Preventing Cult Dynamics in Practice

To learn directly from Ethan Hsieh, John Vervaeke and Taylor Barratt, The Lectern is partnering with 5ToMidnight to offer a long form hybrid (online/in-person) practice program called TIAMAT-X. This program brings a full ecology of practices, endorsed by The Vervaeke Foundation to help you develop the capacity to…

perceive what matters

regulate in real time

and act with clarity

…through a cohesive method that weaves together mindful dialogue, embodiment, imaginal practice, and disciplined mindfulness.

Learn more about the program here:

https://www.5tomidnight.org/offerings/tiamat-x

https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/tiamat-x

In part three of the Lectern Dialogues series, John Vervaeke and Ethan Hsieh explore how virtue can be cultivated as a lived, embodied practice through an immersive ecology of education. The focus is on layered accounts of virtue — civic, purification, and illumination — and the role of ritual, altered states, and phenomenology in shaping meaning and sacredness. The conversation also addresses the risks of deification, authenticity loss, and cult dynamics, inviting a participatory, relational understanding of education oriented toward wisdom and agency.

Ethan Hsieh

Ethan Hsieh is a facilitator, educator, and philosophical practitioner whose work bridges performance, cognition, and transformative pedagogy. As the creator of TIAMAT—a three-tiered developmental framework—he integrates insights from performance practice, cognitive science, and dialogical philosophy to help individuals cultivate virtuosity as a way of life. Through immersive training containers and collaborative inquiry, he guides participants in mapping their inner experience, expanding their relational capacities, and enacting what he calls "postures of presence." Ethan's approach emphasizes participatory learning, metacognitive mapping, and the cultivation of agency through shared practice. His work with the collective 5toMidnight seeks to foster deliberately developmental communities grounded in relational ontology, where philosophical understanding becomes lived transformation.

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00:00 Welcome to the Lectern

02:00 Exploring virtue and sacredness

04:00 Layers of virtue and practice

06:00 Rituals and altered states of consciousness

10:30 Phenomenology and the sacred

18:00 Transformative insight and lived experience

30:30 Being-in-the-world and interconnectedness

38:00 Framework rejection and deification concerns

40:30 Ego, deification, and demonization

41:00 Virtue and the ego's filtration function

44:00 Addressing cult dynamics

46:00 Identifying healthy traditions and practices

51:30 Realness, resonance, and authenticity

55:00 Logos and the Good

01:06:00 The value of embodied experience

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Thank you for watching!