The Integral Stage Expanded Universe (ISEU)

In SWEDENBORG FOR A TIME BETWEEN WORLDS, Layman meets again with political advisor and pastor, Rich Tafel, this time to discuss Rich's deep personal and family connections to the Christian mystical visionary, Emanuel Swedenborg; the proto-integral nature of some of Swedenborg's teachings; the wedding of mysticism and social engagement, and the ways that Rich has tried to realize this in his own life; the challenges of working within what appears to be a dying lineage; drawing on the gifts of tradition while facing an open and ambiguous religious future; how the inner practices and experiences of his Swedenborgian path have sustained him and helped him to deal with the shortcomings and disappointments of mainstream Christendom;  and much more.  Rich Tafel is a transformative leader in the areas of faith, politics and social impact.  As the Managing Director of Raffa Social Capital Advisors he matches impact investors to vetted social ventures. Partnering with investors his team provides back office support, public policy and strategic coaching to social ventures. Rich is also the Director of the American Project a new Democracy Fund supported effort to bring together leading thinkers to imagine new solutions to America’s broken political system. The project is housed at Pepperdine School of Public Policy. Tafel is also pastor of Church of the Holy City in Washington DC, where he is launching a spiritual entrepreneur hub. Tafel is the founder of Log Cabin Republicans. Before moving to Washington DC, Tafel was Adolescent Health Director for the State of MA and served as Assistant Minister at Harvard’s Chapel.   Professional website https://www.richtafel.us/  Please consider supporting The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

In the third episode of our Integral Authors series, Layman Pascal talks with Theo Horesh about his new book, The Fascism This Time.  Theo reflects on the similarities of the rightwing populist movements sweeping the globe to earlier fascist uprisings, and explores together with Layman the integral ways we might understand their emergence and respond to the deep challenges to modern democracy that they represent.   The Fascism This Time https://www.amazon.com/Fascism-this-Time-Global-Democracy/dp/0578732939

You may have noticed that, as with "Integral" back in the day, the label "Metamodern," is a bit of contested real estate. It appears to mean something pretty specific to the cultural metamodernists, Vermeulen and van den Akker, who first applied it back in 2010 to certain emergent post-postmodern sensibilities in art and media.  But does it mean the same thing to the Hanzi Freinachtian political metamodernists, or to the integrally influenced Metamodern Spirituality crowd?   In this special Integral Stage dialogue, Layman Pascal meets to speak -- and, perchance, debate -- with Metamodern cultural theorist Greg Dember about the historical emergence and cultural situatedness of the term, the validity of its accumulating associations and uses, and possible ways forward to avoid misuses of the term while still allowing for proper evolution, expansion, and development.  They take time to carefully distinguish it from postmodernism, to explore a number of artworks and films that most clearly embody it, and to consider the multiple forms of spirituality to which it might give rise.   What Is Metamodernism? (by Greg Dember & Linda Ceriello) https://whatismetamodern.com What is Metamodern? (YouTube channel) https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatIsMetamodern  After Postmodernism: Eleven Metamodern Methods in the Arts https://medium.com/what-is-metamodern/after-postmodernism-eleven-metamodern-methods-in-the-arts-767f7b646cae Please consider supporting The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

A WHEEL OF PERSPECTIVES Panel Discussion on the topic of evil and the shadow, with statements by Layman Pascal, Rev. Trevor Malkinson, Gaia Orion, Meister Wagoner von Porter (of the League of Rebel Eve), and Colin E Davis & Melissa Mari.   Cover Art:  B. Alderman, public domain image run through Prisma art filter Transitional Art Meditations:  Christopher Padgett Hunicutt and The 01Experience Music:  The 01Experience   For further information on the panelists:  Rev. Trevor Malkinson:  https://independent.academia.edu/Malkinson The League of Rebel Eve (LORE): https://www.lorenyc.com/ Gaia Orion:  https://gaiaorion.com/ Shadow Tech:  https://www.shadowtechtheory.com/ The 01Experience: http://01experience.com/ Christopher Padgett Hunnicutt:  https://www.artofchristopherpadgetthunnicutt.com/

Although the Liminal Web community aspires towards rooted cosmopolitanism and worldcentric values, many of our social media conversations nevertheless tend to privilege or confine themselves to a limited set of cultural perspectives and geopolitical concerns.  In this new Integral Stage series, Global Voices, we would like to hear from members of our extended community who inhabit, or hail from, cultures and regions of the world that are not as frequently highlighted, and may be poorly understood, in these general dialogue spaces.   For the inaugural episode of the series, Layman sits down with integral leader and teacher, Nomali Perera, to talk about the current crisis situation in her home country of Sri Lanka, and to get her sense -- from both personal and integral perspectives -- of the history, challenges, and emergent potentials of this ancient Buddhist island nation.  Nomali shares openly her disappointment about the provincialism she has encountered here in the west, even among professing worldcentric integralists, and speaks poignantly to the mixed feelings and concerns of many like her who have left their homes and "abandoned" their cultures to make their way in a new world.   Nomali Perera, MA, PCC, joined the integral world in Colorado in the early, exciting days of 2002 as a volunteer and, later, co-director of the Integral Spiritual Center at the Integral Institute. Professionally, Nomali is an executive coach, certified facilitator of Polarity Management and the Immunity to Change™ process, and is a Master Coach through Integral Coaching Canada. Currently, she’s in a year-long course in trauma-informed Compassionate Inquiry with Gabor Maté’s school.   Practical Integral website https://www.practicalintegral.com/  Please consider supporting The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

In this episode of New Education Systems, Layman sits down with Brad Kershner to talk about his extensive experience working for and managing alternative and progressive schools; the strengths and unique contributions of the Waldorf method; the challenges of education in a time of media saturation and rampant disinformation; the qualities of a good teacher and student; the need to get away from "teaching to the test"; the importance of a developmental understanding for sensitive and transformative pedagogy; balancing complexity and simplicity; and much more.   Brad Kershner reads books, teaches meditation, leads a school community, and loves a lot of people. He writes and speaks about a wide range of interdependent topics, e.g. education, parenting, integral theory, metamodernism, Buddhism, human development, complexity, and sociocultural emergence. Some of his public lectures are available on YouTube. You can learn more about his work and access recordings of his guided meditations on Patreon.   Guided Meditations, Lectures, Podcast Interviews, and Updates https://www.patreon.com/bradkershner  Please consider supporting us to help make more of these videos possible: https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

In THE ABS-TRACT (or, BRENT COOPER IS JESUS), Layman sits down with Brent to discuss his Abs-Tract project, the importance of critique, the alignments and tensions between Metamodernism and other adjacent communities, the "Fliminal Web," Metamodern politics and the problem with reactionaries, mindfulness and spiritual practice, and a number of Brent's recent writings.  At the end of the discussion, he offers a devastating critique of Layman that leaves him bloodied, gasping for breath, and asking for more.   Brent Cooper is the Executive Director of The Abs-Tract Organization, a meta think tank and transmedia project specializing in abstraction and meta theory/ metamodernism. Abstraction is at the root of everything in life, from mental, physical, social, and material processes, spanning various fields from philosophy to art to artificial intelligence. And it is at the root of our meta-crisis of capitalism, how finance is abstracted, and politics are abstracted.   The Abs-Tract website http://abs-tract.org/  Brent Cooper's Medium page https://medium.com/@brentcooper  Please like, subscribe, and consider supporting The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage

For episode 18, Layman is joined by bird-woman hybrid, Philosopher Queen and Dark Renaissancer, Raven Connolly, to talk about erotica; working with darker impulses and taboo; bravery to explore, push boundaries, and constructively embrace conflict; the archetype of the Fool; power literacy, and the social manipulation of desire; adult development, sexual maturity, and Raven's own journey towards these things; male-female polarity, and the interplay of the shell and the core; embracing the Void; the moral and social consequences of unhinging sexuality from reproduction, and reproduction from biology; gender roles, and hard and soft power; the repeated refrain in Liminal Web communities of "Where are the women?"; and much more.    Raven Connolly is a socialite in a mosaic of independent intellectual milieus, ranging from Justin Murphy’s IndieThinkers, to Peter Limberg’s The Stoa. She hosts and interviews guests at The Stoa, and is currently developing a philosophy of the ovum, secrecy, and marriage.   Please like, subscribe, and consider supporting The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible!   https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage Music

Gurdjieff's teachings have had a significant impact on Layman's thought, but they are often mentioned more obliquely than directly in his conversations.  Recently, however, several people approached Layman to talk about Gurdjieff's influence on their own work, so we recorded a few conversations, as well as conversations with a few guests on other important historical visionaries, and a mini-series began to assemble itself.     For this episode, "On the Surrealistic, Sci-Fi Masterpiece, 'Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson,'" Layman meets with long-time student of the Work, Trevor Stewart, to discuss the origins, historical value, artistic influences, and unique pedagogical properties of this challenging and enigmatic book. Although they focus throughout the conversation on the novel, this isn't just a book review.  Over the course of their explorations, they open up many important and often under-appreciated aspects of Gurdjieff's life and work, and touch on how this text was written, not for its time, but for a future generation that would be better prepared for it ... perhaps our own. LUCID CUBED https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9fEwt0FSjCZ6S8_KlNAEJQ

For episode 2 of The Dreaming Arts, Layman Pascal meets with Bruce Alderman to talk about their early, formative dream experiences; the four most common approaches to working with dreams; the qualities of an integral approach to dreams; techniques for inducing lucidity in dreams; and the nature, scope, history, and practices of the Tibetan yogas of dream and sleep.   Beginning in the 1990s, Bruce worked with and studied under Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, the author of The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, and later offered several workshops on dream yoga in 2005 and 2007.   Please consider supporting The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible! https://www.patreon.com/theintegralstage