The Initiation

What if the crises threatening our civilisation are not just political, economic or ecological but symptoms of something much deeper: a loss of meaning?

John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist, philosopher and one of the leading thinkers exploring the meaning crisis of modern civilisation. Through his influential lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, he examines how the erosion of shared meaning, wisdom and spiritual traditions has left modern societies increasingly disconnected from themselves, each other and the world.

In this conversation, we explore how the collapse of meaning and trust may be amplifying the wider metacrisis - from political polarisation and ecological breakdown to the growing disruption of artificial intelligence.

But John also sees something else emerging.

What he calls “the advent of the sacred” -  the possibility that, as our old ways of understanding reality begin to unravel, new forms of wisdom, connection and collective transformation are struggling to be born.

In this conversation, we explore:

John suggests that we may be living through a rare moment in history - one in which the frameworks that shaped modern civilisation are beginning to lose their hold, while something genuinely new is emerging in their place.

Yet this transformation is far from guaranteed. The same forces that could open the door to a new era of human flourishing could also lead towards deeper fragmentation and collapse.

Ultimately, this is a conversation about what happens when the stories that once gave our lives meaning begin to fall apart - and whether the crises of our time might be inviting us into a fundamentally different way of being human.

Could the breakdown of the old world be the beginning of a new relationship with reality itself?

If you enjoy The Initiation, please subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube, and share the episode with someone who might resonate with this conversation.

And for new listeners, Season 1 of The Initiation lays the foundation for this inquiry - exploring the breakdowns, breakthroughs and inner transformation shaping humanity's collective threshold.

What if one of the most powerful forces shaping human behaviour is something we rarely talk about - our fear of death?

Sheldon Solomon is a social psychologist and one of the world’s leading researchers on terror management theory - the idea, inspired by Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, that our awareness of mortality quietly shapes much of human behaviour.

For more than four decades, Sheldon and his colleagues have studied what happens when people are reminded of their mortality. Their research suggests that death anxiety can make us cling more tightly to our beliefs, become more hostile towards those who are different, seek money and status, support authoritarian leaders and even become more willing to exploit the natural world.

But there is another possibility.

What happens when, instead of denying death, we actually turn towards it?

In this conversation, we explore:

Sheldon argues that we may be living in a culture saturated with death anxiety — much of it operating beneath conscious awareness. Yet confronting our mortality may offer something unexpected: a deeper appreciation for being alive.

As Sheldon reflects personally, after decades of studying death intellectually, it was only later in life that he began to experience the importance of practising awe, humility and gratitude — finding meaning in something as simple as walking outside, encountering another person or planting a tree that may outlive him.

Ultimately, this is a conversation about death - but perhaps even more importantly, it is about how to live.

Could the crises gathering around us be part of humanity’s initiation into a more mature relationship with mortality, with each other and with life itself?

If you enjoy The Initiation, please subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube, and share the episode with someone who might resonate with this conversation.

What if the collapse we fear isn’t the end of humanity — but the end of a system that no longer serves us?

Sarah Wilson is a bestselling author, journalist and activist. Her latest book, I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World, explores how facing the reality of the metacrisis can paradoxically bring greater clarity, courage and even joy.

In this conversation, we explore:

Ultimately, this is a conversation about what it means to meet a moment of profound change without looking away — and to live fully and beautifully anyway.

If you enjoy The Initiation, please subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube, and share the episode with someone who might resonate with this conversation.

In this episode of The Initiation, I speak with Luke Kemp, researcher at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.

Luke challenges the conventional story of civilization as a steady march of progress. Instead, he traces the rise of what he calls “Goliaths”: societies built upon concentrated power, extractive resources, monopolized violence, and the restriction of people’s freedom to leave.

While the collapse of these systems often benefited ordinary people in the past, Luke argues that collapse today would be profoundly different. Nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, ecological breakdown, and our dependence on global supply chains have raised the height of the fall—potentially to a terminal level.

We discuss:

This is a sobering but ultimately empowering conversation about the history of power, the risks gathering around us, and how we might build institutions that bring out the best—rather than the worst—of humanity.

And for new listeners, Season 1 of The Initiation lays the foundation for this inquiry - exploring the breakdowns, breakthroughs, and inner transformation shaping humanity’s collective threshold.

In this episode of The Initiation, I speak with Corey Bradshaw, ecologist, modeler, and global change scientist, about the uncomfortable realities of the ecological crisis — and what it means to face them honestly.

Corey’s path began far from academia: growing up in the Canadian wilderness with a trapper father, learning the intelligence of animals, the harshness of wild places, and the power humans have to alter the living world. Today, he uses mathematical models to understand ecosystems, extinction, population dynamics, climate trajectories, and the future of human civilization.

Together we explore why the sixth mass extinction is not just a distant scientific abstraction, how overpopulation and overconsumption are inseparably linked, why efficiency often leads to more exploitation rather than less, and why denial is such a deeply human response to ecological breakdown.

This is not an easy conversation — but it is a deeply clarifying one. Corey offers a form of grounded realism: not the fantasy that everything will be fine, and not the despair that nothing matters, but the possibility of making the future “less shitty” through honest seeing, better choices, and a renewed sense of responsibility for the living systems that sustain us.

A conversation about extinction, denial, resilience, collapse, and what it means to stay useful in a world that is already changing.

And for new listeners, Season 1 of The Initiation lays the foundation for this inquiry - exploring the breakdowns, breakthroughs, and inner transformation shaping humanity’s collective threshold.

In this episode, I’m joined by Jeff Booth — entrepreneur, investor, author, and co-founder of Ego Death Capital — for a wide-ranging conversation on Bitcoin, money, AI, and the civilizational threshold we find ourselves in.

Jeff argues that Bitcoin is not merely an asset, but a protocol for a fundamentally different kind of world: one beyond the zero-sum logic of manipulated money, extraction, and centralized control. In his view, Bitcoin opens the possibility of a true free market — one where technological progress, AI, and productivity gains can flow back to people through falling prices, rather than being captured by states, banks, or technocratic monopolies.

We explore why Jeff sees Bitcoin as essential to the transition into a post-labor economy, how broken money distorts reality and fuels fear, why most of crypto misses the point, and what it means to reclaim agency in a time of accelerating breakdown and breakthrough.

We discuss:

This is a conversation about Bitcoin — but also about consciousness, courage, decentralization, and the possibility of an infinite game for humanity.

And for new listeners, Season 1 of The Initiation lays the foundation for this inquiry - exploring the breakdowns, breakthroughs, and inner transformation shaping humanity’s collective threshold.

Jeremy Lent is an author, philosopher, and systems thinker whose work explores the deep roots of our civilizational crisis - and the possibility of a life-affirming future. His books include The Patterning Instinct, The Web of Meaning, and his latest book, Eco-Civilization, which asks what it would take to build a world system designed for the flourishing of all life.

In this conversation, Sebastian and Jeremy explore why our current system is not simply broken, but functioning exactly as designed: extracting wealth, exploiting life, and concentrating power. From there, they move into the deeper question at the heart of Jeremy’s work: whether another path is still possible - one rooted in mutual flourishing, ecological regeneration, and what he calls “mutually beneficial symbiosis.”

Together they unpack:

At its heart, this is a conversation about remembering who we are beneath the conditioning of a system that has taught us to crave, compete, and consume.

And for new listeners, Season 1 of The Initiation lays the foundation for this inquiry - exploring the breakdowns, breakthroughs, and inner transformation shaping humanity’s collective threshold.

Richard Heinberg joins The Initiation. Richard is a human ecologist, journalist, and Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, and the author of fourteen books on energy, ecology, and the future of industrial civilization. His work traces the deep entanglement between energy systems, social evolution, and the ecological limits now confronting humanity.

In this conversation, we explore the polycrisis through the lens of human ecology - examining how fossil fuels enabled the modern world, why the energy transition faces hard material limits, and what a graceful descent from industrial civilization could actually look like. What begins as a discussion about energy quickly reveals itself as something deeper: a reckoning with the assumptions, incentives, and stories that have brought us to this threshold moment.

Together they unpack:

This episode is a sobering yet grounding look at the ecological foundations of our predicament - and an invitation to meet this moment with clear eyes, open hearts, and a willingness to imagine human life on radically different terms.

If you're new to The Initiation, I recommend starting with Season 1 - it lays the foundation for understanding the broader arc we're tracing, from breakdown to breakthrough, and the deeper initiation this moment is asking of us.

Roberto Rios returns to The Initiation. Formerly known as Peruvian Bull, Roberto is a macro analyst and author of The Dollar Endgame, known for his deep work on global liquidity, sovereign debt dynamics, and the long arc of monetary transitions.

In this conversation, we explore the unfolding Iran war as a potential catalyst in a much larger systemic shift - from geopolitics and energy markets to the fragility of the global financial system. What begins as a military conflict quickly reveals itself as something deeper: a stress test of the petrodollar, the stability of sovereign debt, and the future of global order.

Together they unpack:

- the current state and likely trajectory of the Iran war

This episode is a sobering look at how interconnected our world has become - and how quickly localized conflict can ripple into systemic transformation.

If you’re new to The Initiation, I recommend starting with Season 1 - it lays the foundation for understanding the broader arc we’re tracing, from breakdown to breakthrough, and the deeper initiation this moment is asking of us.

In this episode of The Initiation, Sebastian speaks with Bill E. Rees, ecologist, systems thinker, and co-originator of the ecological footprint - one of the most influential frameworks for understanding humanity’s material relationship to the Earth.

Bill reflects on the early experiences that shaped his worldview, from childhood on his grandparents’ farm to a lifelong inquiry into ecology, overshoot, and the dangerous myths underpinning modern civilization. From there, the conversation opens into Bill’s more recent thinking on human exceptionalism, ecological denial, fossil fuel dependency, maladaptation, and why the crises we face are symptoms of a deeper civilizational rupture.

Together they unpack:

A sobering and unsparing conversation about ecological reality, civilizational overshoot, and the possibility that breakdown may be the necessary threshold for a different way of being on Earth.

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If you’re new to The Initiation, you may also want to explore Season 1, where I lay the foundations for the entire series. Across the first nine episodes, we dive into the core themes shaping our moment in history - from the rise of artificial intelligence and the breakdown of our monetary system to the climate crisis, geopolitics, and the breakthrough forces pointing toward transformation. Season 1 offers the wider context for everything we explore in this podcast.