24)
• Daniel’s early education included systems theory and how to make a better world (14:46)
• How did Daniel come to be such an integrative thinker? Compartmentalized education vs integrated education (16:32)
• The decline of quality aristocratic tutoring has led to the decline of super geniuses (19:58)
• Are we all the result of our education? Tutors and mentors (28:11)
• Integrating across ontology and epistemology, and asking what is the generator function of novel insight? (29:07) 
• Man’s greatest purpose is to serve the family of man: women, nature, children (33:07)
• The gruesome deficit of fathering in the world and what Daniel learned about being a man from his dad (35:19)
• On forgiveness, therapy, healing, catalyzing gifts (43:22)
• How do spiritual depths inform our contemporary crises? Needing to ask why we should protect nature shows a real pathological deficit (49:37)
• Orientation to the sacred and the meaningfulness of life forms through a deep bandwidth of connection and sensing (52:39)
• Learning more about the field of conceptuality can both interfere with one’s connection to the Tao and enhance it (55:39)

• Daniel Schmachtenberger’s website Explorations on the Future of Civilization
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue 
• Kahlil Gibran, writer, poet, author of The Prophet*, one of the best-selling books of all time
• Complexity theory uses the study of complexity systems in the field of strategic management and organizational studies, drawing from research in the natural sciences
• David Bohm, one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century
• John Dewey, philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer with a profound belief in democracy
• Maria Montessori, physician, educator, founder of the Montessori method of education
• Rudolf Steiner, philosopher, social reformer, founder of the esoteric spiritual movement anthroposophy
• Buckminster Fuller, 20th century inventor & visionary, who coined the term design science, author of Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking*
• Krishnamurti, philosopher, speaker, writer, interested in psychological revolution and radical social change
• Fritjof Kapra, author of The Tao of Physics* and The Systems View of Life*, applies complexity theory to large-scale social interaction in The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living*
• Zachary Stein, educator, futurist, philosopher, author of Education in a Time Between Worlds*, see also Deep Transformation episode 61, The Future of Education and Civilization
• Erik Hoel, “Why We Stopped Making Einsteins”
• Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and Emperor of Rome, author of Meditations*
• Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich*
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, What I learned about being a man from my Dad
• Artists Dali & Picasso, poets Gibran & Blake
• Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth*
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, The Dance of the Tao and the 10,000 Things
• Samantha Sweetwater, soul mentor, wisdom teacher

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse, as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science.

Motivated by the belief that advancing collective intelligence and capacity is foundational to the integrity of any civilization, and necessary to address the unique risks we currently face given the intersection of globalization and exponential technology, he has spoken publicly on many of these topics, hoping to popularize and deepen important conversations and engage more people in working towards their solutions. Many of these can be found at http://civilizationemerging.com/media/. You can find more information about The Consilience Project at https://consilienceproject.org/.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 72 (Part 3 of 3) | Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens are big picture philosophers with extraordinary big hearts as well as big minds, dedicated to understanding how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other, and to forging a path for the Earth and civilization to flourish rather than fall apart. In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time. Now, we are only just beginning to understand the nature of the metacrisis—how the external crises are driven by interior crises of sensemaking and meaning making—but how do we bring everyone to the table to find solutions? How do we get the wisdom of these approaches to bear upon the crises we face? 

It turns out that heart connection—love, caring, and being willing to listen and to change—is a crucial, key ingredient for us to move forward in a positive way. Nick and Sean express both heartbreak and wild enthusiasm—heartbreak that our entire planetary community is so threatened and we have only a small window of time (till 2030) to transform our consciousness and culture into taking a cooperative and reverent approach to life, and enthusiasm to be alive at this pivotal time where everything hangs in the balance. Recorded December 7, 2022.

“We really need both—we need big Heart to connect and be friends with each other and love each other and we need that in equal measure to big Mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• What metatheory is and what it is not: integrative metatheories explore how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other (01:35)
• Big picture models are antidotes to the single focus fallacies, single issue fallacies, single cause fallacies, and single solution fallacies (04:07)
• Developmentally, the majority of people are at a stage of “advanced linear thinking” and the metacrisis requires “advanced systems thinking” (05:21)
• People need 3 things to grow under stress instead of regress: context, pointing a way out, and being told what we can do individually (06:46)
• How do we communicate the urgency without invoking the psychology of fear? (09:08)
• The crucial window to transform the very foundations of our civilization is between now and 2030 (10:18)
• What can we do? We’re still working on the context but we need to have a collective conversation to figure out what is the path out, or the possible paths out (11:20)
• A core developmental practice we can actually do is perspective taking, perspective seeking, and perspective coordinating (14:28)
• Ego death is all along the path; we need to keep opening up to a bigger version of ourselves (16:15)
• Taking perspectives is not enough (18:37)
• Business as usual is not going to happen—how do we create new educational systems to transform the world in the ways that are needed? (21:10)
• The importance of sounding our note, sitting in prayer in humility, and asking, what can I do? (25:10)
• Pessimism and optimism are both ego strategies to deal with uncertainty; we need to learn to rest in uncertainty individually and collectively because no one knows what will happen (27:20)
• How has grappling with the problems of the metacrisis changed Nick and Sean? (31:16)
• Where is the hope? (36:44)

• Hanzi Freinacht, The Listening Society*
• Bildung links philosophy and education for both personal and cultural maturation
• Jonathan Rowson, “Bildung in the 21st Century: Why Sustainable Prosperity Depends on Reimagining Education”
• Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy*
• A.H. Almaas, creator of The Diamond Approach, see also Diamond Approach YouTube videos with A. H. Almaas, and Deep Transformation episode 43, Nonduality and Beyond: The Exhilarating Adventure of Discovering the Nature of Reality and How Awakenings Can Unfold Endlessly (also available on YouTube)
• Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing*
• Roy Bhaskar, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Nicholas Hedlund, Mervyn Hartwig, Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue*
• Sean Esbjörn-Hargens & Michael Zimmerman, Integral Ecology*
• Nicholas Hedlund’s Academia.edu page with his PhD thesis and a number of articles, book chapters, etc. 
• Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, founder of MetaIntegral, a global transdisciplinary social impact organization
• Nick Hedlund, founding director of the Eudaimonia Institute, dedicated to human flourishing

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is a global leader in the application of integrative thinking to leader development, organizational design, and mixed-methods design. In 2011 he founded MetaIntegral, a social impact network that supports change leaders around the world in applying integrative principles. Sean’s passion lies at the intersection of design, integral theory, and embodiment. He has published and edited numerous articles, chapters, and books. His most recent book is Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing. He also is the Program Director of the MA/PhD program Integral Noetic Sciences at the California Institute for Human Sciences.

Nicholas Hedlund, PhD, is a visionary philosopher working at the nexus of philosophy of science, worldviews, and socioecological transformation. He received his PhD in philosophy and social sciences from University College London, studying under the philosopher Roy Bhaskar. Nicholas also holds a master’s degree in philosophy & religion, as well as one in psychology. He is director of Eudaimonia Institute, an emerging social innovations lab for planetary flourishing. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and peer-reviewed journals. He is co-editor of Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue and Big Picture Perspectives for Planetary Flourishing: Metatheory for the Anthropocene, Vol I. He currently teaches at the California Institute of Human Science.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 71 (Part 2 of 3) | Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens are big picture philosophers with extraordinary big hearts as well as big minds, dedicated to understanding how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other, and to forging a path for the Earth and civilization to flourish rather than fall apart. In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time. Now, we are only just beginning to understand the nature of the metacrisis—how the external crises are driven by interior crises of sensemaking and meaning making—but how do we bring everyone to the table to find solutions? How do we get the wisdom of these approaches to bear upon the crises we face? 

It turns out that heart connection—love, caring, and being willing to listen and to change—is a crucial, key ingredient for us to move forward in a positive way. Nick and Sean express both heartbreak and wild enthusiasm—heartbreak that our entire planetary community is so threatened and we have only a small window of time (till 2030) to transform our consciousness and culture into taking a cooperative and reverent approach to life, and enthusiasm to be alive at this pivotal time where everything hangs in the balance. Recorded December 7, 2022.

“We really need both—we need big Heart to connect and be friends with each other and love each other and we need that in equal measure to big Mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• The difference between dialogue and debate: being willing to have one’s mind changed and opening up the opportunity for real dialogue (01:23)
• The critical reality principle/truth that we all share one world (03:07)
• The call to evolve together and mature spiritually (05:14)
• Reasons to be optimistic and reasons to be concerned about what lies ahead: the metacrisis will be a developmental catalyst for some but not all (07:33)
• The integral ecology mantra: things are getting better, things are also getting worse, and the eternal nature of perfection (09:33) 
• How can we speak to the fears of the people? The failure of liberal globalism, the rise of conservatism, and the search for higher political ground (12:01)
• Learning to listen to reality itself and what is being communicated by the profound intelligence of nature (15:03)
• What steps can we take to contribute to the full system reboot that is needed now? Cultivating the reverent heart sensibility (21:15)
• Applying big picture maps to addressing aspects of the metacrisis: six qualities pointing to the ways in which we need to be connected in order to make any progress (22:56) 
• How can we all be friends? Cultivating filia, connecting heart to heart, is the secret ingredient to the success of long term collaboration (28:11)
• How do we scale heart connection among humans? (35:43)
• We need more expressive capacity as a humanity, which metatheories can help us with (37:47)

• Daniel Schmachtenberger, founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue
• Carl Rogers, great American psychologist, Journal of Humanistic Psychology: The Rust Workshop (The Central American Challenge)
• Robert Kegan’s story about how people with irreconcilable views about abortion discovered their common humanity and came to care about each other, as retold by author, educator & scientist James Conklin
• Carl Rogers, “When I look at the world I am pessimistic…”
• John Dupuy, Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction*
• Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing*
• Roy Bhaskar, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Nicholas Hedlund, Mervyn Hartwig, Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue*
• Nicholas Hedlund’s Academia.edu page with his PhD thesis and a number of articles, book chapters, etc. 
• Sean Esbjörn-Hargens & Michael Zimmerman, Integral Ecology*
• Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, founder of MetaIntegral, a global transdisciplinary social impact organization
• Nick Hedlund, founder director of the Eudaimonia Institute, dedicated to human flourishing

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is a global leader in the application of integrative thinking to leader development, organizational design, and mixed-methods design. In 2011 he founded MetaIntegral, a social impact network that supports change leaders around the world in applying integrative principles. Sean’s passion lies at the intersection of design, integral theory, and embodiment. He has published and edited numerous articles, chapters, and books. His most recent book is Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing. He also is the Program Director of the MA/PhD program Integral Noetic Sciences at the California Institute for Human Sciences.

Nicholas Hedlund, PhD, is a visionary philosopher working at the nexus of philosophy of science, worldviews, and socioecological transformation. He received his PhD in philosophy and social sciences from University College London, studying under the philosopher Roy Bhaskar. Nicholas also holds a master’s degree in philosophy & religion, as well as one in psychology. He is director of Eudaimonia Institute, an emerging social innovations lab for planetary flourishing. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and peer-reviewed journals. He is co-editor of Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue and Big Picture Perspectives for Planetary Flourishing: Metatheory for the Anthropocene, Vol I. He currently teaches at the California Institute of Human Science.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 70 (Part 1 of 3) | Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens are big picture philosophers with extraordinary big hearts as well as big minds, dedicated to understanding how consciousness, culture, and nature relate to each other, and to forging a path for the Earth and civilization to flourish rather than fall apart. In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time. Now, we are only just beginning to understand the nature of the metacrisis—how the external crises are driven by interior crises of sensemaking and meaning making—but how do we bring everyone to the table to find solutions? How do we get the wisdom of these approaches to bear upon the crises we face? 

It turns out that heart connection—love, caring, and being willing to listen and to change—is a crucial, key ingredient for us to move forward in a positive way. Nick and Sean express both heartbreak and wild enthusiasm—heartbreak that our entire planetary community is so threatened and we have only a small window of time (till 2030) to transform our consciousness and culture into taking a cooperative and reverent approach to life, and enthusiasm to be alive at this pivotal time where everything hangs in the balance. Recorded December 7, 2022.

“We really need both—we need big Heart to connect and be friends with each other and love each other and we need that in equal measure to big Mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing philosophers Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, who coined the term metacrisis (01:30)
• Nick’s mystical experiences early on and awareness of the crisis the Earth is facing led him to find a way to study the big picture beyond the partial perspectives offered in different university departments (02:57)
• For Nick, the metacrisis is connected with his own spiritual path and the questions “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” and “What does it mean to be human at this time?” (06:34)
• Sean started with studying animal consciousness, then added philosophy, psychology, and biology for an interdisciplinary understanding, focusing on ways of relating to the natural world—environmental philosophy (07:10)
• Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory brought Sean into deeper contact with nature, culture, and consciousness, and opened his heart (10:45)
• Nick & Sean coined the term “metacrisis” to illuminate more than simply the sum of all the crises, but also how they overlap and intertwine: the holistic complexity (13:01)
• Wicked problems: if we solve any of the crises, the solution grows more problems (14:45)
• All the crises share a network of root causes, deeper causal structures that underlie the symptoms we are experiencing—crises of interiority & spirituality, sensemaking & meaning making, are drivers of the rest (15:17)
• Our global problems are actually global symptoms (16:55)
• Nick & Sean created a big picture symposium series where scholars/practitioners familiar with Roy Bashkar’s critical realism and Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (and familiar with the work of Edgar Morin, who uses the term “polycrisis”) came together to dialogue (17:45)
• The value of integrative metatheory: bringing the metacrisis into view, exploring the relationship between culture, consciousness, and nature, allowing us to actually talk about the situation and coordinate ourselves into action (19:18)
• Why is having a good theory of ontology (Bashkar’s critical realism) and of consciousness (Wilber’s Integral Theory) necessary? (21:54)
• Ontology = the study of reality, the study of being, the truth of things beyond our knowledge about them vs. epistemology which is our knowledge—how we know the world and gain knowledge about reality (22:48)
• Critical realism: there is something real, a deep strata, beyond what we see or observe (24:44)
• What are some of the great challenges and the core elements of the metacrisis? (26:05)
• The ecological crisis and sense of urgency because we have crossed many of the planetary boundaries, e.g. with CO2 (28:40)
• The ecosocial crisis, the ethical crisis, the existential crisis form the (external) polycrisis (30:17)
• The epistemic crisis of sensemaking is an internal crisis (31:29)
• Worldview clashes and an Integral forestry story of successfully building communication: taking perspectives, seeking perspectives, and coordinating perspectives (32:50)

• Nicholas Hedlund & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing*
• Roy Bhaskar, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Nicholas Hedlund, Mervyn Hartwig, Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue*
• Sean Esbjörn-Hargens & Michael Zimmerman, Integral Ecology*
• Nicholas Hedlund's Academia.edu page with his PhD thesis and a number of articles, book chapters, etc. 
• Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, founder of MetaIntegral, a global transdisciplinary social impact organization
• Nick Hedlund, founding director of the Eudaimonia Institute, dedicated to human flourishing
• Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality*
• Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything*
• Edgar Morin, French philosopher and sociologist who uses the term polycrisis
• California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS)
• Roy Bhaskar, English philosopher of science who initiated the philosophical movement of critical realism
• Andrew Collier, Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar’s Philosophy*
• Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory: Integral Life’s What is the Integral Approach?, The Integral Vision: A Very Short Introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe, and Everything*
• Zachary Stein, author of Education in a Time Between Worlds: Essays on the Future of Schools, Technology & Society*, co-founder of The Consilience Project, see also Deep Transformation episode #61, The Future of Education & Civilization
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue 
• Jonathan Rowson, co-founder and director of Perspectiva, systems-soul-society.com, anthology Dispatches from a Time Between Worlds: Crisis and Emergence in Metamodernity*, see also Deep Transformation episode #17, Making Friends with Conflict, Metamodernity, Construct Awareness, and Other Ways of Facing the Current Metacrisis
• Jane Loevinger’s Stages of Ego Development, Ego Development,* Paradigms of Personality*

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is a global leader in the application of integrative thinking to leader development, organizational design, and mixed-methods design. In 2011 he founded MetaIntegral, a social impact network that supports change leaders around the world in applying integrative principles. Sean’s passion lies at the intersection of design, integral theory, and embodiment. He has published and edited numerous articles, chapters, and books. His most recent book is Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing. He also is the Program Director of the MA/PhD program Integral Noetic Sciences at the California Institute for Human Sciences.

Nicholas Hedlund, PhD, is a visionary philosopher working at the nexus of philosophy of science, worldviews, and socioecological transformation. He received his PhD in philosophy and social sciences from University College London, studying under the philosopher Roy Bhaskar. Nicholas also holds a master’s degree in philosophy & religion, as well as one in psychology. He is director of Eudaimonia Institute, an emerging social innovations lab for planetary flourishing. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and peer-reviewed journals. He is co-editor of Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue and Big Picture Perspectives for Planetary Flourishing: Metatheory for the Anthropocene, Vol I. He currently teaches at the California Institute of Human Science.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 69 (Part 3 of 3) | Corey deVos is the heart and center of Integral Life, the organization that revolves around the work of Ken Wilber. Corey became passionate about Integral Theory at the age of 19, and in this lively conversation, he is clearly every bit as passionate about the actuality and the promise of Integral today. Here, Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history—the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

Corey infuses the complex topics under discussion—the Integral metatheory, social issues that never seem to get resolved, human evolution itself—with optimism and enthusiasm, clarity and light, a testament to his own embodiment of Integral consciousness. At Integral Life, Corey co-hosts The Ken Show (with Ken Wilber), applies Integral to social issues like racism and justice in his podcast series, and excels at finding creative ways of translating the complexities of Integral Theory into easy-to-understand nuggets of information. This conversation is a brilliant, beautiful illumination of the Integral vision, covering how Integral has evolved and describing what it can do for our future. Recorded on November 10, 2022.

“The more we can make room for each other’s perspective…that’s how you go about solving the kind of political tribalization and polarization that is so prominent today.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• The early days of Integral after the end of its “dark ages” (01:50)
• What was Integral Naked exactly? (03:18)
• Robb Smith takes over the leadership of Integral Life (06:16)
• The early days conversations are as relevant today as when they were recorded (08:57)
• The evolution of Integral Life, what’s going on now: political sensemaking, intra personal development, live community practice groups, and much more (10:08)
• Corey’s development of trust and confidence doing the work: from instrument to symphony (15:50)
• Carrying on the flame that was ignited by Ken Wilber (20:30)
• The curse of Ken Wilber is being born ahead of his time (22:04)
• What is most exciting to Corey right now? Taking Integral ideas and expressing them artistically with woodwork (24:41)
• Where is Integral headed? As the framework is applied in the world, it’s going to start generating real impact (28:25)
• Integralists are growing up, cleaning up, and now is the time for a collective “showing up” (30:51)

• Alex Gray, visual artist known for creating spiritual & psychedelic paintings
• Robert Kegan, developmental psychologist, author of The Evolving Self*
• Billy Corgan, the Smashing Pumpkins’ lead singer, primary songwriter, and guitarist
• Stone Gossard, guitarist and songwriter for Pearl Jam
• Saul Williams, rapper, singer/songwriter, poet, actor
• Serj Tankian, songwriter, political activist, lead singer in System of a Down
• Robb Smith, founder and CEO of Integral Life
• James Turner, D.C. lawyer and author of The Chemical Feast: Ralph Nader’s Study Group Report on the Food and Drug Administration*
• Jim Garrison, founder and president of Ubiquity University
• Mark Fischler, co-host of The Integral Justice Warrior series with Corey deVos
• Dr. Keith Witt, clinical psychologist and frequent guest on Integral Life podcasts
• Jeff Salzman, host of The Daily Evolver podcast
• Integral Life Practice community
• Ryan Oelke, meditation, mindfulness, and dharma teacher
• The Joe Rogan Experience podcast
• Gail Hochachka, co-founder of Integral Without Borders and author of Developing Sustainability, Developing the Self*
• Roger Walsh, The State of the Integral Enterprise (article in the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice)
• Bence Ganti, founder of the IEC global integral conferences: Integral European Conference 2023, Planetary Awakening 2.0
• Ken Wilber, One Taste* 
• Corey deVos, Executive Producer at IntegralLife.com
• Corey deVos’ intro to Integral video: Holons: The Building Blocks of the Universe (YouTube)
• Build Your Integral Life, free Integral Life course for beginners
• Corey’s art website, Vision Logix Woodworking

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Corey deVos is the Executive Producer of Integral Life, an online media platform that focuses on the application of Integral Theory to personal and social transformation. Integral Theory is a comprehensive framework that seeks to integrate multiple perspectives, including the subjective, objective, inter-subjective, and inter-objective dimensions of human experience.

Corey deVos is also a writer, woodworker, musician, and teacher, who has been involved in the integral community for many years. He is a frequent host and guest on Integral Life’s podcast, where he engages in deep conversations with leading thinkers, artists, and practitioners in the integral world. He is known for his ability to articulate complex ideas in a clear and accessible manner, and for his commitment to fostering a more inclusive and integrated worldview. Corey is a devoted father and husband, and lives with his family in Longmont, Colorado.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 68 (Part 2 of 3) | Corey deVos is the heart and center of Integral Life, the organization that revolves around the work of Ken Wilber. Corey became passionate about Integral Theory at the age of 19, and in this lively conversation, he is clearly every bit as passionate about the actuality and the promise of Integral today. Here, Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history—the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

Corey infuses the complex topics under discussion—the Integral metatheory, social issues that never seem to get resolved, human evolution itself—with optimism and enthusiasm, clarity and light, a testament to his own embodiment of Integral consciousness. At Integral Life, Corey co-hosts The Ken Show (with Ken Wilber), applies Integral to social issues like racism and justice in his podcast series, and excels at finding creative ways of translating the complexities of Integral Theory into easy-to-understand nuggets of information. This conversation is a brilliant, beautiful illumination of the Integral vision, covering how Integral has evolved and describing what it can do for our future. Recorded on November 10, 2022.

“The more we can make room for each other’s perspective…that’s how you go about solving the kind of political tribalization and polarization that is so prominent today.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• In appreciation of Ken Wilber’s kindness and generosity (00:48)
• The Integral vision, the concept of “vision-logic,” and the geometry of consciousness (02:23)
• Corey’s creativity using mainstream movie clips to communicate the complexity of each Integral stage of development in a nutshell (05:18)
• How Corey applies Integral to the major social issues of our time (09:21)
• The Integral Justice Warrior series, co-hosted by Mark Fischler and Corey deVos (10:38)
• The Ken Show with Ken Wilber and Corey deVos (13:18)
• The Integral map’s four quadrants explained (14:47)
• The Integral heart is an empathetic heart (18:14) 
• The 8 zones of racism: can we create a frame in which both a “woke” person and a traditional person can find themselves? (20:28)
• How can we talk about systemic racism (or any other issue) from different developmental perspectives and find common ground? (23:22)
• Stumbling our way towards Integral and finding out that the territory is actually real (26:21)
• The evolution of Integral, symbol of wholeness (32:47)
• How Corey came to be knocking on Ken’s door and his intention to create a way for people to become transformed by Integral yet not feel alone in this (34:41)

• John Dupuy, Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction*
• Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness*
• Corey’s art website, Vision Logix Woodworking
• Ken Wilber, The Integral Vision*
• The Integral Justice Warrior series, co-hosted by Mark Fischler and Corey deVos
• The Ken Show: Putting the “Art” in Artificial Intelligence
• The Ken Show: Wicked Problems, Gun Violence
• Jeff Salzman, host of The Daily Evolver podcast
• Corey deVos, Executive Producer at IntegralLife.com
• Corey deVos’ intro to Integral video: Holons: The Building Blocks of the Universe (YouTube)
• Build Your Integral Life, free Integral Life course for beginners

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Corey deVos is the Executive Producer of Integral Life, an online media platform that focuses on the application of Integral Theory to personal and social transformation. Integral Theory is a comprehensive framework that seeks to integrate multiple perspectives, including the subjective, objective, inter-subjective, and inter-objective dimensions of human experience.

Corey deVos is also a writer, woodworker, musician, and teacher, who has been involved in the integral community for many years. He is a frequent host and guest on Integral Life’s podcast, where he engages in deep conversations with leading thinkers, artists, and practitioners in the integral world. He is known for his ability to articulate complex ideas in a clear and accessible manner, and for his commitment to fostering a more inclusive and integrated worldview. Corey is a devoted father and husband, and lives with his family in Longmont, Colorado.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 67 (Part 1 of 3) | Corey deVos is the heart and center of Integral Life, the organization that revolves around the work of Ken Wilber. Corey became passionate about Integral Theory at the age of 19, and in this lively conversation, he is clearly every bit as passionate about the actuality and the promise of Integral today. Here, Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history—the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

Corey infuses the complex topics under discussion—the Integral metatheory, social issues that never seem to get resolved, human evolution itself—with optimism and enthusiasm, clarity and light, a testament to his own embodiment of Integral consciousness. At Integral Life, Corey co-hosts The Ken Show (with Ken Wilber), applies Integral to social issues like racism and justice in his podcast series, and excels at finding creative ways of translating the complexities of Integral Theory into easy-to-understand nuggets of information. This conversation is a brilliant, beautiful illumination of the Integral vision, covering how Integral has evolved and describing what it can do for our future. Recorded on November 10, 2022.

“The more we can make room for each other’s perspective…that’s how you go about solving the kind of political tribalization and polarization that is so prominent today.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing Corey deVos, Executive Producer of Integral Life, the organization that revolves around Ken Wilber and his work (00:57)
• The ordinary and the extraordinary about Integral: Corey gives a superb explanation of just what is meant by the term “Integral” (02:41)
• Global challenges now are so huge, complicated, and urgent, they are forcing developmental movement—a new evolution—and necessitating the kind of comprehensive solutions that Integral offers (07:14)
• How the spiral of development is now at war with itself—like a global auto-immune disease, we are attacking ourself; Integral can supply the “medicine” (08:27)
• What distinguishes the Integral stage from all the previous stages and how does Integral fit into history? (11:08)
• The fragmentation of knowledge and how Integral is able to hold it all in a meaningful framework (14:46)
• Integral is also a call to transform (18:39)
• Every new stage coming into being involves a revolution; Integral’s revolution is from the inside out rather than the outside in, and it demands we do our inner work (19:53)
• The problem with reductionism and how Integral holds our basic polarities: interior/exterior, subjective/objective, individual/collective, offering a way out of our conflicts (22:34)
• How can people start to get involved with the Integral project? (27:29)
• Corey’s catastrophic first spiritual experience and love at first read of Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything (30:38) 

• Corey deVos, Executive Producer at IntegralLife.com
• Corey deVos’ intro to Integral video: Holons: The Building Blocks of the Universe (YouTube)
• What’s the Future Integral conference in Sedona, hosted by Transformation Teaching (November 2022)
• Ken Wilber, Integral Theory, and Ken Wilber’s books*
• Everybody is right, YouTube video with Ken Wilber
• What Are the Stages of Development? (Integral Life)
• Build Your Integral Life, free Integral Life course for beginners
• Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution*
• The Integral Justice Warrior series, co-hosted by Mark Fischler and Corey deVos
• Abraham Maslow, American psychologist, creator of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
• Clare Graves, adult developmental stages psychologist foundational to Spiral Dynamics
• Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything*
• Marcia Walters (Ken’s ex-wife) & musician Stuart Davis
• Corey’s website, Vision Logix Woodworking

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Corey deVos is the Executive Producer of Integral Life, an online media platform that focuses on the application of Integral Theory to personal and social transformation. Integral Theory is a comprehensive framework that seeks to integrate multiple perspectives, including the subjective, objective, inter-subjective, and inter-objective dimensions of human experience.

Corey deVos is also a writer, woodworker, musician, and teacher, who has been involved in the integral community for many years. He is a frequent host and guest on Integral Life’s podcast, where he engages in deep conversations with leading thinkers, artists, and practitioners in the integral world. He is known for his ability to articulate complex ideas in a clear and accessible manner, and for his commitment to fostering a more inclusive and integrated worldview. Corey is a devoted father and husband, and lives with his family in Longmont, Colorado.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 66 | Ukrainian psychologist Kateryna Yasko and integral leadership development expert Vytautas Bučiūnas share their first-hand experiences of the war in Kyiv now, one year after the invasion by Russia, as well as their penetrating perspectives on Russian imperialism (“Russia needs to lose this war so they can reinvent themselves”), on why there is comparably less PTSD among Ukrainian soldiers, and the implications for the world if Russia were to win or if it were to disintegrate. They acknowledge the relatively recent “awakening of Europe” to the fact that Putin won’t stop with Ukraine if he wins, and warn that “democracy needs to be fully ready for a possibly long-term battle for its values.”

Kateryna and Vytautas have witnessed how having an overriding mission and purpose has changed Ukrainians, and describe perceiving an unmistakable shift in energy upon crossing the border into Ukraine, where the heightened appreciation for life and the strength and solidarity of common purpose are palpable. What does the struggle for democracy, freedom, and dignity actually feel like? Find out on a planned pilgrimage to Ukraine this fall—both a spiritual journey of awakening and an opportunity to embody the experience of being invaded by Russia. This podcast is also a call for help—if you feel inspired to support the efforts in Ukraine, below are links to three trustworthy organizations working hard on Ukraine’s behalf. Recorded February 13, 2023.

“Democracies need to have guts. Who knows how many battles between democracy and autocracy lie ahead?”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing Ukrainian psychologist Dr. Kateryna Yasko and leadership development expert Vytautus Bučiūnas (01:51) 
• Thank you to people who gave via iAwake in support of Ukraine (04:23)
• Update on what’s happening on the front lines thanks to the support of Western countries and especially the U.S. (06:01)
• President Zelensky, his speech to the United States Congress, and the qualities that make him a great wartime president (06:58)
• The metamodern cultural code and using force to protect ethical values (10:06)
• The awakening of Europe: democracy needs to be ready for a possibly long-term battle for its values (11:42)
• Ukraine has integrated the extremely important polarities: love and power, and the Battle of Antonov Airport (13:01)
• This is an existential war; there is no choice for Ukrainians (17:40)
• Things are getting a lot worse in Russia socially, economically, and among the elite (20:01)
• Russian imperialism needs to die for the benefit of all, including Russians (21:09)
• Because the defensive war in Ukraine is a just war, levels of PTSD among soldiers are much less (25:04)
• There are more than 100 small nations under Russian control who seek autonomy, independence, dignity, and respect (25:55)
• What will happen if/when Russia disintegrates? (26:34)
• Every country has its Nazis (30:25)
• The spirit in Kyiv now: solidarity, purpose, meaning & an extraordinary appreciation of life (32:30)
• You are invited on a pilgrimage to Ukraine in Oct 2023 to experience the vital spirit of the struggle for democracy firsthand (37:33)
• Co-host John Dupuy’s riveting song: Ukraine! (45:59)
• How to get involved and support Ukraine (see links below) (51:39)
• A call to be with Ukraine in spirit (52:57)
• In gratitude for the support of the United States and a heads up to Americans: the outcome of this war will affect each and every one of us (54:09)

• Servant of the People, political satire TV series created by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he stars as a teacher unexpectedly elected President of Ukraine (before his real life election as President of Ukraine)
• Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, There is a time for everything
• Battle of Antonov Airport, February 24-25, 2022
• 1420, street interviews with Russians & Belarusians by Daniil Orain on YouTube
• The Emerge community is premised on the hypothesis that the future will be either a discrete phrase-shift towards further entropy and collapse, or the emergence of a higher-order system that is more complex and elegant than current global system dynamics. The question is how we get there.
• John Dupuy’s Ukraine! song on YouTube
• The Moral Imperative to Help Ukraine: Integral Perspectives on the War, Its Global Implications, and the Role of Warrior Consciousness, Deep Transformation podcast with Kateryna Yasko, Vytautas Bučiūnas, and Bence Gánti, recorded April 15, 2022
• Ukrainian Integral Perspectives on the Ongoing Invasion of Ukraine, Deep Transformation podcast with Kateryna Yasko & Vytautas Bučiūnas recorded March 5, 2022

•  An astute, in-depth profile of Vladimir Putin, with Russian-born American journalist Julia Ioffe: Putin and the Presidents: Julia Ioffe (interview) | FRONTLINE
• Timothy Snyder, expert on the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe and history professor at Yale, on Why the world needs Ukrainian victory 
• Timothy Snyder on Nuclear war! Why it isn’t happening

• United24, the official fundraising platform of Ukraine, initiated by President Zelenskyy, founded to protect, save, and rebuild Ukraine: https://u24.gov.ua/
• The Foundation for Competent Assistance to the Army, “Come Back Alive,” has launched a fundraiser to purchase equipment that will help the Ukrainian military defeat the occupiers in cyberspace: https://savelife.in.ua/en/
• Serhiy Prytula’s Foundation is a charitable organization with a military headquarters focused on providing the Ukrainian army with means of communication, optical devices, drones, UAVs, transport, and means of tactical medicine for the military, and a humanitarian headquarters, providing assistance to civilians in the occupied territories and within a radius of 70 kilometers from the front line, including the “NEST” project, with the mission of bringing life back to de-occupied towns and villages by providing people with free mobile homes on their land: https://prytulafoundation.org/en

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Kateryna Yasko (Ukraine) is an organizational psychologist, a trainer for the development of emotional intelligence, trust, cooperation, effective communication, and peaceful conflict resolution, and co-founder of the consulting company U-Integral. Her academic background is in the area of international relations and law (MSc), business (MBA), and psychology (MSc). She bases her programs on the principles of Ken Wilber’s Integral approach and Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, and is certified in Spiral Dynamics Integral and in Susanne Cook-Greuter’s Maturity Assessment Profile. Kateryna is also head of the public association “International Institute for Integral Development” and a founder of the educational initiative EMPATIA.PRO, specializing in bringing holistic approaches into educational leadership and learning cultures. 

Vytautas Bučiūnas (Lithuania–Ukraine) is a co-founder and managing partner of U-Integral, an integral leadership development company. Vytautas also has vast experience as a top manager in the banking sector including working as the Head of Resident Office, Senior Banker, Associate Director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Russia, Ukraine). Vytautas’ professional profile includes building organizational units from scratch, carrying out large-scale transformations, and managing crises. Vytautas is a certified Integral Master Coach™ (Integral Coaching Canada), an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC)™, and the only business consultant in Ukraine certified in Leadership Maturity Framework – Maturity Assessment for Professionals (LMF-MAP) and Global Leadership Profile (GLP). Vytautas explores the development of human consciousness and complex social systemsfrom a holistic perspective. He considers the growth of a critical mass of mature leaders with systemic thinking and transformational capabilities to be the key to society’s healthy development.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 65 | Rev. Dr. Michael Clarke, principal of the Anglican seminary Codrington College in Barbados, beautifully articulates how embodied spirituality can change us and the importance of personal encounters with living Spirit to further us along our evolutionary path. He enlightens us as to the shortcomings of the Church and religion as it is largely practiced in the West in a way many of us may not have heard before, pointing out that the Church fails to take into account that the magnitude of our understanding of divine experience is ever expanding, in parallel with Ken Wilber’s Integral teaching on the ever expanding nature of consciousness, and mentioning that Jesus’ experience as divine man was not intended to be the end all religious experience for all time. As Michael says, “We need to understand the Oneness—we’ve done religion from the duality perspective, from a separatist perspective…missing the whole point!”

Michael is passionate about creating opportunities for people to have personal encounters with living Spirit since having his own earth-shattering experience with the divine. He tells us that when spirituality comes into play, it offers a step upward, a higher place to stand to view the world that allows for Oneness, and describes the separation inherent in our world of duality today as a “wonderful avenue towards unification, appreciation, and understanding.” So, “How do you lift up this thing called spirituality and cause it to be a central part of religious response? Can the Church grow with what needs to happen?” Michael imbues this conversation with a bright, shining light of deep spiritual understanding and invites us all to be open to the “call to be more.” Recorded September 6, 2021.

“This human experience causes us to fall asleep… thus the journey of awakening.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• How John met Michael Clarke at an Integral Christianity conference (01:25)
• Michael’s journey from cradle Anglican to hearing the call to ministry and becoming an ordained priest in 1984 (04:33)
• Speaking from the perspective of a Black priest rather than an Anglican priest for the first time (05:55)
• Michael’s spiritual turning point experience and consciousness shift (08:19)
• Climbing up the Jesus experience as a platform to go higher didn’t end up happening; the Jesus experience was made out to be the highest possible experience (09:16)
• Michael’s spiritual experience in more detail: finding himself on the floor of the Church and recognizing that there is another dimension of religious experience outside of dogma (10:40)
• Discovering a path parallel to the theoretical and philosophical with access to divine authority and power—direct experience of the living spirit—has been pushed aside, especially in the West, to focus on the objective (14:51)
• Our world (and the Church) tends to seek control, but no one can control the direct divine experience of an individual (18:00)
• How do you lift up this thing called spirituality and cause it to be the core of religious response? (19:38)
• Looking for a system that would transcend and include Michael’s experience—practices to induce religious response (21:12)
• Opening to the “more,” the luminous, capturing a sense that everything is expanding (27:13) 
• Understanding that divine experience is an evolutionary process, forever changing; none of us have it all nailed down (29:14)
• The difficult of talking about this with people who haven’t had a divine experience (31:26)
• There is a growing sensitivity to the spiritual but the focus remains on the external journey rather than the inner, contemplative journey (34:49)
• Speaking as a Black priest from the West Indies: it’s no longer about religion but about the experience of coming into this white culture (36:14)
• The separation inherent In a world of duality provides a wonderful avenue for unification—for us to move higher and experience the oneness (40:31)
• We need to understand the oneness—we’ve done religion from the duality perspective, from a separatist perspective, missing the whole point (41:28)
• Re-examining Jesus as a spiritual being having a physical experience, focusing on the the incarnational aspect of Jesus as human and divine, allows us to look through a different lens and see the possibilities for all of us—we all can go higher (44:37)
• Individuals are open to the spiritual—the Church just needs to pick it up! Bring it back to the center, invite people to do the work and make the shift (51:56)
• Culturally, the Caribbean perspective is changing now, loosening the connection with established religion that endorsed slavery, and taking ownership for one’s life journey, asking, what does it mean to be me as a person, as an individual? (55:37)

• Rev. Dr. Michael Clarke, principal of Codrington College in Barbados, one of the oldest theological colleges in the Western hemisphere
• Michael’s radio program, Food for the Soul, aired on CBC 100.7FM at 1:00 pm EST on Sundays, https://liveonlineradio.net/q-100-7-fm
• Michael’s morning devotion on Contemplative Life Foundation’s Facebook and YouTube channels, Monday through Friday, 5:30 am EST
• Toronto School of Theology, one of the largest ecumenical centers for theological education in the English-speaking world
• The Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer*
• iAwake Technologies, transformative sound technology for an evolving world
• Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (a quick intro on the Daily Evolver website)
• Paul Smith, Integral Spirituality: The Spirit’s Call to Evolve*
• James Finley, faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation, author of Merton’s Palace of Nowhere* and The Contemplative Heart*, and host of CAC’s podcast Turning to the Mystics
• Cynthia Bourgeault, mystic, writer, teacher within the worldwide Wisdom community, author of the Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening* and more
• Albert Einstein, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
• Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels*, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas*
• Thomas Keating, one of the principal developers of Centering Prayer, author of Open Mind, Open Heart* and many more 

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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The Rev. Dr. Michael A. Clarke, D. Min, graduated from Harrison College in 1978 and matriculated at the University of the West Indies in the same year. Upon graduating from UWI, he offered himself to test his vocation at Codrington College, the Anglican Seminary of the Church of the Province of the West Indies, and upon successfully completing his time there, he was accepted into Holy Orders, ordained deacon, and priested on the Eve of the Ascension in 1985. Dr. Clarke pursued a career in the full time ministry of the Church until 1990, when he left the diocese to study and work in the diocese of Toronto at St. Peter’s Church and St. Paul’s the Apostle Church, while pursuing his Doctor of MInistry degree studies at the Toronto School of Theology, Trinity College, University of Toronto.

Dr. Clarke was instrumental in creating the Anglican Youth Ministry Service, an agency of the diocese of Barbados, which was set up to provide a service to parishes enabling those in Youth MInistry with the opportunity to develop their skills and allow for a greater engagement of young people within the Church in the several parishes. He served in this capacity from 1994 – 2001. In 2015, Dr. Clarke was invited to serve the Province as principal of Codrington College, ex-officio to the Provincial Commission on Doctrine and the Provincial Commission on Ministry.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 64 (Part 2 of 2) | Lynn Fuentes, Ph.D., author of The Koan of Chronic Illness and teacher of a series of courses on managing chronic illness, shines a bright light of understanding on chronic illness with all of its far-reaching ramifications in this very moving and important conversation. Lynn not only illuminates what chronic illness involves physically, emotionally, and relationally, but delves also into the existential questions it engenders: How should we live? How can we love each other? How can we embrace our suffering and allow it to be our path to greater connection with spirit? Lynn speaks from personal experience, having spent many years caring for a family member with a debilitating illness, and explains how she used the Integral Map in her own struggle to help make sense of the huge, all-consuming project that inevitably follows a diagnosis. Now she teaches others what she has learned about coping with the overwhelming logistics, healing the trauma, and also about transforming illness into a spiritual practice.

This conversation really pertains to all of us, whether we are very ill or not, as aging towards death is something we all face. Can we learn to prepare ourselves? Can we reflect deeply on what is truly meaningful and important about life itself and live accordingly? Can we open to the wholeness of life, the pain and the bliss, the suffering that our cultural narrative would just as soon ignore? Chronic illness is a heartrending subject, but Lynn’s warm, wise, skillful, Integral approach allows us to see it in an expanded way, more profound, more transformative, than we may have seen it before. Recorded December 15, 2022.

“We cannot separate suffering from life, they are intimately interconnected. Illness really shows us that.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• What are the essential things in life? Self-knowledge, the need for community, a spiritual connection, appreciating the small things (01:27)
• Transforming illness into a spiritual practice and the practice of surrender—in surrendering we can become larger; it’s not giving up, not defeat, it’s acceptance (05:20) 
• Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of grief end in acceptance (08:22)
• Respecting people’s journey: people are too ready to make assumptions about what is needed, when we actually need to listen and ask, “What do you need?” (09:00)
• It’s very scary letting it in: this could happen to anyone at any moment (11:32)
• I thought life was about doing something! But now I can’t do. (12:53)
• How to take sick people’s grumpiness and irritability (13:27)
• How do we navigate the relationship part and allow each party, sick person and caregiver, to have their feelings; where is the place for sacrifice while still taking care of yourself? (14:50)
• We need to teach people how to be with a person who is suffering (18:13)
• Do most of us grow wiser as we age? (20:32)
• The importance of reflection and taking responsibility for one’s life (23:08)
• How is God here with me—as caregiver, as provider, as patient? (24:19)
• Philosophy—the love of wisdom—and the importance of spiritual practice in preparation for illness and dying (27:26)
• We cannot separate suffering from life—they are intimately interconnected (29:46)
• Opening to the wholeness of life goes against our cultural narrative that we have managed to eradicate suffering (32:43) 
• The dialectic of progress: every social advance cures some problems but also introduces new ones (33:55)
• The important part is how you hold your suffering, how you relate to your illness or your suffering (37:03)
• The realization of love and its redemptive power as an answer to the koan (37:59)

• Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind*
• Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying*
• Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of grief
• Lady of the Camelias film starring Isabelle Huppert, based on the novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas
• Terry Patten, A New Republic of the Heart*, Deep Transformation episode 8, Facing Death: A Call to “Get Real”
• iAwake Technologies, sound tech infused audio tracks to help deepen our spiritual lives, enhance creativity, heal emotional trauma, and become more compassionate (iAwake sponsors the Deep Transformation podcast)
• Bob Dylan, It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
• Lama Surya Das, one of our foremost Western Tibetan Buddhist teachers and scholars
• Lynn Fuentes, The Koan of Chronic Illness: An Integral Approach*
• Lynn Fuentes, It’s Not Too Late: You Can Grow a Bright Future Starting Right Now*
• Lynn Fuentes, CEO, Transformation Teaching, offering personal and spiritual growth coaching, and courses in adult development, life planning, and chronic illness management, based on the integral theory of Ken Wilber
• Transformation Teaching courses including Koan of Illness courses

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Lynn Fuentes, Ph.D., is CEO of Transformation Teaching, which offers personal and spiritual growth coaching and courses in adult development, life planning, and chronic illness management, based on the integral theory of Ken Wilber. Lynn is also the author of the 2022 book The Koan of Chronic Illness: An Integral Approach and It’s Not Too Late. She has taught in the areas of conflict management, chronic illness, writing, and adult psychology at Prescott College and DePaul University, where she also founded and directed the Chronic Illness Initiative, a unique program to help chronically ill students obtain a college education. She also served for many years on the board of the Solve ME/CFS Initiative.  

Lynn’s primary focus is The Koan of Illness, a program dedicated to helping people with chronic illness using integral principles. Lynn has been a caregiver for the past 36 years for family members with serious chronic illnesses and was recently diagnosed herself with a chronic condition.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 63 (Part 1 of 2) | Lynn Fuentes, Ph.D., author of The Koan of Chronic Illness and teacher of a series of courses on managing chronic illness, shines a bright light of understanding on chronic illness with all of its far-reaching ramifications in this very moving and important conversation. Lynn not only illuminates what chronic illness involves physically, emotionally, and relationally, but delves also into the existential questions it engenders: How should we live? How can we love each other? How can we embrace our suffering and allow it to be our path to greater connection with spirit? Lynn speaks from personal experience, having spent many years caring for a family member with a debilitating illness, and explains how she used the Integral Map in her own struggle to help make sense of the huge, all-consuming project that inevitably follows a diagnosis. Now she teaches others what she has learned about coping with the overwhelming logistics, healing the trauma, and also about transforming illness into a spiritual practice.

This conversation really pertains to all of us, whether we are very ill or not, as aging towards death is something we all face. Can we learn to prepare ourselves? Can we reflect deeply on what is truly meaningful and important about life itself and live accordingly? Can we open to the wholeness of life, the pain and the bliss, the suffering that our cultural narrative would just as soon ignore? Chronic illness is a heartrending subject, but Lynn’s warm, wise, skillful, Integral approach allows us to see it in an expanded way, more profound, more transformative, than we may have seen it before. Recorded December 15, 2022.

“We cannot separate suffering from life, they are intimately interconnected. Illness really shows us that.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing Lynn Fuentes, founder of Transformation Teaching and author of The Koan of Chronic Illness: An Integral Approach (01:01)
• How Lynn came to focus on chronic illness—because of her son (01:52)
• Why say the “koan” of chronic illness? And the spiritually oriented questions that come up when facing such an illness, like “why me?” “Why my son?” (05:24)
• How to handle this as a parent and making lemonade from lemons (08:40)
• Genji-kōans arise out of life itself and the difference between knowledge questions and wisdom questions (11:02)
• The all-consuming challenge of chronic illness: getting an illness is both a trauma and a HUGE project, like taking several college causes when all you should be doing is resting (15:30)
• Be kind to yourself: this is not easy (20:22)
• Using Integral Theory’s four-quadrant model really helps get a handle on this (20:40)
• You need a village (22:52)
• The medical system needs to be completely revamped (24:03)
• Physicians’ burnout and moral injury (26:14)
• Support groups can be even more effective than the doctors (28:51)
• Chronic illness is not like acute illness: doctors want to be successful and patients feel guilty seeing their doctors when they’re not getting better (29:50)
• The heartless attitude that it’s all in your head (30:44) 
• A longstanding UK study’s medical recommendations for exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy were just plain wrong (34:05)
• Chronic ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) and Long Covid are so widespread, they’re forcing more research (34:57)
• Illness is actually one of the most profound experiences we can have: it’s a path for growth (37:19)

• Lynn Fuentes, The Koan of Chronic Illness: An Integral Approach*
• Lynn Fuentes, It’s Not Too Late: You Can Grow a Bright Future Starting Right Now*
• Lynn Fuentes, CEO, Transformation Teaching, offering personal and spiritual growth coaching, and courses in adult development, life planning, and chronic illness management, based on the integral theory of Ken Wilber
• Transformation Teaching courses including Koan of Illness courses
• The Life and Work of Francis (Fran) Bennett, chaplain
• Integral Life’s Who is Ken Wilber?
• Integral Life’s What are the Four Quadrants?
• Terry Patten, A New Republic of the Heart*, Deep Transformation episode 8, Facing Death: A Call to “Get Real”
• Bill Epperly, Integral, mindfulness-based coach

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Lynn Fuentes, Ph.D., is CEO of Transformation Teaching, which offers personal and spiritual growth coaching and courses in adult development, life planning, and chronic illness management, based on the integral theory of Ken Wilber. Lynn is also the author of the 2022 book The Koan of Chronic Illness: An Integral Approach and It’s Not Too Late. She has taught in the areas of conflict management, chronic illness, writing, and adult psychology at Prescott College and DePaul University, where she also founded and directed the Chronic Illness Initiative, a unique program to help chronically ill students obtain a college education. She also served for many years on the board of the Solve ME/CFS Initiative.  

Lynn’s primary focus is The Koan of Illness, a program dedicated to helping people with chronic illness using integral principles. Lynn has been a caregiver for the past 36 years for family members with serious chronic illnesses and was recently diagnosed herself with a chronic condition.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 62 (Part 2 of 2) | Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zak Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Think AI tutors and students talking in 3D with Socrates. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?

Zak describes the metacrisis as a gestalt shift that allows us to orient toward the whole in an intuitive way and how this can give us traction in finding solutions. He finds hope for our future in the untapped potential of our collective human family and especially in the untapped potential of our youth, given the opportunity to make their lives meaningful and connected, working together to resolve the pressing challenges of our time. If you have a slightly outdated perception of the present, this impactful, far-reaching conversation may rock it squarely to the edge of present and future. Recorded November 30, 2022.

“A crisis at the root of the way we make choices about civilization itself—the metacrisis is a crisis of the mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• How we ourselves are weaponized to spread propaganda (01:52)
• Meditation as an antidote: coming back to our own fundamental present moment experience (02:58)
• Algorithmic radicalization and how to stop the limbic hijacking that happens via the screen (04:20)
• The future of education: AI tutoring, virtual reality, and talking with Socrates (07:50)
• For the first time a generation could be raised by a non-human entity, creating a trans-human generation and fundamentally changing the dynamic of what a human is (12:31)
• The “return of the human” and the bicycle analogy (16:51)
• Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable democracy in America and a viable civilization altogether? (19:06)
• Education broadly defined is social autopoiesis—the way the social system identifies, reproduces, evolves (21:06)
• Self-conscious evolution occurs through human education; our capacity for education makes us unique as a species (23:55)
• The future of education involves the end of schools and learning to socialize doing collaborative work (26:50)
• The adolescent mental health crisis: everyone senses schools are irrelevant (28:04)
• Making the lives of adolescents meaningful and reviving the guild structure (30:30)
• How do we foster virtue and maturity, and intelligence rather than only intelligence? (32:40)
• The de-spiritualization of society and the need to reintroduce religious meaning making (35:00)
• What gives Zachary hope: how much we underestimate human potential, and all the untapped collective intelligence that could come out of a cooperative approach vs a competitive one (39:31)

• Consilience Project propaganda series (#1)
• Consilience Project article, Social media enables undue influence
• Jonathan Rowson, anthology Dispatches from a Time Between Worlds: Crisis and Emergence in Metamodernity*
• Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory, The Gutenberg Galaxy*
• John Dewey, philosopher, psychologist, educational reformer
• Alfred North Whitehead, developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of Western philosophy, arguing that reality consists of process (process philosophy) 
• What is a Tech Stack?
• Santiago theory of cognition
• Jean Piaget, psychologist whose work led to the study of development becoming a major sub-discipline of psychology
• Michael Tomasello, comparative psychology researcher, Becoming Human*, The Evolution of Agency*
• Civilian Conservation Corps
• David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs*
• Zachary Stein, Social Justice and Educational Measurement*
• Zachary Stein, Education in a Time Between Worlds: Essays on the Future of Schools, Technology & Society*
• Zak’s website: http://www.zakstein.org
• Zachary Stein, co-founder, The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue
• Zachary Stein, co-founder, Center for World Philosophy and Religion
• Zachary Stein, co-founder, Lectica

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Dr. Zak Stein is a philosopher of education, trained at Harvard, co-founder of Lectica, Consilience Project, and Center for World Philosophy and Religion (formerly Center for Integral Wisdom). He is the author of dozens of published papers and two books, including Education in a Time Between Worlds.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 61 (Part 1 of 2) | Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zak Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Think AI tutors and students talking in 3D with Socrates. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?

Zak describes the metacrisis as a gestalt shift that allows us to orient toward the whole in an intuitive way and how this can give us traction in finding solutions. He finds hope for our future in the untapped potential of our collective human family and especially in the untapped potential of our youth, given the opportunity to make their lives meaningful and connected, working together to resolve the pressing challenges of our time. If you have a slightly outdated perception of the present, this impactful, far-reaching conversation may rock it squarely to the edge of present and future. Recorded November 30, 2022.

“A crisis at the root of the way we make choices about civilization itself—the metacrisis is a crisis of the mind.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• Introducing Dr. Zachary Stein, educator, author, philosopher, futurist (01:12)
• What exactly is the metacrisis? (03:30) 
• The main risk to the planet is our inability to make the right decisions (06:06)
• Creating a world philosophy that would be adequate for sustaining civilization, and shifting to an intuitive gestalt of the planetary whole rather than addressing only the parts or individual crises (07:10)
• The metacrisis is also about existential risk and catastrophic risk: the near-term future is precipitous (09:07)
• Where is the hope? What can we do as individuals? (10:14)
• The metacrisis does not imply anything faulty about humans (11:09)
• It’s as a result of our successes that we need to rebalance the domains that need attention
• The metacrisis hyperspace is so complex, it forces you to look at it intuitively—consulting the analytical and then returning to the whole gestalt (16:05)
• The sensemaking crisis and the booby trapping of the ecosystem of information (17:54)
• Public sensemaking, propaganda wars, the issue of trust with the news and politicians, cyber troops, and social media (20:03)
• The behavior manipulation machine, the thought terminating cliché, and how propaganda targets the intuition (24:05)
• Propaganda is the evil twin of education (32:28)
• How do we find our way through? Psychological sovereignty says a human being can know the truth (37:47)

• Books by Zachary Stein
• Zak’s website: http://www.zakstein.org
• 2015 Integral Theory Conference
• Hans Despain, Roy Pascar, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens
• Daniel Schmachtenberger, founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue (Zak Stein, co-founder)
• Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality*
• Zachary Stein, co-founder Center for World Philosophy and Religion with Marc Gafni
• Max Horkheimer & Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment*
• Habermas’ Critique of the Frankfurt School
• Jean Piaget, psychologist whose work led to the study of development becoming a major sub-discipline of psychology
• Ashley Rindsberg, The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History*
• Consilience Project propaganda series (#1)
• Louis Menand, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War*
• Fukushima, ongoing nuclear disaster
• OAN, One America News Network
• Zachary Stein, co-founder, Lectica

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Dr. Zak Stein is a philosopher of education, trained at Harvard, co-founder of Lectica, Consilience Project, and Center for World Philosophy and Religion (formerly Center for Integral Wisdom). He is the author of dozens of published papers and two books, including Education in a Time Between Worlds.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 60 (Part 3 of 3) | Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of the world-famous Esalen Institute, and pioneer of the Human Potential Movement starting in the 60s, relates a wealth of intimate experience, knowledge, and wisdom covering his decades of living at the leading edge of transformative practice and the realization of human potential. Mike talks about Esalen’s latest research, our current crisis of belief, and the anchoring question that has guided Esalen (and Mike) all along: how best to serve? Mike has watched the developmental process of transformative practices themselves, such as somatics and psychedelics, now circling around after a period of purgation, and talks about current efforts to add research on the mystical and the ecstatic to meditation and mindfulness research in order to better understand what's going on. 

This podcast is a wonderful mix of tales from the past—including Mike and his wife Dulce’s achievements and adventures with Soviet-American citizen diplomacy towards the end of the Cold War—the present, and what’s coming up at the Esalen research center now, e.g., asking what is happening on "the other side," and discovering the truth about subtle body phenomena. On a personal note, Mike shares about practicing agnosticism, his respect and admiration for the quality of wonder, and about the magic of reading subtle cues and being increasingly in tune with “the algorithms of his heart.” Friendly, relaxed, and humorous, Mike is one of the world’s leading lights on self-transformation. Recorded on February 16, 2022.

“With Esalen, life has given me this marvelous laboratory.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

• The magic of reading subtle cues and developing increasing discernment to the subtleties of one’s own internal psychic mechanism (02:26)
• Paul Ekman’s nonverbal cue study and how aging correlates with greater capacity to discern subtle social cues (06:03)
• The capacity for childlike wonder is one of the things Mike admires most (08:15)
• The human potential movement and the complexity of human beings (16:09)
• Spies, innocence, and transparency (19:08)
• Mike’s suspicions about developmental maps and schemes, especially in the spiritual world (23:37)
• There is no such thing as a single virtue: for example, you can’t have courage without prudence (28:38)
• Integral Transformative Practice: does it really work? Does it help us grow in virtue and character? (30:18)
• Mike’s calling to continue the inquiry: What’s going on on the other side? What is the truth about the subtle body phenomena? (32:33)
• Mike’s general advice: enough good habits, meditation, and tailoring your practice to who you are (33:59)
• The problem of suffering in this world is only going to be answered with an adventurous, experimentative embrace exploring what’s going on here (40:00)

• Fritz Perls, well renowned German psychotherapist and psychiatrist known for his notable works on Gestalt therapy
• Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences*
• Frances Vaughan, one of the great pioneers of transpersonal psychology, psychotherapist, teacher, author
• Dr. Paul Ekman, Nonverbal Messages: Cracking the Code*
• Solomon Asch conformity experiments
• Bill Walsh, 49ers football coach
• Abraham Maslow, psychologist who created a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority and culminating in self-actualization (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)
• Will Schutz, author and creator of FIRO Theory (Fundamental interpersonal relations orientation)
• Gordon Wheeler, clinical psychologist who pioneered Gestalt Relational Constellations, integrating Systems Constellations work with Gestalt-based client experiments
• Tanya Luhrmann, studying people who attend Esalen for unique characteristics
• Integral Transformative Practice: ITP-International, founded by Michael Murphy & George Leonard
• Thomas Merton, monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion
• Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and playwright
• Meister Eckhart, theologian, philosopher, and mystic born circa 1260
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov*
• Esalen Institute, a leading center for exploring and realizing human potential through experience, education, and research, Esalen’s Center for Theory & Research
• James Redfield, Michael Murphy & Sylvia Timbers, God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution*
• Michael Murphy, The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature*
• Michael Murphy & George Leonard, The Life We Are Given*
• Michael Murphy & Steve Donovan, The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation*
• Michael Murphy, Golf in the Kingdom*
• Michael Murphy & Rhea White, In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports*

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Michael Murphy is a graduate of Stanford University, co-founder of Esalen Institute, founder of Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research, and author of numerous books. His novels include The Kingdom of Shivas Irons, Golf in the Kingdom, Jacob Atabet, and An End to Ordinary History. His latest nonfiction work is God and the Evolving Universe, co-authored with James Redfield and Sylvia Timbers. Other nonfiction work includes: In the Zone, an anthology of extraordinary sports experiences, co-authored with Rhea White; The Life We Are Given, a book about transformative practice, co-authored with George Leonard; The Future of the Body, and The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation, co-authored with Steve Donovan.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell