This chapter explores the concept of initiation culture and compares it to trauma culture, highlighting the need to reclaim history, understand the context, and move from trauma to initiation. It discusses the consequences of consumerist living on our soul and ecology, emphasizing the importance of choosing our archetypal role in this time of crisis.
How do we move ourselves – individually and collectively – from the broken Trauma Culture of our times, to the Initiation Culture that will allow us to step forward, healed and whole?
Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy have co-authored a book: Post-Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse.
Vandana Shiva says of it, “Ladha and Murphy walk us through the deep logics of neoliberalism, the foundations of globalisation and the ideology of corporate free trade … the authors dissect philanthrocapitalism. And they indicate the possibilities of reclaiming the true economies of the gift, of solidarity, of caring and sharing. For now, I invite you to please read on as if Life depends on it.”
On every level, this is a remarkable work, grounded in the understanding that we hold our realities in our bodies, that we have been born into a trauma culture, even as we yearn for the our birthright and our legacy as inheritors of initiation cultures. This is one of several genuinely transformative concepts that Lynn and Alnoor bring to the table: the intellectual capacity to explore the crisis of the moment – coupled with absolute grounded, experiential knowing that we are spiritual beings first, that we are mystical beings, and that if we can find the humility and the willingness to change, if we can bring ourselves to the web of life full open, asking for help, the Animate Earth responds.
Biographies:
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a”‘conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
Alnoor Ladha is an activist, journalist, political strategist and community organiser. From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs. He holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.
Post Capitalist Philanthropy https://www.postcapitalistphilanthropy.org/
Transition Resource Circle: https://www.transitionresourcecircle.org/
Alnoor on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alnoor-ladha-85a1882/
Alnoor on Twitter https://twitter.com/alnoorladha
Episode 56 'Four Arrows Flying' https://accidentalgods.life/four-arrows-flying/
