When Bread is No Longer Bread: The Importance of Context in Consciousness, Community, and Cosmos
Oct 8, 2020
auto_awesome
Exploring the decontextualization in capitalism, from processed bread to spiritual traditions. Discussing the importance of context in consciousness, community, and cosmos. Reflecting on the consequences of losing context on our minds and world. Highlighting the need for rituals, communal integration, and reclaiming meaning in context. Delving into injecting sacredness into the corporate world and diverse cultural references.
52:01
AI Summary
Highlights
AI Chapters
Episode notes
auto_awesome
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
Importance of maintaining original context in spiritual exploration for ritual and communal essence.
Negative impact of decontextualization and monetization on nutritional value of bread, emphasizing need for holistic understanding.
Deep dives
The History of Bread and Nutrition
Bread has evolved from a simple mixture of flour, water, and yeast to a processed product stripped of its nutritional value due to decontextualization and monetization. Additives like emulsifiers and high fructose corn syrup are now used to make bread more nutritious, highlighting the negative effects of extracting essence from its original context.
Decontextualization in Spiritual Traditions
The extraction of essence from spiritual traditions mirrors the decontextualization seen in bread production. Western adoption of spiritual practices without their original context leads to a loss of ritual, communal, and spiritual essence, emphasizing the importance of maintaining context in spiritual exploration.
Psychedelic Therapy and Context
The phenomenon of psychedelic therapy parallels the decontextualization present in bread manufacturing. Isolating compounds like DMT for therapeutic use neglects the ritual, communal, and spiritual contexts essential in traditional entheogenic practices. Reintegrating context is vital for maximizing the benefits of psychedelic therapy.
Monetization and Decontextualization in Modern Life
The pervasive culture of monetization drives decontextualization in various aspects of modern life, such as introducing rituals in corporate environments. This cycle of extracting the essence and trying to re-inject sacredness highlights the need to revisit societal structures and values rooted in decontextualization for monetization.
The defining characteristic of the postmodern capitalist world is a cycle of decontextualization for the sake of monetization. It happens everywhere — with the products we buy, the food in our grocery stores, and the spiritual traditions we import from other lands. Modern Yogic and Buddhist practices have been removed from the deep context of their original practice — and often what is lost in the process is the living, breathing, animist heart of tradition. This episode explores how consciousness naturally exists in context — mythic, animate, communal, and cosmic — and looks at the consequences of this deep loss of context on our minds and our world.