Exploring Nature, Culture and Inner Life

Josiah Tink Thompson Gumshoe: Sleaze or Existential Hero? Private detective Tink Thompson was a Haverford philosophy professor who taught Nietzsche and Kierkegaard before he became a sleuth. He has worked on the Kennedy assassination, the Oklahoma bombing, and the Patty Hearst kidnapping. He is a big fan of Dashell Hammett, and he believes you can trace noir detective fiction back to the cultural cataclysm of World War I in Europe and the consequent emergence of European existentialists like Husserl, Sartre and Camus. Join Michael Lerner in a conversation with Bolinas’s own Tink Thompson about his book, Gumshoe: Sleaze or Existential Hero?, which chronicles his life as a private-eye, and his highly acclaimed book, Six Seconds in Dallas, which analyzed the JFK assassination. Josiah "Tink" Thompson Tink took degrees in Philosophy from Yale, with two years in between as a Navy frogman working on underwater explosives. After finishing his PhD at Yale, Tink became Professor Thompson of Haverford College for several decades. But for the last thirty years, he has made his living as an investigator. His cases run the gamut from auto accidents to high-visibility criminal prosecutions—from a $100m arson case in France, to a $100m coffee fraud in Colombia. The work has included hundreds of murder cases, including several that garnered national news (e.g., proving the innocence of Chol Soo Lee; investigations on the retrial of the Billionaire Boys Club; and defense of William and Emily Harris on charges of kidnapping Patty Hearst). Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Pia Infante The Impeded Stream Is the One That Sings When we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work. And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. Wendell Berry Michael Lerner interviewed Pia Infante as part of a spontaneous evolution of a whole series of interviews with people involved with The Whitman Institute, a San Francisco-based foundation with a focus on dialogue, critical thinking and civic engagement. Pia came with a series of questions about what to do next in her life that she wanted to explore. Pia Infante Pia works with Executive Director John Esterle on the staff of The Whitman Institute. She is also an organization development consultant and coach whose mission is to support engaged and alive social justice work. She contributes regularly to the Institute’s thought leadership via its blog. Pia is also a member of the Movement Strategy Center’s Organizational Development Practitioners for Social Change cohort and part of the Kellogg Foundation’s Coach Training Pilot Project. She has a Master’s Degree from The New School for Social Research in Education, a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California at Berkeley in Rhetoric, an executive coaching credential from The Academy for Coaching Excellence, and a secondary teaching credential from the State of New York. Pia describes herself as “a cultivator of luminosity who loves her family, the divinity of nature, everyone’s grandmother, and (in true Filipina form) karaoke.” Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

John Esterle Two Conversations The Whitman Institute is a unique foundation in San Francisco that focuses its grants on organizations and projects engaged with dialogue, critical thinking, and civic engagement. The Institute is a supporter of The New School at Commonweal—and has also supported a remarkable number of the thought leaders we have interviewed at The New School. John Esterle is the executive director who has shaped the Institute since taking over from its founder. In these two conversations, Michael Lerner explores the thinking that has led John to make The Whitman Institute the only foundation in the country focused solely on these process questions of dialogue, critical thinking and citizen engagement. John Esterle John is the executive director of The Whitman Institute, a San Francisco Foundation that is the only foundation in America with a pure focus on dialogue, critical thinking, and civic engagement. In 2004 he led TWI’s transition from an operating to a grantmaking foundation. John is a board member of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, which he chaired from 2008-2010, as well as The Germanacos Foundation. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

John Esterle Two Conversations The Whitman Institute is a unique foundation in San Francisco that focuses its grants on organizations and projects engaged with dialogue, critical thinking, and civic engagement. The Institute is a supporter of The New School at Commonweal—and has also supported a remarkable number of the thought leaders we have interviewed at The New School. John Esterle is the executive director who has shaped the Institute since taking over from its founder. In these two conversations, Michael Lerner explores the thinking that has led John to make The Whitman Institute the only foundation in the country focused solely on these process questions of dialogue, critical thinking and citizen engagement. John Esterle John is the executive director of The Whitman Institute, a San Francisco Foundation that is the only foundation in America with a pure focus on dialogue, critical thinking, and civic engagement. In 2004 he led TWI’s transition from an operating to a grantmaking foundation. John is a board member of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, which he chaired from 2008-2010, as well as The Germanacos Foundation. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

John Wick and Peggy Rathmann Marin Carbon Project ~Co-presented with Mainstreet Moms: Organize or Bust, Transition West Marin and the Marin Agricultural Land Trust~ Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not enough to reverse global warming: we must also reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Join Michael Lerner in this conversation about The Marin Carbon Project, which is investigating the potential for specific land management practices to enhance sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide as organic matter in rangeland and agricultural soils in California. John Wick John, Marin Carbon Project director and steering committee member, is co-owner with his wife, Peggy Rathmann, of the Nicasio Native Grass Ranch. His background is in construction project management. As Director of the Marin Carbon Project, Mr. Wick’s role is to help launch the Marin Carbon Project and to plan, execute, and finalize projects according to deadlines and within budget. This includes acquiring resources and coordinating the efforts of Steering Committee members, member organizations, volunteers, contractors, and consultants in order to deliver projects according to plan. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Christina Puchalski, MD Spiritual Dimensions of End of Life Join Rachel Naomi Remen and Christina Puchalski—two pioneers in the discussion of spirituality in healthcare—in conversation about the spiritual dimensions of the end of life. Christina Puchalski, MD Christina Puchalski, MD, MS, is the executive director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, Washington, DC, and a professor of Medicine and Health Sciences at The George Washington University School of Medicine, where she has pioneered novel and effective educational and clinical strategies to address the spiritual concerns common in patients facing illness. She has authored numerous chapters in books and edited and authored a book published by Oxford University Press entitled Time for Listening and Caring: Spirituality and the Care of the Seriously Ill and Dying with a forward by His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. Her work has been featured on numerous print and television media including Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Washington Times. Rachel Naomi Remen, MD Dr. Remen is clinical professor of Family and Community Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine, a co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, and the founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal, a post-graduate and undergraduate program for physicians who wish to reclaim their calling and integrate Hippocratic values into their work. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Kitchen Table Wisdom and the national bestseller My Grandfather’s Blessings. Dr. Remen was recently was recognized with the Bravewell Award as one of the earliest Pioneers of Holistic and Integrative Medicine. She has a 56-year personal history of chronic illness and her work is a unique blend of the perspectives of physician and patient. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Richard Grossman The Tao of Ralph Waldo Emerson Richard Grossman is a Commonweal friend of 25 years. As a respected medical educator in “the other medicines,” (the title of another of his books), Grossman participated as a guest staff member in one of the early Commonweal Cancer Help Programs in the 1980s. He then started his own Cancer Help Program at Wainwright House in Rye, New York. He now teaches in the Smith Farm Cancer Help Program outside Washington, D.C. Grossman is a preternaturally youthful 88-year-old, married to the novelist Ann Arenberg. They live in Salisbury, Connecticut. Join Michael Lerner in this conversation about Richard’s studies and thoughts about Ralph Waldo Emerson—philosopher, essayist, poet, lecturer, and journal-keeper. Richard Grossman Richard is an essayist, psychotherapist, medical educator, and former book publisher. The six books he has written include The Tao of Emerson and A Year with Emerson, which won the Umhoefer Prize for achievement in the humanities, awarded by the Arts and Humanities Foundation. He has read Emerson daily for over 50 years. Richard’s website has Emerson’s complete journals and the bulk of his other writings on-line. Grossman considers Emerson a precursor of contemporary humanistic and transpersonal psychology. In 1970 Michael Murphy of Esalen Institute told Grossman about Roberto Assagioli, the Italian psychologist and founder of the transpersonal psychology called Psychosynthesis. Grossman published Assagioli’s books Psychosynthesis and The Act of Will in America. Grossman also discovered fundamental resonances between Emerson and Lao Tse, the mysterious Chinese Taoist and author of the Tao Te Ching. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Colin Greer A Discussion on Spinoza and the World Today Join Michael Lerner in conversation with Colin Greer about the philosophy of Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza and how they apply to philanthropy, social justice, and the world today. Colin Greer Dr. Colin Greer has been the President of The New World Foundation since 1985. Formerly, he was a Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY. He is the author (with Herbert Kohl) of The Plain Truth of Things and A Call to Character. Other books include: What Nixon is doing to Us; The Solution is Part of the Problem; After Reagan What?; and The Divided Society. He is best known for The Great School Legend and Choosing Equality: The Case for Democratic Schooling (which won the American Library Association’s Eli M. Oboler Intellectual Freedom Award). He was a founding editor of Change Magazine and Social Policy Magazine. He is a contributing editor to Parade Magazine. Colin Greer also writes poetry, plays and non-fiction, and now also writes a blog on this website. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Thomas Kirsch, MD The Red Book: Reflections on Jung and the Jungians Join Michael Lerner in a conversation with Thomas Kirsch about The Red Book, Carl Jung’s richly illustrated record of his descent into his inner world, created in a period of personal crisis following his break with Sigmund Freud. Published in 2009 for the first time, The Red Book has been a surprise best seller and reviewed in major periodicals around the world. Thomas Kirsch has a deep knowledge of Jung and the Jungian movement. Born to two first generation Jungian analysts, Kirsch knew Jung as a child. He has served as president of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and the International Association of Analytical Psychology. He taught Jungian psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford Medical Center for many years, and is the author of an acclaimed study of the Jungian movement, The Jungians. Thomas Kirsch, MD Thomas is the son of two first generation Jungian analysts, James and Hilde Kirsch, who began their analytic work with Jung in 1929. Through his family he met many of the first generation of Jungian analysts. He is a graduate of Yale Medical School (1961) and completed his psychiatric residency at Stanford Medical Center in 1965. A graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, he has served there in many capacities, including being president from 1976 – 1978. Author of many papers on dreams, history of analytical psychology, and the analytic relationship, and editor of Jungian sections in encyclopedias and psychoanalytic dictionaries, he has now written a book on the history of analytical psychology. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Robert Bray Healing Traumatic Stress Disorders with Thought Field Therapy Traumatic and developmental stress disorders in their many forms are epidemic condition of our time. Mainstream psychology has a very limited array of tools to help people with these conditions. Robert Bray is a psychotherapist based in San Diego who works primarily with clients with post-traumatic stress disorders. Michael Lerner talks with Robert about the issues of post-traumatic stress, following other New School interview with David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., James Gordon, M.D., Therese Poulsen (a yoga teacher) and others. Robert has written a book called Heal Traumatic Stress NOW-Complete Recovery with Thought Field Therapy, No Open Wounds. Bray’s work with Roger Callahan’s Thought Field Therapy (TFT) has certain similarities to EMDR, a rapid eye-movement approach to PTSD that Servan-Schreiber teaches and endorses. Robert Bray Robert is a psychologist with a private practice working with people suffering from post traumatic stress and other trauma. He is an adjunct faculty member at San Diego State University, School of Social Work. He is also founder of the Thought Field Therapy Center of San Diego. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.