California Institute of Integral Studies
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Algorithms to Live By
No full textThe authors of Algorithms to Live By , Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, are joined in conversation by CIIS President Joseph Subbiondo to explore how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives. This conversation is part of our Technology and Consciousness Series.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/publicprograms/1018/thumbnail.jp
A Life of Spirit in Action
No full textAuthor, teacher, and ecophilosopher Joanna Macy is known the world over for her workshops for social and environmental activists. She\u27s joined in conversation by ecophilosophy teacher Renée G. Soule to discuss her life and work.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/publicprograms/1017/thumbnail.jp
Going Berserk: Battle Trance and Ecstatic Holy Warriors in the European War Magic Tradition
Get PDFLargely ignored in transpersonal studies to date, dark magic involves socially-transgressive processes called becoming-intense and becoming-animal that produce non-ordinary states useful in the arts, hunting, sex, and fighting. War magic, a form of dark magic that involves powers of destruction and invulnerability, is ubiquitous and universal, and one of its primary features is the production of helpful, nonordinary states in combat. Berserkergang (going berserk) is one such state, the latest documented in a long history of Indo-European ecstatic warrior cults. Berserkergang was the battle-trance of the elite consecrated warrior-shamans of Odin, god of magic, poetry, battle, and death. Distinguishing features of berserkergang include invulnerability to fire and bladed weapons, shapeshifting, superhuman strength, laughing at death, and transpersonal identification with comrades and Odin. Cross-cultural interpretations have tended to denigrate berserkergang, including modern arguments that attribute it to intoxication, genetic flaws, or pathology. Not only are such arguments inadequate to account for the data, but also the features of berserkergang are considered signs of spiritual attainment in various traditions up to the present day, and the techniques for achieving berserkergang remain in use in many spiritual traditions as well as on the battlefield
Liminality and Ritual in Biographical Work: A Theoretical Framework for Cancer Survivorship
Get PDFThis article offers a theoretical framework for understanding the biographical work of cancer survivorship using two concepts from social anthropology: liminality and ritual. The framework is intended to foster greater understanding of survivorship and facilitate innovative psychosocial treatment approaches. First, the concept of biographical work will be defined. The notion of prolonged liminality will then be introduced in relation to the biographical work of cancer survivorship. Finally, the performance of ritual will be suggested as one possible approach to ending prolonged liminality and completing successful biographical work. Ultimately, it is proposed that marking a life transition through ritual may help the cancer survivor to concretize his or her own biographical work. In doing so, he or she may be able to exit the liminal state and integrate the illness experience into a new life narrative, thereby experiencing optimal well-being during the survivorship phase
Presence and the Paradox of Love
Get PDFSpiritual experiences often seem unrelated to the intellectual orientation of science. However, some discussion of the laboratory study of spiritual practice does attempt to include the mystery and the human experience in its dialogue. An exploration of the paradox of love demonstrates how it might be possible to find a relationship between the scientific understanding of spirituality and the profundity of spiritual experience
Consciousness Studies – An Overview
Get PDFThis essay is a survey of the field of consciousness studies, its history, scope, and a little about its future. It’s principal focus is on Western thinking about consciousness beginning in classical times and continuing down to the present. It highlights and briefly describes major streams of thought including ideas from ancient Greece, German Idealism, British Empiricism, 20th century European phenomenology, and important contemporary areas of research and scholarship. These include American pragmatism, developmental psychology, transpersonalism, analytic philosophy, computationalism, neural networks, and physics. The essay also briefly explores possible future trends in the study of consciousness
Existential Crisis and Psycho-Social Transformation
No full textAs the environment and humanity become mere resources and appendages of technology and the global economy, we face an existential crisis of what it means to be human in nature. Instead of domination and subsumption of society and the environment within the logic of unbridled economic growth, the economy and society must be redesigned to serve the needs of environmental sustainability and human well-being. This calls for a balanced path of human development based on the transformation of consciousness: from dualism, separation and domination, to unity, interdependence and partnership. This psychological transformation requires moving beyond surface political-economic critiques to a reorientation of the much- neglected ethical dimension in modern economy and society. This Presentation will explore these issues synthesizing research-based social science analyses with perspectives drawn from contemporary global environmental and social movements, the field of Consciousness Studies and Buddhist teachings on the Middle Path. Expanding on the Presenter\u27s latest book, Sustainability and Well-Being: The Middle Path to Environment, Society and the Economy (Palgrave MacMillan), this Session will engage participants in an exploration of the existential crisis and our challenge of psycho-social transformation
CARAVANSERAI, TRADE ROUTES, AND DARK MOTHERS
Get PDFThe caravanserai (or Turkish kervansaray) was a roadside area, structure or inn for pilgrims, traveling tradespeople, and their animals providing lodging, substance, trade and marketing opportunities. In addition to providing food and temporary lodgings, many caravanserais also included a black madonna temple, shrine room, holy of holies, sacred cave or adjacent rock shelter. Tethered to the advancement of the caravanserai, was also the spread of African rites and rituals, black madonna temples, and dark goddesses. This was especially apparent with the Phoenicians.
Devotion to the great goddess of the Levant was prolonged by the Phoenicians who lived along the Syro-Lebanese coast in the first millennium BC and were great seafarers and traders. …Wherever they went, they took their religion with them when they established trading posts and founded colonies including Carthage (GGL: 149)
Recovering the Earth Mind
No full textSession description: The anthropocentric mode of consciousness constructs reality in terms of subjects and objects and is predominantly human focused. This tool-making consciousness enabled homo sapiens to accumulate knowledge, found religions, establish an ego, build civilizations, and develop technology and science. It also created the Anthropocene Era of climate change and mass extinction. Standing in contrast is an Earth-centered mode of consciousness that survives from Paleolithic times. This integrative mode experiences the Earth as a mother, the stones, clouds, insects as relations. Its integrated perceptions of nature are evident in the art of Ice Age caves in Europe and in the living testimony of worldwide indigenous cultures. Although the two mind modes interpenetrate and are equally the creative inheritance of our evolution, the anthropocentric mode has rendered the Earth-embodied mode almost invisible. If we rely solely on our anthropocentric mode of consciousness to solve the climate crisis - managing nature - we risk introducing new technologies that will generate new problems requiring new technologies, driving us further from the natural world we\u27re trying to save. Illustrated with images of cave art, this presentation will invite a discussion of how we might recover our ancient Earth-centered mode of consciousness and find a new balance with nature