The Integral Stage

Layman is joined by Matt Segall, this time to discuss his new book, Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. Matt describes his book as "a philosophical experiment in thinking, feeling, and willing beyond the transcendental threshold of Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy" -- an exercise in opening to a "descendental aesthetic ontology," which places us back into participatory relation with reality, and roots us again in cosmic creativity. In thinking together with Schelling, Whitehead, Nietzsche, and other philosophers, Matt is interested in showing that there are resources for transformative spiritual practice, for a new shamanism, here but often overlooked within the Western philosophical tradition. Matthew D. Segall, PhD, received his doctoral degree in 2016 from the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. His dissertation was titled Cosmotheanthropic Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. It grapples with the limits to knowledge of reality imposed by Kant's transcendental form of philosophy and argues that Schelling and Whitehead's process-oriented approach (described in his dissertation as a "descendental" form of philosophy) shows the way across the Kantian threshold to renewed experiential contact with reality. He teaches courses on German Idealism and process philosophy for the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. He blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com. Crossing the Threshold book https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Thres... Follow The Integral Stage on Fathom! https://hello.fathom.fm/ Remember to like, subscribe, and support The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage Special thanks and big love to Shai Newman, the LIMITED HANGOUT guys, Brandon LaChance, Mike McElroy, Brandon Norgaard, Brendan Graham Dempsey, Francesca, and all of our other Patreon supporters!

Jill Nephew, founder of Inqwire, delves into the illusions surrounding artificial intelligence and the urgent need for ethical considerations in AI development. She critiques the hype around large language models and emphasizes their lack of true consciousness. Discussing the cognitive costs of over-reliance on technology, Jill warns against reducing human experiences to mere data points. The conversation also touches on the potential dangers of AI as blind acceptance could lead us astray, urging a balance between algorithmic insights and genuine human wisdom.

Layman meets with the co-creators of the we{collective} social media platform, James Weir and Laurence Currie-Clark, to talk about their vision for a collectively owned, holarchically-organized, play-and-learning focused social media platform, and to reflect on the technological and AI revolutions that appear to be upon us. WeCo social media platform https://weco.io/ Follow The Integral Stage on Fathom! https://hello.fathom.fm/ Please like, subscribe, and support The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

Layman meets with Dr. Karen Jaenke, a holistic educator and dreamworker, to talk about the somatic dimensions of dreamwork, the nature of the subtle body, the importance of dreamwork for navigating the metacrisis, and her unique integration of the insights and practices of Eugene Gendlin, Arnold Mindell, and Robert Bosnak. Dr. Jaenke is the former Chair of the Consciousness and Transformative Studies program and former Director of the Ecotherapy Certificate program at John F. Kennedy University. From 2001-2008, she served as Dissertation Director and Core Faculty at the Institute of Imaginal Studies. Currently an Executive Editor of ReVision: Journal of Consciousness and Transformation, she has edited and published journals on the topics of Imaginal Psychology, Shamanism and the Wounded West, and Earth Dreaming, as well as numerous articles on these topics. In 2000, she founded Dreamhut Consulting to offer consulting services for dissertation and thesis writing, dreamwork, hypnotherapy and mentoring. Her dissertation was titled: Personal Dreamscape as Ancestral Landscape. Her creative vision synthesizes dreamwork, indigenous ways of knowing, subtle body awareness and Gaian consciousness. Dr. Jaenke's professional website www.dreamhut.org Follow The Integral Stage on Fathom! https://hello.fathom.fm/ As always, remember to like, subscribe, and support The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

For the inaugural episode of The Soul of AI, Layman sits down with Soryu Forall, an ordained Zen monk and the head teacher at the Monastic Academy in Vermont, to talk about the ethical and spiritual challenges that confront us with the advent of this civilization-transforming, and potentially civilization-destroying, technology. Soryu discusses what he sees as an emerging (fanatical) religion of data-ism, the compulsion to summon a digital superintelligence or deity at all costs, and the existential risks this poses; and together they explore the concept of the cyborgregore, and the potential to build an Artificial Wisdom system to temper, balance, and constructively direct AI. Soryu Forall has decades of intensive monastic training, a degree in Economics from Williams College, and extensive experience in social and environmental justice. As a teen, upon learning that monasteries are built for such a purpose, he traveled to Japan in order to study suffering and the end of suffering. Forall was ordained in 1998 at Sogen Temple under the tutelage of the Zen Master Shodo Harada. After training at Sogen Temple for five years, Forall trained further at Hemis Gompa, a Kagyud Tibetan monastery in northern India; Xue Feng Si, an ancient Ch’an monastery in eastern China; and at the Sariputta Ambedkar Monastery in southern India, where he served as head monk (Ambedkar Buddhism is an influential sect that defines spiritual training as social engagement and economic justice). While there, he led peaceful protests and organized community efforts to overcome the injustice of the caste system. He also helped to raise thirty boys with the understanding that all are inconceivably valuable, regardless of family circumstance. Forall, a native Vermonter, returned to his home state in 2008 and has continued to fight against systemic injustice and promote youth empowerment. He has created successful curriculum for mindfulness in education, trained professional mindfulness teachers all over the world, worked with high level athletes and business people on using mindfulness for high performance, and founded the Center for Mindful Learning, where he currently serves as President and head teacher. At the Monastic Academy Soryu dedicates his life to creating the next generation of awakened leaders. The Monastic Academy https://www.monasticacademy.com/ Follow The Integral Stage on Fathom! https://hello.fathom.fm/

In Re/thinking Religion, a new Integral Stage series, John Vervaeke joins Bruce Alderman and Layman Pascal to explore possible points of contact and confluence between their respective approaches to religion and spirituality. For the eleventh episode, Layman, John, and Bruce explore the question of subtle energy -- its nature, its scientific or religious status, and the roles that subtle energy cultivation and awareness may play in transformative processes. They discuss a number of the major paradigms on subtle energy, including one John has offered; its capacity to bridge subject and object, and psychological and contemplative domains; its moral dimensions; and towards the end of the talk, the reasons this topic is more important than ever for our communities to begin to explore.

Layman is joined by expressive arts therapist, transformative educator, artist, and author, Dr. Sally Adnams Jones, to talk about Eros, Yin-Yang polarity, gender non/duality, boundaries and consent, agency and communion, and the integral Tao of creativity. Sally Adnams Jones is Director of TransformArta and has taught art education at The University of Victoria, Canada. Her Ph.D. research explored how survivors of the HIV/AIDs pandemic in Africa transformed through their art practice. Currently she participates on Integral forums on Clubhouse, leads retreats and workshops, offers counseling and creative coaching, and is an artist and author. Professional website http://sallyadnamsjones.com/ Fathom app https://hello.fathom.fm/ Support The Integral Stage on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

In 2021, Layman conducted a Salon of the Banned interview with Son of Korg and Ezekiel-73 about their experimental online magazine, the Limited Hangout, which was dedicated to exploring a host of paranormal, parapolitical, and "conspiracy"-related themes from an integral perspective. That experiment is now coming to a close, so Son of Korg and Ezekiel-73 (who outs himself in this video) return to talk about the origins and original intentions of the project; what they learned during this several-year journey; the amplification of the uncanny they experienced as COVID unfolded and fringe topics came more to the center of mainstream discourse; the challenges and gifts they experienced navigating alternative sensemaking circles; the reasons why conspiracy or parapolitical thinking now seems to be related to "Right-wing rabbit holes," and why that wasn't always the case; and much more. Limited Hangout website https://limitedhangout.wtf/

CATALYZING CONNECTION: A CONVERSATION MID-STREAM For episode 6 at the Liminal Café, we drop in mid-stream on a conversation between Tim Adalin and Layman Pascal. Although we drop in on the couch as eavesdroppers after the conversation has already begun, we can pick up soon enough that this is a rich conversation on conversation itself ... on cultivating the field, working with emergent criticality, and catalyzing connection across challenging boundaries. Towards the end of the conversation, they discuss the religion that is not a religion, dreams of pilgrimages and new formats for collective events, and Tim gets Layman closer than he's ever been to admitting his alien origins. Tim Adalin is the founder and producer of the Voicecraft podcast and a transformative philosopher. Tim's work focuses on the relation between participation and transformation, and integrates metaphysical and scientific modes of understanding. The primary medium of this work lives in embodied relationality with friends, family, and peers. He is concerned with the vital connections between psyche, culture, and nature, and is developing networks and communities that support wiser contexts for education, contribution, and belonging. Voicecraft Podcast https://voicecraft.io/about/

Cognitive neuroscientist and science writer, Bobby Azarian, returns to the Integral Stage for a deep and wide-ranging discussion of the emerging scientific paradigm -- the complexity science paradigm arising out of the intersections of physics, biology, neuroscience, and information theory -- that will likely shape self, culture, and society for the next century. If the universe is now known to be self-organizing through levels of developmental emergence, and if we are, as Carl Sagan once said, "a way for the cosmos to know itself," what really are the implications of such a view for all the domains of life that matter to us? This perspective, of course, is in its general outlines very similar to the one Ken Wilber outlined in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, but the science has developed since Wilber published SES; so Bobby and Layman explore those developments, and how they further reinforce, and in some cases update, the synthesis Wilber offered several decades ago. Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist (PhD, George Mason University), a science journalist, and author of the book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity. He has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, BBC Future, Scientific American, Slate, The Huffington Post, Quartz, The Daily Beast, Aeon, and others. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals like Human Brain Mapping, Cognition & Emotion, Acta Psychologica, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. His Psychology Today blog (Mind in the Machine) has received over 8 million views, making it one of the most popular blogs on the website. He has been a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, the Michael Shermer Show, The David Pakman Show, The Jim Rutt Show, The Young Turks, the Singularity University podcast, and many others. He helped develop multiple episodes for Season 2 of the YouTube Premium series Mind Field, which won the show its first Emmy nomination. He is a pro at audio and music production, and is currently working on an educational podcast based on his new book.