For the past three decades, British biologist Rupert Sheldrake has been asking questions that most scientists either haven't thought of asking, or may be discouraged from asking by the unwritten codes that often prevail in our scientific and academic institutions. He thinks there are many other scientists “... who have spiritual interests, psychic experiences and so forth, that don't or can't talk about them to their colleagues. If they do so, they'll find that many of their colleagues share these interests and that the conversation in the laboratory tea room would become so much more interesting than it is at present."  Join us for this talk, sponsored by the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco in 2012, in which Dr. Sheldrake introduces his book, Science Set Free, and addresses some of the constricting dogmas and assumptions of modern science, turning them into open questions that can be tested scientifically, rather than being accepted on faith alone. (hosted by Daniel Drasin)

Rupert Sheldrake studied natural sciences at Cambridge and philosophy at Harvard, took a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Cambridge and is the author of more than eighty scientific papers. Dr. Sheldrake is perhaps best known for his morphic field theory, which takes a fresh look at memory, habit, instinct and heredity as well as phenomena such as telepathy - aspects of human experience that are unexplained in terms of current physics. He is the author of several books including A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (J.P. Tarcher 1995), Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals (Three Rivers Press 2001) and Science Set Free (Deepak Chopra Books, 2012), also published in the UK as The Science Delusion (Coronet 2012)

Date of Presentation: 9/7/2012         Tags: Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., morphic fields, morphic resonance, morphogenetic fields, brain, science, Social Change/Politics, Philosophy

We’re immersed in a universe of invisible energy fields, like swimmers in a vast ocean. Often beyond awareness, these forces shape and are shaped by us. This dialogue explores the Personal, Social, and Noetic fields and how conscious awareness of them helps us create a more just and compassionate world.

Alan Briskin, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in organizational psychology and is a pioneer in the field of organizational learning. He is co-founder of the Collective Wisdom Initiative and has been consultant to many large corporations including Lucasfilm, Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente, and the Goi Peace Foundation. His books include:

The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace (Berrett-Koehler 1998),The Power of Collective Wisdom and the Trap of Collective Folly (co-authors, Sheryl Erickson, Tom Callanan, and John Ott)(Berrett-Koehler 2009) and Daily Miracles: Stories and Practices of Humanity and Excellence in Health Care (co-author Jan Boller) (Sigma Theta Tau International; 1st edition 2006)

Mary V. Gelinas, Ed.D. is an organizational development consultant devoted to the art of conscious social change. As an educator and consultant with more than forty years of experience working in brain research, contemplative practices, social psychology, and systems thinking. Her organizational redesign projects focus on innovative and inclusive solutions for business, government, health care, and education, for such diverse clients as the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is the author of:

Talk Matters: Saving the World One Word at a Time. (Friesen Press 2026)

Briskin and Gelinas are the co-authors of Space is Not Empty: How Hidden Fields Are Shaping Your Life and Our World (Friesen Press 2025)

Interview Date: 11/14/2025      Tags: Alan Briskin, Mary V. Genlinas, Personal fields, Social fields, Noetic fields, wondering, curiosity, David Bohm, Carl Rogers, shifting the norm, fields are permeable, group disruption, noticing, certainty, uncertainty, body wisdom, Personal Transformation, Psychology, Science, Social Change/Politics

Parry reminds us of the subtle, ancient longing of the soul calling for reunion and wholeness, and that love exists beyond the veils of time and dances outside the confines of space. He unveils the secret: Western time moves like an arrow, whereas Indigenous wisdom traces a circle, an eternal spiral where every place is holy ground and every moment pulses with presence.

Glenn Aparicio Parry, Ph.D. is an educator, an ecopsychologist, and an author known for integrating indigenous wisdom and holistic thinking into contemporary society. He is the founder and past president of Seed Institute, where he facilitated landmark dialogues between Native American elders and Western scientists. He currently serves as president of The Circle For Original Thinking and host of its weekly podcast. His books include Original Thinking: A Radical Revisioning Of Time, Humanity And Nature (North Atlantic Books 2015), Original Politics: Making America Sacred Again (SelectBooks 2020), and Original Love: The Timeless Source Of Wholeness.(SelectBooks 2026)

 Interview Date: 10/10/2025       Tags: Glenn Aparicio Parry, Grandfather Leon Secatero, Jean Gebser, Greek myth of Eros, Psyche, love, Descartes, Isaac Newton, rational thought, original love, Dan Moonhawk Alford, linear perspective of time, forest bathing, strife, Empedocles, Marcellus “Bear Heart” Williams, magical mind, psychokinesis, feminine wisdom, forest bathing, moon rituals, two-eyed seeing, gratitude, photos of Earth from space, grief, loss, Personal Transformation, Psychology, Indigenous Wisdom

Spring communicates telepathically with Dr. Frances Vaughan about what life is like on the other side of death. They cover subjects such as spirit guides, suicide, who is “God?”, how death is a continuing learning process, can we collaborate with loved ones who have died and do they want to be contacted? This deep dialogue explores these subjects and much more. Cynthia Spring is a media producer and for 20 years was deeply involved in local ecology in the San Francisco Bay area. Her most recent book is a collaboration beyond the veil of death between herself and the late Dr. Francis Vaughan who passed from this life in 2017. Books by Cynthia Spring include: The Wave and The Drop: Wisdom Stories About Death and Afterlife. (Wisdom Circles Publishing 2018)

and Seven Questions About Life After Life: Book One (Frances Vaughan)(Wisdom Circles Publishing 2019)

Interview Date: 9/30/2019     Tags: MP3, Cynthia Spring, Matthew McKay, Willis Harman, Ketut Liyer, soul, Awakening Intuition, telepathy, Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks, Helen Greaves, angels, spirit guides, Bob Monroe, Robert Monroe, Raymond Moody, NDEs, Near Death Experiences, Mary Neal, social justice, collective consciousness, suicide, right to die, Stephen Schwartz, Russell Targ, psychic abilities, intuition, Personal Transformation, Death & Dying, Parapsychology/Paranormal, Intuition/Psychic, social change/Politics, 

Here we stare down our present situation without flinching but with radical hope as Williams reminds us that love and beauty is felt in chaos and heartbreak. Healing is going beyond anger; It’s a process of eroding and evolving at once. We must let go of our certainty to come back into a place of communion and communication with each other and with the earth. 

Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist, environmentalist, and award-winning author. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. In 2014, on the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, Ms. Williams received the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award honoring a distinguished record of leadership in American conservation. She currently is the writer in residence at Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah. She is the author of many books including: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Pantheon 1991), Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002), An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field (Vintage Books 1995), Leap (Vintage 2001), Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002), The Open Space of Democracy (The Orion Society 2004), Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Pantheon 2008), When Women Were Birds (Sarah Crichton Books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012), The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016), Erosion: Essays of Undoing (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2019)

Interview Date: 12/13/2019  Tags: Terry Tempest Williams, erosion, Bears Ears National Monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante, coal production, fossil fuel industry, Diné Bikéyah, democracy, climate change, Grand Canyon, Weather Reports, Kit Jennings, Powder River Basin, Willie Grayeyes, Frontier Mormons, Tim DeChristopher, oil and gas leases, oil & gas leases, oil & gas leasing, oil and gas leasing, Dan Dixon Tempest, Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych of The Garden of Earthly Delights, Blake’s Tiger, tiger burning bright, Jonah Yellowman, Yeibichi dances, Castleton Tower Utah, anger, love, grief, Earth, certainty, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Meditation, Spirituality, Social Change/Politics, Personal Transformation, Peace/Nonviolence, Community

More and more of us spend enormous spans of our time captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial resource by the technologies we use daily. We are caught in a dynamic where our value is determined by our productivity. Odell encourages us to contemplate the attention economy and notice how it is dominating cultures worldwide and how to resist it. Jenny Odell is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer based in Oakland, California who teaches at Stanford University. She has been an artist-in-residence at such places as the San Francisco dump, Facebook, the Internet Archive, and the San Francisco Planning Department. She has exhibited her art all over the world. She is the author of How To Do Nothing: Resisting The Attention Economy (Melville HousePublishing 2019)

Tags: Jenny Odell, Morcom Rose Garden, Ghost Ship Fire, usefulness, uselessness, Chuang Tzu, Old Survivor Tree, birdwatching, attention, John Cage, siloed senses, Eleanor Coppola’s Windows art map, Applause Encouraged art experience, twitter, library, libraries, social media, internet, Thomas Merton, The Giving Tree, email, Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror, hyper individualism, Against Creativity, Oli Mould, Social Change/Politics, Art & Creativity, Philosophy, Technology, Money/ Economics

This deep dialogue explores the shift from traditional economic metrics like GDP to regenerative economics, emphasizing interconnectedness and living systems. Fullerton and Cox discuss the need to move from extractive to exchange-based economies, highlighting the importance of right relationships and resilience over efficiency.

John Fullerton is the founder and president of Capital Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming finance and economics to serve life and the planet through “Regenerative Economics”. In 2001, he walked away from a two-decade career at JPMorgan, where he served as Managing Director and oversaw capital markets, derivatives, and investment businesses globally, including acting as Chief Investment Officer for Lab Morgan. LLC. Now, besides his work at Capital Institute, Fullerton is a member of the Club of Rome and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Savory Institute, dedicated to regenerating the World’s Grasslands. He’s the author of several books including: Regenerative Economics: Revolutionary Thinking for a World in Crisis (2025 New Society Publishers)

Faye Cox is the founder of Hourbooks Press, a small independent publisher that creates short books—each designed to be read in about an hour. Hourbooks is dedicated to sharing essential knowledge that fosters positive change in the world. Cox has a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Oxford, and has two decades of leadership roles in systems change design.

John Fullerton and Faye Cox are collaborators on Regenerative Economics: Creating Conditions for Health & Abundance on a Living Planet. (Hourbooks Press 2025)

Interview Date: 10/3/2025    Tags: John Fullerton, Faye Cox, Hourbooks Press, complexity, symbiosis, circular economics, cradle to cradle economics, Regenesis Group, Bob Ulanowicz, Money/Economics, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Community

Michael Cepress is a "triple citizen of the arts," engaged in performing arts, visual arts, and fashion design. He invites us to recognize the limitless potential for good that emerges when artistic expression serves and uplifts the greater good, weaving diverse forms of art into purposeful community action.

Michael Cepress is a multidisciplinary artist celebrated for his dynamic creativity—he is a musician, a storyteller and poet, a craftsman, a designer, and a cultural curator. In addition to his musical talents he has excelled in textile arts and fashion design, with exhibitions of his work showcased internationally. Michael recognizes the boundless potential for good that arises when artistic expression serves and uplifts the greater good, weaving together the varied forms of art into purposeful community action.

Interview Date: 9/11/2025.    Tags: Michael Cepress, Native Funk and Flash, Alexandra Jacopetti Hart, Richard Rohr, Swami Kriyananda, quilting, fashion, Art & Creativity

Many explorers are seeking a depth of healing that is more experiential through expanded states of consciousness. Some modalities of this are sweat lodges, vision quests, breath work, and where is it legal, psychedelics in Mexico. Here we explore the experiential therapeutic applications of expanded states of consciousness that lead to healing and transformation. Françoise Bourzat is a consciousness guide and counselor. She has a master’s degree in Somatic Psychology and is a Certified Hakomi Practitioner. After traveling the world, she became an apprentice to an indigenous Mazatec woman leading healing ceremonies with sacred mushrooms in the high mountains of Southern Mexico. Drawing from years of her close apprenticeship with this Mazatec curandera, as well as her training in other indigenous traditions, Françoise has developed a comprehensive approach that bridges Western and indigenous modalities. She trains therapists and facilitators and teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She also lectures internationally. Shes the co-author with Kristina Hunter of Consciousness Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom, Entheogens, and Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth. (North Atlantic Books 2019).

Interview Date: 7/6/2019  Tags: Françoise Bourzat, heroin, compassion, mushroom ceremonies, psychedelics, entheogens, hallucinogens, vision quest, sweat lodge, transdance, altered states, Ralph Metzner, MAPS, MDMA, PTSD, Roland Griffith, ibogaine, Julieta Casimiro, personal transformation, Indigenous wisdom, Shamanism, Health & Healing