Exploring the marginalized history of intuitives and the monetization of visions in modern society. Discussing the fear and shame surrounding spiritual experiences in Western culture and the importance of honoring the past and considering the future. Highlighting the powerful visions of Crazy Horse and Joan of Arc and the role of visionaries in times of societal upheaval.
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insights INSIGHT
Intuition is Common
Premonitions, dream experiences, and dialogues with unseen forces are common human experiences.
These experiences are inherent to our nature, especially noticeable in children.
insights INSIGHT
Visions Drive Culture
Visions and premonitions are not outside of culture, but at its heart, driving it forward.
Interaction with seen and unseen forces is foundational to many cultures.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Visions Shaped History
Western civilization's foundations, including democracy, are linked to oracular possession and visions.
Examples include Greek democracy and the American democratic system.
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Across cultures and traditions, there have always been those that speak with the dead, hear voices, enter states of oracular trance, and receive visions of what is to come. Such sensitivity, traditionally, is common. It's common to have premonitions that come to pass, to have dream experiences that translate into day-to-day life, and to be in continual felt dialogue with ancestors, with the dead, and with a larger world of animate forces. For most of human history, the people that received such visions lived right at the center of culture. But what happens when the seer is ripped from the ecology in which they traditionally lived? The intuitive is cast out, othered, vilified, and pathologized. Cast aside, relegated to the margins of society, without the context that once held it, oracular seeing can veer into charlatanry and delusion. So these days visions — like everything else in the modern world — are immediately monetized, translated into marketable pop-spirituality and much of the mastery and depth of visionary tradition is lost. But what this points to isn’t something “wrong” with intuition or the practice of oracular vision — it points to something wrong with modernity’s relationship with it. The proclivity towards vilifying and pathologizing intuition on the one hand and claiming it as an exotic and monetizable gift useful for attracting internet followers on the other — all of this is a function of the othering of intuition in the modern world. Societally, we would do well to rediscover the central role of the seer. For if we lose our ability to learn from the visions of seers, we lose the feeling body of culture — the very thing that drives culture forward. Featuring music by Marya Stark, Char Rothschild, and Peia, and featuring discussions with author Frederick Smith, psychoanalyst Bernardo Malamut, and Sophie Strand, this multi-part episode series seeks to place the seer back in their rightful place at the center of culture. It is simultaneously a celebration of the gifts of the intuitive and a reminder that dreams and visions need an ecology of accountability in which to live and grow. Listen on a good sound system, at a time when you can devote your full attention.
The Emerald