Philosopher, pro-activist and author Jeremy Lent joins Terry in a deep and vulnerable exploration of where we are right now as a species, the underlying nature of our ecological and civilizational crises and how we frame our work to catalyze emerging potential for a rapid collective transformation toward a sustainable future. They consider how a greater understanding of the interconnectedness and wholeness of life — both its evolutionary history and the always-active physical, biological, noetic and cultural patterns animating our reality — can inspire us into a new level of devotion to life itself, and its flourishing. They then explore how such devotion involves trusting and treasuring the difficult passages of our lives — personally and collectively. In fact, Jeremy points out that he’s come to treasure them especially — as they often become the gateways of transformation and new possibility. 

Here are some of the questions that Jeremy and Terry explore in the episode:

• What are the differences between “deep adaptation” and “deep transformation”, and what role could each play in responding to our ecological crisis?
• How can we “trust, let go, and welcome each moment as a sacred treasure, especially the difficult ones?”
• How can we practice identifying with the flourishing of Life — with the processes and potentials animating all forms — and be catalyzed by Life’s evolutionary will to live?
• How does the practice of “beginner’s mind” benefit our collective project of re-envisioning culture and systems — and how can we practice it in our own lives?
• What kinds of relationships, communications, and social experiments can enable us, and many millions of others, to become more firmly grounded in our inherent love of life?

Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming culture. His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct, traced the patterns of thought and deep historical foundations that have led human civilization to the current dominant worldviews and crises of sustainability. Now his new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, offers a very rich and solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could be the basis for a sustainable, flourishing future.

• For more information on Jeremy Lent and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:
• Jeremy Lent’s new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Univers
• Jeremy’s previous book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning
• Jeremy’s website
• Our podcast website, stateofemergence.org
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Would you consider making a donation to State of Emergence?

The State of Emergence podcast is made possible by listeners’ contributions, through the nonprofit A New Republic of the Heart. If you appreciate our work, we would love for you to join us as a Friend of State of Emergence and help the podcast become financially sustainable through a monthly or one-time donation of any size. Also, we explore each episode in greater depth during our State of Emergence live Q&A events and our monthly supporters are always invited to join. A caring community is making it all possible and we’d love for you to be part of it! Register by clicking “Join the Conversation” at stateofemergence.org.

Poet, teacher and interfaith chaplain Fred LaMotte joins Terry to listen, notice, honor and share the mysterious depth that emerges between them, among them and beyond them. Terry begins by reading one of Fred’s poems, and later Fred shares a couple of his favorite poems with Terry. They explore the inner processes and revelations from which luminous poetry, writing and art arises and how Fred practices in relation to his writing. Their shared inquiry continues to find its way back to a place beyond poetry, words, beliefs and ideas as they stay in touch with the “infinitely delicate jolt” of connecting (and reconnecting) with presence and dwelling in the tender receptivity of the miracle of each moment.

Alfred K. LaMotte is the author of three books of poetry. A graduate of Yale University and Princeton Theological Seminary, he has been director of Religious Studies and Community Service at America’s oldest Quaker school, a college instructor in World Religions, an interfaith college chaplain, and a meditation teacher. 

Here are a couple of additional questions they explore in the episode:

• How can we care about the outcomes of our lives and our work, while also being released from the karma of identifying with good or not-so-good outcomes?
• How can the practice of “beholding what is” become a service to life itself and the evolutionary process of life knowing itself at an unprecedented depth?

For more information on Fred LaMotte and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• Fred’s website, yourradiance.blogspot.com
• Fred's book, Wounded Bud
• Fred's book, Savor Eternity One Moment at a Time
• Fred's book, The Fire of Darkness
• Our podcast website, stateofemergence.org
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Would you like to support the podcast?

State of Emergence is made possible by listeners’ contributions, through the nonprofit A New Republic of the Heart. If you appreciate our work, we’d love to invite you to support it through a monthly or one-time donation of any size. Also, we explore each episode in greater depth during our State of Emergence live Q&A events and our monthly supporters are always invited to join. If you haven’t already joined as a supporter, please consider becoming a Friend of State of Emergence and help the podcast become financially sustainable. A caring community is making it all possible and we’d love for you to be part of it! Go to stateofemergence.com and click Join the Conversation.

Futurist, teacher, and author Peter Russell joins Terry in person at his home to connect more intimately and explore several profound considerations about this human miracle and our current predicament. In a previous podcast episode (February 2020), their conversation focused on an essay Peter had written called Blind Spot, in which he explores how human creativity builds on itself, leading to an exponential acceleration of complexity that he believes inevitably exceeds our capacities as a species. Then, he suggested we might be best served by a radical letting-go of our efforts to counteract that destiny. In this new episode, they venture deeper into the how of this letting-go, and how it can open into an uncomplicated relationship to what is right now, dissolving whatever gets in the way of us showing up fully, sanely, and gratefully. Peter and Terry consider together how wonder releases tension in the mind, how gratitude releases tension in the heart, and how a radical practice of letting go, releases the whole being into its true nature — beneath and beyond even our humanity. 

Peter Russell is a leading thinker and writer on consciousness and contemporary spirituality. He is on the faculty of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and a fellow of The World Business Academy and The Findhorn Foundation, and an Honorary Member of The Club of Budapest. In the 1980’s, Peter coined the term "global brain" with his bestseller of the same name, in which he predicted the Internet and the impact it would have on humanity. Peter has studied theoretical physics, experimental psychology, and computer science at the University of Cambridge, and meditation and Eastern Philosophy in India. He also pioneered the introduction of personal growth programs to corporations, running courses for senior management on creativity, stress management and sustainable development. We appreciated Peter’s work to distill the essence of the world's spiritual wisdom and to present it in ways that speak to people in current terms. He is the author of ten books, including Waking Up in Time and From Science to God. His beautiful new book, Letting Go of Nothing: Relax Your Mind and Discover the Wonder of Your True Nature, will be published in August of 2021.

Here are some of the questions that Peter and Terry explore in the episode:

• What is it to let go? And what exactly are we letting go of? 
• Can waking up to the existential severity of our civilizational predicament serve as an initiatory force, drawing us into fuller presence with ourselves, each other, and reality?
• If we let go of the energy in us that’s opposing our societal predicament, what emerges in its place?
• If we accept Peter’s thesis that humanity’s creative impulse is contributing to our inevitable collapse, how can we relate in new ways to creativity as it arises within us?
• How might our doing of good works in the world evolve in the future as we become more rested in Being and trusting of our inherent nature?
• How can we practice accepting that our conditional perspectives will inevitably keep arising but that their context is unconditional, radiant, vast, beautiful, and more primary?

Would you like to support the podcast?

State of Emergence is made possible by listeners’ contributions, through the nonprofit A New Republic of the Heart. If you appreciate our work, we’d love to invite you to support it through a monthly or one-time donation of any size. Also, we explore each episode in greater depth during our State of Emergence live Q&A events and our monthly supporters are always invited to join. If you haven’t already joined as a supporter, please consider becoming a Friend of State of Emergence and help the podcast become financially sustainable. A caring community is making it all possible and we’d love for you to be part of it! Sign up here.

For more information on Peter Russell and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• Peter Russell’s new book, Letting Go of Nothing (forward by Eckhart Tolle)
• Peter’s other books and multimedia offerings
• Peter’s website, peterrussell.com
• Our podcast website, stateofemergence.org
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Join us as a Friend of State of Emergence

We will be exploring this episode in greater depth during our next State of Emergence live Q&A (date and time to be announced soon). If you haven’t already joined us, we invite you to become a Friend of State of Emergence and join these monthly Q&A sessions with me and other listeners episodes, as well as help the podcast become financially sustainable. A vibrant, intelligent, and caring community is already gathering around State of Emergence and we’d love for you to be part of it. Sign up here.

Social psychotherapist, political theorist & entrepreneur and community organizer Indra Adnan joins Terry to explore the politics and power dynamics of “waking up” to the “meta-crisis” and to one another. Indra is in contact with the raw nerve of possibility. While many thinkers look at our civilizational predicament with increasing pessimism, she is both brilliantly theorizing about our potential for agency and proactively applying her influence in embodied, practical, and experimental ways, both locally (in the UK) and globally through “community agency networks” (sometimes called by others “collective action networks”.) 

Indra and Terry consider how our societal challenges provide an opportunity for “mutually waking up” through deep conversation and relating with those who do not share their worldviews and frameworks. Indra reflects on how her personal practice nurtures her agency and creativity, and she also shares many practical tactics and examples of how the organization and political platform she co-founded, The Alternative UK, is laying the groundwork for a “future politics that is both global and intensely local.” 

Their conversation then moves on to how we can shift our collective attention from narratives of trauma, disconnection and collapse into the “miracle of our connection” and a radical, embodied certainty that our solutions are available. 

Indra Adnan has been writing, consulting and network-building on the themes of future politics, soft power, conflict transformation, the role of the arts, and integral consciousness. She is Founder and Co-initiator of The Alternative UK political platform, which publishes The Daily Alternative, convenes new system actors and builds “cosmolocal community agency networks.” Indra is concurrently a psychosocial therapist, journalist and author. Through her work on international relations and soft power she has consulted to the World Economic Forum, Indian and Danish governments, NATO, the Scottish Executive and the Institute of Contemporary Arts amongst others. She is Co-Lead in the social enterprise network Bounce Beyond working to cohere the next global economies. Indra’s new book from Perspectiva Press is titled The Politics of Waking Up: Power & Possibility In The Fractal Age.

For more information on Indra Adnan and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• Indra Adnan’s Website (indraadnan.global)
• Indra’s new book, The Politics of Waking Up (for pre-order)
• The Alternative UK (thealternative.org.uk)
• Indra’s Writing on “Soft Power”
• Terry’s organization, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Join us as a Friend of State of Emergence

We will be exploring this episode in greater depth during our next State of Emergence live Q&A (date and time to be announced soon). If you haven’t already joined us, we invite you to become a Friend of State of Emergence and join these monthly Q&A sessions with me and other listeners, as well as help the podcast become financially sustainable. A vibrant, intelligent, and caring community is already gathering around State of Emergence and we’d love for you to be part of it. Sign up at stateofemergence.org.

This episode of State of Emergence, features an additional conversation with last week’s featured guest, the evolutionary biologist and important social theorist David Sloan Wilson. 

If you haven’t already listened to last week’s episode with David — episode 069, titled “A Human Superorganism — The Higher Potentials of Cooperation” — we encourage you to begin there for a more concise and concentrated overview of his ideas. In this separate unedited conversation (which took place beforehand) David and Terry go into the practical application of his ideas at greater length and explored many nuanced distinctions, principles, and practices — it gives us valuable insight into some of the design principles and practices that can enable social experiments and cooperative communities to succeed and grow. 

They consider the virtues and exploitations of competition, multiple layers of competition, genetic vs. cultural steams of evolution, the role of symbols in evolving our cultural narratives, and the Nobel laureate and political economist Elinor Ostrom’s eight principles for “managing a commons.”)

If you belong to and participate in a community of any kind, we hope this deep dive into the dynamics of cooperation serves you and inspires a new level of practice and efficacy in your group’s efforts.

For more information on David Sloan Wilson and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• David’s new novel, Atlas Hugged is gifted, not sold, for whatever the reader wishes to give in return, with all proceeds going to Prosocial World. For this reason, it is available only on its website: www.AtlasHugged.world.
• David’s nonprofit organization, Prosocial World
• David’s book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution
• David’s book, Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes and the Welfare of Others
• David’s book, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Join us as a Friend of State of Emergence

We will be exploring this episode in greater depth during our next State of Emergence live Q&A (date and time to be announced soon). If you haven’t already joined us, we invite you to become a Friend of State of Emergence and join these monthly Q&A sessions with me and other listeners episodes, as well as help the podcast become financially sustainable. A vibrant, intelligent, and caring community is already gathering around State of Emergence and we’d love for you to be part of it. Sign up here.

Brilliant evolutionary biologist and important social theorist David Sloan Wilson joins Terry to clarify the real implications of what we know about evolution, focusing on how “multi-level selection,” interpersonal cooperation and altruism are no less central to evolution than is competition. Groups of “prosocial” individuals, under the right conditions, robustly outcompete groups of self-interested individuals.  

David shares important concrete principles that can be applied by small and medium-sized groups who are attempting prosocial experiments of their own. He gets specific about which special conditions and shared agreements are required to nurture prosocial behaviors — and, very importantly, protect them. We ask: Is rapid social transformation possible? What kinds of behavior would qualify human beings as a “superorganism” that prioritizes the wellbeing of the whole and responds collectively and effectively to its existential crises?

In the coming week, we will release a second “bonus” conversation I had with David. In it, he goes into much greater detail about the core design principles that enable prosocial cooperation to succeed, and the practices of acceptance and commitment that make them possible.

David Sloan Wilson is a "hard" evolutionary scientist who also champions Conscious Evolution. He is the author of books such as Darwin's Cathedral, Does Altruism Exist? and This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution. His new book is a novel: Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III — a critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and its impact on the world. In addition to his writing and university teaching, David is President of the nonprofit organization Prosocial World, whose mission is to accomplish rapid positive multilevel cultural evolution in the real world.

Here are some of the questions we explore in the episode:

• How is the latest evolutionary science now contradicting past misunderstandings, and actually validating spiritual and evolutionary perspectives?
• How do groups of altruistic or “prosocial” individuals outcompete groups of self-interested individuals? What makes individuals & groups “prosocial?”
• How can groups of prosocial individuals protect their cultures and ways of cooperating from selfish or predatory individuals and groups?
• Can groups reach a critical level of efficacy or creativity that catalyzes rapid transformation? What agreements, design principles & mechanisms are required?

For more information on David Sloan Wilson and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• David’s new novel, Atlas Hugged is gifted, not sold, for whatever the reader wishes to give in return, with all proceeds going to Prosocial World. For this reason, it is available only on its website: www.AtlasHugged.world.
• David’s nonprofit organization, Prosocial World
• David’s book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution
• David’s book, Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes and the Welfare of Others
• David’s book, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Join us as a Friend of State of Emergence

We will be exploring this episode in greater depth during our next State of Emergence live Q&A (date and time to be announced soon). If you haven’t already joined us, we invite you to become a Friend of State of Emergence and join these monthly Q&A sessions with me and other listeners episodes, as well as help the podcast become financially sustainable. A vibrant, intelligent, and caring community is already gathering around State of Emergence and we’d love for you to be part of it. Sign up here.

Spontaneous poet, culture activist, and shamanic bard Stephen Jenkinson joins Terry to explore the totally disarming ordeal of bearing witness to death up close — both our individual mortality and our collective mortality. They also drop into felt contact with Terry’s present, uncertain situation — recently on his 70th birthday, Terry was suddenly informed that there was probably metastatic cancer in his lungs and he spent five nights in the hospital undergoing a series of tests. Now, almost a month later, there is still no clarifying diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment plan, so he’s learning to be in radical not-knowing, returning to the miracle of this moment, and this breath. 

Stephen meets Terry in his characteristic uncompromising way, with tenderness, unflinching clarity, and humor. They wonder together about the overwhelming nature of beauty, and the vividness that dying well can bring to the living. Ultimately, they both confess that after decades and careers of practice, neither of them claim to be fully prepared for their own dying process. Its nature is to break us open. Even so, they both deepen in grief and gratitude, and learn to open unconditionally. As Stephen says, we can “get better at missing it” before life is gone.

Stephen Jenkinson is an activist, teacher, author, farmer and performing poet. He is the founder of the Orphan Wisdom School in Tramore, Canada and the author of four books, including Die Wise and Come of Age: The Case of Elderhood in a Time of Trouble. He’s also the subject of a documentary film Griefwalker. In 2015, Stephen created Nights of Grief & Mystery with Canadian singer-songwriter Gregory Hoskins. With a 5-piece band, they have mounted international tours and released three albums, most recently DARK ROADS and ROUGH GODS. They hope to begin performing again in June — make contact on his website to see if you might be able to attend. Most recently, a four-part livestream speaking series, A Generation’s Worth, was presented in Winter 2020. 

For more information on Stephen Jenkinson and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• Stephen’s two new records, DARK ROADS and ROUGH GODS
• Nights of Grief and Mystery World Tour
• Stephen’s teaching school, Orphan Wisdom
• Stephen’s recording partner Gregory Hoskins
• Stephen’s Upcoming Events
• Stephen’s books, Die Wise, Come of Age, How It All Could Be, and Money and the Soul’s Desires
• State of Emergence podcast website
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Join Us as a “Friend of State of Emergence”

We hope you appreciate this week’s episode with Stephen Jenkinson. If you would like to support our podcast, we invite you to become a “Friend of State of Emergence” by making a small monthly donation. As a supporter, you will also receive invitations to our monthly Q&A events, when we explore recent episodes in greater depth. If you’d like to help the podcast continue and become sustainable, simply register as a Friend of State of Emergence on our website. A vibrant community is gathering and we’d love for you to be part of it.

This week, we are featuring one of our favorite past episodes — a tender, intimate, and deeply grounding conversation with the psychotherapist and soul-activist Francis Weller. 

We recorded this conversation almost a year ago, however, it’s feeling very alive and timely to us now. Francis’ transmissive presence and his “soul obligation to register the rips and tears of the world” — remains powerful medicine. He and Terry first turn to one another in the initiatory power of the pandemic (which was front of mind at the time). Then, as they intimately share their own griefs about our civilizational crises, they arrive in a fierceness and grit to protect all they love, as well their gratitude for the depth and grandeur of this precious life.

Francis Weller has worked for thirty-five years as a practitioner of soul-centered psychotherapy. He has synthesized insights from psychology, anthropology, mythology, alchemy, indigenous cultures and the poetic imagination in healing rituals and guidance for groups and individuals working with shame, judgment, and grief. He is the author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow and The Threshold Between Loss and Revelation and he is currently completing his third book, A Trail on the Ground: The Geography of Soul. 

A few of the questions they explore in the episode are:

• In what ways does our culture tend to react to loss with “amnesia and anesthesia?”
• Can we embrace our sorrow as a core faculty of being human — not just an emotion — so it deepens our depths and expands our capacities for joy and gratitude?
• How can grieving break through an inner barrier, and open access to the deep life of our soul?

For more information on Francis Weller or Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• Francis Weller's Website: https://www.francisweller.net/
• Francis' books, The Wild Edge of Sorrow and The Threshold Between Loss and Revelation, and In the Absence of the Ordinary: https://www.francisweller.net/books.html
• Terry Patten's website: https://www.terrypatten.com/

To support the podcast and receive invitations to Q&A events with Terry, click:

• Become a Friend of State of Emergence

To explore the work we are doing, visit:

• A New Republic of the Heart website: http://newrepublicoftheheart.org/
• State of Emergence podcast website: http://stateofemergence.org/ 

Chess Grandmaster, philosopher, author, and social entrepreneur Jonathan Rowson joins Terry to explore our global, civilizational predicament from new angles — inspired by his recent brilliant essay “Tasting the Pickle: Ten Flavors of Meta-Crisis and the Appetite for a New Civilization.” They go beyond its more recognized features such as COVID, the climate emergency, and our economic and political crises to consider it as a crisis of civilizational purpose, a lack of a meaningful global ‘We’, and its various socio-emotional, epistemic, and spiritual features.

Then, Terry and Jonathan explore a more personal and intimate relationship to the meta-crisis. What does it feel like for each of us to live amidst its various energies and aesthetics? How can we learn to “taste” ideas, practices, and possibilities for their beauty and transformative power? What’s it like to interact with different worldviews in more playful and paradoxical ways? And lastly, we discover inspiration in considering the larger cultural project of building viable “we’s” that are meaningful, coherent, and effective in serving the whole.

Jonathan Rowson is a philosopher, author, chess Grandmaster, sensemaking entrepreneur and the Director of Perspectiva, a research institute based in London seeking to highlight the important connections between systems, souls, and society amidst our complex crises. Jonathan previously Directed the Social Brain Centre at RSA, the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacture & Commerce. He is an applied philosopher with degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Bristol Universities. Jonathan is the author of multiple books including Spiritualise: Cultivating Spiritual Sensibility to Address 21st Century Challenges (2017) and The Moves that Matter – A Grandmaster on the Game of Life (2019). As mentioned above, Jonathan also very recently published a brilliant essay providing an overview of our civilizational predicament called "Tasting the Pickle: Ten flavors of meta-crisis and the appetite for a new civilization,” which you can find on our episode page on stateofemergence.org.

Here are some additional questions explored in the episode:

• How does our use of language in describing our meta-crisis shape our experience and response? How does Jonathan’s humorous use of “pickle” invite a different experience?
• As we attempt to understand our predicament, how can we “go meta” with our sensemaking in a way that also grounds us in direct experience and relationship?
• Which emotional, cognitive, and relational capacities can enable us to navigate the cultural dissonance of our time?
• How can we build more sophisticated and effective “we’s” at scale, and how might such work begin to impact our systems? 

For more information on Jonathan Rowson and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• Jonathan’s recent essay, “Tasting the Pickle: Ten Flavours of Meta Crisis and the Appetite for a New Civilisation”
• Perspectiva, which Jonathan co-founded in 2016 with Tomas Björkman
• Jonathan’s book, The Moves that Matter
• Jonathan’s book, Spiritualise
• Jonathan’s 2020 essay, “An Open Letter to the Human Rights Movement”
• Jonathan’s 2019 essay, “Buildung in the 21st Century: Why Sustainable Prosperity Depends on Reimagining Education”
• Jonathan’s Aeon magazine article on Concentration
• State of Emergence podcast website
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

Join Us for the Next Podcast Q&A EventWe will be exploring this episode with Jonathan Rowson in greater depth during our next live State of Emergence live Q&A on Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 12 noon Pacific. If you haven’t already joined us, simply register as a Friend of State of Emergence and you’ll receive access to our monthly Q&A sessions with Terry and other listeners. You’ll also help the podcast become financially sustainable. A vibrant community is gathering and we’d love for you to be part of it. Sign up and we’ll see you soon.

Integral scholar and Exostudies pioneer Sean Esbjörn-Hargens joins Terry to explore an integral approach to conspiracy theories and “exo realities” — including the anomalous phenomena that challenge our current models of reality. Sean begins by sharing an illuminating series of wise guidelines for navigating our post-truth conspiracy-theory-filled culture. Then, he and Terry  build upon our recent episode with Jeffrey Kripal by considering the strange territory of anomalous phenomena in greater detail — what’s “real” about them, what makes it possible to experience them, how they require our scientific frameworks to evolve, and how increasing public awareness might serve as a catalyst for moving society into wiser structures of consciousness. As committed spiritual practitioners, they also consider the potential risks of becoming fixated on fascinating phenomena, and how we might integrate them without letting them distract us from the nondual heart and ground of Being. 

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is a leader in the application of integrative thinking to leader development and organizational design, and has made significant contributions to the fields of integral ecology, integral business, integral education, and integral research. Sean created and hosted the four Integral Theory Conferences and founded MetaIntegral — a social impact network that supports change leaders around the world in applying integrative principles. Most recently, in 2018, he founded the Exo Studies Institute, pioneering an integral approach to anomalous phenomena including UFOs/ETs. Sean has been a long-term practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, A. H. Almaas' Diamond Heart, and Celtic Christianity. He has published and edited numerous articles and books, and his recent article on non-human intelligences is titled Our Wild Kosmos! Currently, Sean is the Dean of Integral Education at the California Institute for Human Science where he also serves as Program Director for two integral PhD programs.

Here are some of the questions Sean and Terry explore in this episode:

• What are Sean’s 16 ways of practicing wise responses to conspiracy theories and those who believe them? 
• What emotional and cognitive capacities does it take to “hang out in the unknown” instead of jumping to conclusions?
• What exactly are “exo studies?” Why are they important? Can they catalyze a major shift in human consciousness and the practice of science?
• Which 10 recent events — from New York Times bombshell articles to Pentagon admissions — have led to a new widespread legitimization of UFO and ET studies? 
• What are the 3 major “ontological realms” of anomalous phenomena? Can they be experienced and understood in our ordinary waking state of consciousness, or do we have to open to different modes of knowing in order to experience them fully?
• Can spiritual practitioners explore and integrate exo realities without becoming fascinated and distracted from the conscious divine reality from which they arise?

Sean’s 16 Guidelines for Practicing with Conspiracy Theories

1. REALIZE THAT WE ALL ARE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS: Keep in mind that we are all are conspiracy theorists of one strip or another – we have strong biological, cognitive, and social-cultural tendencies that predispose us towards conspiracy thinking. No one is really is immune. We are all in this together. It is psychologically commonplace – though it gets magnified or distorted under certain circumstances. 
2. CLAIM YOUR SOVEREIGNTY: Stay in our own sovereignty and energy management around the content. – it can be intense and disorienting.
3. DON’T BELITTLE CTs or CTers: Avoid belittling them and encourage others not to – as it encourages an environment that is not conducive to engaging them.
4. DETERMINE WHAT KIND OF CT IS IT? Determine if it is a rational or irrational CT (or an evidence-based CT vs a speculative CT) – how much evidence and what kinds does it have supporting it. 
5. DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN GOOD DATA POINTS vs NARRATIVE: Keep in mind that CTs often are based on good data points and insights and are pointing to “gaps” we ignore at our own peril. Differentiate the data points from the narrative. Acknowledge the “facts” (if they are solid/verifiable) but don’t blindly accept the “links”. 
6. ACKNOWLEDGE THE “DEEP MEMETIC FRAME” INVOLVED: Identify the deep memetic frame being presented and connect with that w/o affirming the content of the CT. CTs tend to resonate with our deepest sense of how the world is (i.e., our worldview).
7. HANGOUT IN THE GAP: Acknowledge that the official story doesn’t add up but refrain from committing to a CT – allow for multiple possible non-official stories to contain potential explanations. Allow yourself to “reject” the official story but holdback from identifying with a single CT narrative.
8. TALK ABOUT CTs & SEEK CT PERSPECTIVES: Talk with people about all of this - Seek the perspectives of the CT believer. Chances are they have some good points and reasons for their position. 
9. AVOID HAVING A CT ABOUT CTers: Avoid falling into us-them dynamics and simple explanations for complex scenarios esp. ones that have some concerning data points supporting them.
10. LOOK TO SEE IF CTs ARE FEAR OR GROWTH BASED: Look to see if the CT actually moves us toward a better society – evolves systems or consciousness by exposing hard truths, demanding transparency, accountability, etc. or does it attempt to better society by instilling fear, racism, separation, division. Be wary of any version of a CT that dehumanizes people.
11. EXPAND YOUR MEDIA DIET & AVOID DIGITAL ECHO CHAMBERS: Expand your media diet to avoid digital echo chambers – engage in a diverse source of information – avoid algorithm selections for you.
12. AVOID DEMONIZING BIG Xs: Be cautious when you demonize Mainstream (Big) Media, Big Pharma, the USG (Big government) and instead strive to point out the aspects of those “others” you find problematic – be as specific as possible. 
13. UPDATE AND REFINE YOUR PERSPECTIVE: Keep updating and refining your own perspective even when it contradicts earlier positions you had. Don’t stay static in your own thinking – try and add to it vs replace it with some other position. Lean into doubleness, “good “contradictions, and complexity.
14. PRACTICE & PROMOTE EPISTEMIC REFLEXIVITY & HUMILITY: Practice epistemic reflexivity (reflecting on your own thinking) and epistemic humility (reflecting on your own biases, tendencies, limitations, projections). The more metacognition we can develop the better. Unhelpful CTs often involve simplistic non-reflective modes of thinking and analysis. Encourage others to do these types of thinking practices and look for them in our information leaders.
15. HELP REBUILD OUR INSTITUTIONS: CTs are thriving because we have lost trust in science, government, and journalism – for some very good reasons I might add – all of these institutions have been found to have taken advantage of our trust in them. How do we rebuild those institutions – what are the checks and balances that can create a healthy knowledge and information ecosystem. 
16. BE COMPASSIONATE WITH EACH OTHER WE ARE ALL IN A SENSE-MAKING CRISIS: Individually and collective we are facing a crisis of sense-making and meaning – we need to be compassionate to ourselves and those around us as we all try and figure out how to navigate this terrain.

For more information on Sean Esbjörn-Hargens and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• For more information on Sean, check out the following resources:
• Sean’s “Exo Studies” Institute
• Sean’s recent paper, “Our Wild Kosmos!: An Exo Studies Exploration of the Ontological Status of Non-Human Intelligences”
• What’s Up With UFOs? website
• MetaIntegral website
• Book edited by Sean in 2015, Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century
• Book edited by Sean in 2019, Dancing with Sophia: Integral Philosophy on the Verge 
• State of Emergence podcast website
• Terry Patten’s nonprofit, A New Republic of the Heart
• Terry Patten’s personal website

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