Subversive Studies

Heeding the call of the personal daimon. An announcement regarding a transition with the podcast! This is a short solo episode.

A discussion with Dr. Manon Hedenborg White about the goddess Babalon, key women figures in the occult tradition of Thelema, challenging hegemonic notions of femininity, feminine sexuality, the link between sexual liberation and the larger goals of social, political, or psychological liberation, contemporary interpretations of Babalon that question binary and biologistic conceptions of gender, and many of the historical figures that have been influential in bringing forth this Babalon discourse into our contemporary world, such as Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons, and Kenneth Grant. Dr. Manon Hedenborg White is a postdoctoral research fellow at Södertörn University and Guest researcher at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP), University of Amsterdam. Her areas of interest include contemporary Occultism, Western Esotericism, gender and sexuality. Dr. Hedenborg White’s forthcoming book: "The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism" is due later this year from Oxford University Press (link to pre-order below!). She is the author of a chapter entitled "The Other Woman: Babalon and the Scarlet Woman in Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies" in the recently published "Servants of the Star & the Snake: Essays in Honour of Kenneth & Steffi Grant" (edited by Henrik Bogdan and published by Starfire). Links: Pre-order "The Eloquent Blood" https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-eloquent-blood/manon-hedenborg-white//9780190065027 Thelemic Women's HIstory Project Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/thelemicwomenshistory/ Thelemic Women's HIstory Instagram: @thelemicwomenshistory Dr. Hedenborg White's Academia page: http://sh.academia.edu/ManonHedenborgWhite Miscellaneous Babalon resources: The Red Goddess by Peter Grey - https://scarletimprint.com/publications/the-red-goddess Babalon, an album by Knifesex - https://knifesex.bandcamp.com/album/babalon Rune Soup, "Talking Babalon" with Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey - https://runesoup.com/2016/06/talking-babalon-with-scarlet-imprint-episode-26/

Jeremy D Johnson, MA is an author, editor, integral scholar, teacher and lecturer. We discuss his new book, Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness, from Revelore Press, exploring Gebser's theories of consciousness, animism, ontology, Deleuze and Guattari, and much more. He has worked as a staff editor for Reality Sandwich magazine, and contributed to publications such as OMNI, Disinfo, Evolve and Ascend, Conscious Lifestyle Magazine, and Evolve Magazine. Jeremy is the founder of Nura Learning, a conscious media learning platform, and editor—Curator of Philosophies—at Revelore Press. Fascinated by the intersections of new media, integral philosophy, depth psychology, and cultural studies, he received his MA from Goddard College in Consciousness Studies. Jeremy is the current president of the International Jean Gebser Society, an academic society that hosts annual conferences and aims to further integral pedagogy. Jeremy is also editor for the forthcoming Revelore Press anthology, Mutations: Art, Consciousness, and the Anthropocene from Revelore Press. In late 2018, Jeremy launched the MUTATIONS podcast, a show inspired by the forthcoming Revelore anthology, featuring conversations that explore consciousness, culture, and architecting a better, planetary future. LINKS to Jeremy's work: http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/ https://anchor.fm/mutations https://www.nuralearning.com/ https://revelore.press

I'm joined by Dr. Jason Josephson-Storm, chair of the Department of Religion at Williams College, to discuss his book, The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. In it, he writes, "The most familiar story in the history of science is disenchantment - magic's exit from the henceforth law-governed world." In a thorough examination of science, philosophy, critical theory, and their connections with magic, Jason argues that this notion of disenchantment is in fact a myth. Along the way we discuss anti-disciplinarity, critiques of overspecialization, complexity, how to be vulnerable as an academic, how we were never modern or postmodern, Nagarjuna and emptiness in Buddhist philosophy, and the future of theory after postmodernism. Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe Music by Poddington Bear

Eric G. Wilson and I explore themes of melancholy and madness, the value of artistic ambiguity, finding your voice as a writer and person, William Blake and David Lynch, longing, dark nights of the soul, Gnosticism, letting go of trying to find meaning, and vulnerability and the complexities of masculinity while discussing his new book Polaris Ghost, a "fascinating hybrid rising from a mix of memoir, journalism, scholarship, and cultural analysis." Eric G. Wilson is Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University, where he teaches British and American Romanticism as well as Creative Writing. He is author of several books of creative nonfiction: Keep It Fake, Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck, Against Happiness, and The Mercy of Eternity: A Memoir of Depression and Grace. Wilson has also published a creative writing handbook, My Business Is To Create: Blake's Infinite Writing. His scholarly books include The Strange World of David Lynch, Secret Cinema, The Melancholy Android, Coleridge's Melancholia, and The Spiritual History of Ice. His essays have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Georgia Review, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Oxford American, The Southern Humanities Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Our State. *Links* http://www.ericgwilson.net/ Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe Theme music by Poddington Bear

Have you ever thought about the fact that you put a series of symbols on a piece of paper or a screen, share it with others, and directly transmit messages and ideas that can change their consciousness? It's called writing and I say it's actual magic - and I'm not alone! This solo episode is a brief exploration of the links between writing and magic from both a historical and practical perspective, including how we understand art, the imaginal, magic, and scholarship. Works mentioned: JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: http://www.reclaimingart.com/ Iain McGilchrist: The Master and His Emissary https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain Gary Lachman: The Secret Teachers of the Western World https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314994/the-secret-teachers-of-the-western-world-by-gary-lachman/9780399166808/ Mitch Horowitz article "Is Your Imagination God?" https://medium.com/s/real-magic/is-your-imagination-god-b55dc78e93bb Related episodes: An Introduction to Creative Inquiry: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/ci-podcast-episode-one Alfonso Montuori - Complexity, Improvisation, and Learning: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/episode-2-alfonso-montuori Shah Hussein - Creative Inquiry as Magic: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/episode-6-shah-hussein-creative-inquiry-as-magic Eric Peterson - Ecological Consciousness, Animism, and Story: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/episode-14-eric-peterson-ecological-consciousness-animism-and-story JF Martel - Art Unearths What Normality Buries: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/art-unearths-jf-martel Angela Voss - A Methodology of the Imagination: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/angela-voss-methodology-imagination Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe Theme music by Poddington Bear Writing as an Act of Magic material copyright © 2019 Dan Glenn

Dr. Angela Voss and I discuss “A Methodology of the Imagination,” transformative learning, magical and divinatory ways of knowing, balancing the rational and the intuitive, scholarship as initiation, the personal daimon and the daimonic, and Marsilio Ficino’s astrological music therapy. Dr. Angela Voss is Programme Director for the MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred at Canterbury Christ Church University. Previously she was the Director of the MA in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination at Kent. As a graduate student, she was introduced to the writing of the Renaissance philosopher, musician and astrologer, Marsilio Ficino, and became thoroughly immersed in the world of 15th-17th century music and philosophy, then decided to embark on a PhD to explore Ficino’s astrological music therapy - her dissertation was titled: 'Music, Astrology and Magic: the astrological music therapy of Marsilio Ficino and his role as a Renaissance Magus’. She has published numerous papers on Ficino, as well as an edited collection of his astrological writings for North Atlantic Books, Western Esoteric Masters series, and is the author and editor of several other books, including Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays on Astrology and Divination, The Imaginal Cosmos: Astrology, Divination, and the Sacred, Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, and Re-enchanting the Academy. Angela is now moving deeper into the territory of symbolism and the imaginal, exploring statue-magic, the spiritual dimensions of music, and past-life therapy, ancient Greek mysteries and the metaphysics of divination. She is engaged in creating a framework for the MA within Transformative Learning, linking esoteric and wisdom traditions with soul-work and consciousness raising within the academy. -- Notes -- Dr. Voss on Academia - http://canterbury.academia.edu/AngelaVoss Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred MA - https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/study-here/courses/postgraduate/myth-cosmology-and-the-sacred-19-20.aspx - Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe Music by Poddington Bear

Dr. Vanessa Sinclair and I explore psychoanalysis, society, the unconscious, sexuality and its subversive power, identity, the cut-up method, creativity, art, magic, and more. Dr. Vanessa Sinclair is a psychoanalyst in independent practice who sees patients internationally, specializing in online and remote treatment. A founding member of Das Unbehagen: A Free Association for Psychoanalysis, Dr. Sinclair facilitates events and conferences internationally, including Civilization and its Bliss-contents: On Violence and Psychoanalysis, NYC 2015, with Manya Steinkoler, which has evolved into a book forthcoming from Routledge On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Lacanian Perspectives (2019), and Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult, London 2016, co-hosted with Carl Abrahamsson. Collected papers from this conference were published as a special edition of The Fenris Wolf, volume 9 (2017) available from Trapart Books. Dr. Sinclair hosts Rendering Unconscious podcast and is currently editing a collection of psychoanalytic writing and poetry under the same name (Trapart, 2019). She authored a book of cut-up poetry Switching Mirrors Trapart, 2016), and her book Scansion in Psychoanalysis and Art: The Cut in Creation is forthcoming from Routledge (2020). Together with artist Katelan Foisy, she explores the creative potential inherent in the cut-up method. A book of their work Chaos of the Third Mind is upcoming from Fulgur Ltd (2020). ---Notes--- http://www.drvanessasinclair.net/ Vanessa Sinclair & Carl Abrahamsson's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl Chaos of the Third Mind (cut-up art w/Katelan Foisy): https://chaosofthethirdmind.com/ Books: http://www.drvanessasinclair.net/books/ Rendering Unconscious Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/highbrowlowlife Psychoanalysis, Art, and the Occult interview with Gordon White (Rune Soup) https://runesoup.com/2016/04/psychoanalysis-art-and-the-occult-video/ Vanessa on Leosaysays Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNiiMvdhNV4 Fenris Wolf 9 (Papers from the Psychoanalysis, Art, and the Occult Conference) https://www.carlabrahamsson.com/tag/the-fenris-wolf-9/

We discuss ancestor work and its particular significance for queer, trans, and "gender blessed" folks, sexual liberation, sexual trauma, the intersection of sex, magick, and science, and more. Pavini Moray (pronoun: Pe) is a somatic sex therapist and ancestral lineage healing practitioner in private practice in San Francisco, mainly working with queer and trans clients who have experience sexual trauma. Pavini hosts a podcast called “Bespoken Bones: Ancestors at the crossroads of sex, magick, and science” inspired by pe’s dissertation interview research. The podcast addresses topics of transgenerational trauma, erotic wellness, and ancestral support. Pavini is also a Certified Sexological Bodyworker, a Certified Ancestral Lineage Healing practitioner and teacher, and teaches a variety of public workshops and classes relating to these same topics. Pavini is published in the recent Queer Magick anthology, and is the author of “Putting the Edge in Education: An anarchist cookbook for teachers” and “Free Your Sex: Your toolkit for erotic liberation.” Pavini also wrote and produced a short erotic film called “Holy MILF: A queer, eco-sexual ritual film” that headlined at the San Francisco Sex Worker Art and Film Festival in 2015. As a queer trans witch, Pavini walks the glitter path of dancing bones, ridiculous delight and old magick. Links to Pavini's work: www.emancipating-sexuality.com www.bespokenbones.com Podcast cover art by Jeff Wolfe

Ted Hand and I explore the worlds of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick and the relationship of his work to Gnosticism, alchemy, Renaissance magic, late capitalism, and power structures. We discuss questions of reality, madness, and a new wave of scholar/practitioners in esoteric studies who are blazing new terrain, bridging personal experience and scholarship. Ted Hand is a scholar of Philip K. Dick and Western esotericism, including Renaissance magic, alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and more. He is a teacher by trade, and did his undergraduate studies at UC Davis and graduate studies at Graduate Theological Union at UC Berkeley. Ted is currently working on creating a Philip K. Dick tarot deck. ---Notes--- Ted’s blogs and social media: http://pkdreligion.blogspot.com/ http://alchemicaldiagrams.blogspot.com/ facebook.com/pkdtarot Twitter @t3dy Instagram @t3dyhand Other works mentioned: http://bostonreview.net/literature-culture/henry-farrell-philip-k-dick-and-fake-humans https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html TechGnosis by Erik Davis The Super Natural by Jeffrey Kripal and Whitley Strieber Ted on Occult Sentinel Podcast: https://occultsentinel.com/2012/10/17/os-ep-38-ted-hand-entering-the-world-of-philip-k-dick/ https://occultsentinel.com/2013/09/11/ted-hand-2/ --- Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe Theme music: A1 Rogue by Poddington Bear

This conversation with Nick Walker is focused around the notion of neuroqueering and neuroqueer fiction as an approach to subversion and transformation. We talk about cultural norms around gender, sexuality, and cognition; cognitive liberty; weird fiction; madness; the war on the imagination; how to embrace being flamingly weird; and why, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” Nick Walker is an autistic genderqueer author, educator, and aikido teacher whose work explores the edges and intersections of embodiment, neurodiversity, gender, consciousness, and transformative practice. Nick is a faculty member at California Institute of Integral Studies, and Managing Editor of the independent publishing house Autonomous Press. He holds a 6th degree black belt in aikido and is Senior Instructor at the Aikido Shusekai dojo in Berkeley, California. Together with his longtime collaborator Andrew M. Reichart, Nick is the co-creator of an ever-growing body of intricately interconnected speculative fiction stories known as the Weird Luck Saga. Show notes: The Weird Luck website: https://weirdluck.org/ Spoon Knife 3: http://autpress.com/2018/10/whats-in-spoon-knife-3/ Spoon Knife 2: https://autonomous-press.myshopify.com/products/spoon-knife-2-test-chamber Diverse Bodies, Diverse Practices: https://www.diversebodiesdiversepractices.com/ Autonomous Press: http://autpress.com/ The Aikido Shusekai dojo: http://aikiarts.com/ Neurocosmopolitanism blog: http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/ Nick on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nickwalkersensei/ Nick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WalkerSensei

Author, screenwriter, and filmmaker JF Martel and I discuss weirdness, the surreal quality of experience, art arising from the primordial or from the imaginal realm, why society attempts to bury the weird or chaotic beneath normality and conventionality, Stranger Things, Twin Peaks, Jaws, the daimonic, dreams, and the ways that art can disrupt and awaken, in a conversation that centers around his book, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, which is about the nature and power of art. JF hails from Ottawa, Ontario, and his screen work includes French and English-language documentary series and features focused on culture and the arts. J.F.'s writings on art, culture and philosophy have appeared in Reality Sandwich, Metapsychosis, The Finch, Disinfo, and other online magazines. He is the co-host of the Weird Studies podcast along with Phil Ford. Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe Theme music: A1 Rogue by Poddington Bear *Notes* JF’s Work: http://www.reclaimingart.com Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action - https://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Art-Age-Artifice-Manifesto/dp/1583945784 Reclaiming Art trailer: https://vimeo.com/118553863 Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things - https://www.metapsychosis.com/reality-is-analog-philosophizing-with-stranger-things-part-one/ How Symbols Matter - http://thefinch.net/2016/03/10/jf-martel-how-symbols-matter/ Consciousness in the Aesthetic Imagination - https://www.metapsychosis.com/consciousness-in-the-aesthetic-imagination/ Cicada (2013) - Short Film - https://vimeo.com/59824769 Sources mentioned: Phil Ford’s piece on Weird Studies - https://dialmformusicology.com/category/weird-studies/ “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetic Art” by C.G. Jung -Decadents and Catholicism by Ellis Hanson -Quentin Meillassoux -Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nTjn1yJp0w

This is a short solo episode announcing a new direction for the podcast! Includes an homage to my favorite and most influential podcasts and an exploration of the term "subversive" as a living, breathing force or entity. Notes: Chambers, S. A., Carver, T. (2008). Judith Butler and Political Theory. London: Routledge. Peterle, Astrid. 2009. Thinking through Subversion in the Time of Its Impossibility. In Human Ends and the Ends of Politics, eds. M. Black and K. McKillop, Vienna: IWM Junior Visiting Fellows’ Conferences, Vol. 23. http://www.iwm.at/publications/5-junior-visiting-fellows-conferences/vol-xxiii/astrid-peterle/ What is a "daimonic calling?" - https://danglenn.com/2017/01/07/the-pull-of-the-daimon Theme music created by Podington Bear (http://www.podingtonbear.com)

In this episode I'm joined by Vincent Brown, whose doctoral research research centers around The Work that Reconnects, a theoretical framework and workshop methodology for personal and social change developed by Joanna Macy, a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. Vincent's dissertation study is on men's work in the context of The Work that Reconnects, which is the focus of our conversation. Our discussion contains a lot of personal reflection on what feels like a timely and challenging topic, in a time when the trauma that men have inflicted on others and on the planet is becoming increasingly clear and widely recognized. - Guiding Principles of The Work That Reconnects: · This world, into which we are born and take our being, is alive. · Our true nature is far more ancient and encompassing than the separate self-defined by habit and society. · Our experience of the pain for the world springs from our connectivity with all beings, from which also arise our powers to act on their behalf. · [Psychological] unblocking occurs when our pain for the world is not only acknowledged, but experienced. · When we reconnect with life by choosing to bear our pain for it, the mind retrieves its natural clarity. · The experience of reconnection with the Earth community arouses the urge to act on its behalf (Macy & Brown, 2014, pp. 65-67). http://workthatreconnects.org

Eric Peterson joins us for a wide-ranging conversation based in his work as an outdoor adventure leader and scholar of all things ecological. We explore topics such as ecological consciousness; the interconnectedness of the socio-political, ecological, and psychological; ecolinguistics; ecopsychology; the importance of story; why an animist viewpoint is essential; the war on dreaming; and the problem with trying to "save" the planet. About Eric Peterson: Over twenty-five years ago, Eric started working as an outdoor adventure leader in the southwestern Oregon and northern California area. He has guided trips in rafting, kayaking (rivers, lakes, and ocean), canoeing, fishing, biking, skiing, and hiking. He began his career as an outdoor adventure leader as a ski instructor and ski patroller at Mount Ashland, as well as a whitewater river guide on rivers like the Rogue, Klamath, North Umpqua, Scott, and California Salmon. At the age of twenty-six, he started a year-round adventure company in Ashland, Oregon, which he ran successfully for a few years before deciding to focus on teaching Swiftwater Rescue. At the age of forty, he returned to Southern Oregon University (SOU) where he earned Bachelor of Science degrees in anthropology, psychology, and a minor in Native American Studies. Eric graduated from California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) with an MA in Transformative Leadership and is continuing his inquiry at CIIS in the Doctoral Transformative Studies program (Ph.D., 2020). Eric’s passion is in the therapeutic and transformative powers of nature, and how humans relate to the more-than-human world. His current studies lie within the intersections of transformative leadership, social and environmental justice, and pedagogies and curriculums that nurture ecological consciousness. He utilizes a systems thinking approach to understanding how all our contemporary human problems are interrelated and interconnected and believes that outdoor adventure leaders hold potential great influence for positive socio-cultural transformation. Eric is looking at focusing his dissertation upon: A meta-synthesis of how the term "eco" is showing up in areas like: ecophilosophy, ecopsychology, ecotherapy, ecofeminism, ecoliteracy, and ecoleadership. Eric's website: http://www.outdooradventureleader.com/ Show notes: Frances Weller, grief and soul work: http://www.francisweller.net/ Allan (Leslie) Combs: https://www.ciis.edu/faculty-and-staff-directory/allan-combs Apocalyptic Witchcraft by Peter Grey: https://scarletimprint.com/publications/apocalyptic-witchcraft

Dan and Dr. Adrian Mack have a wide-ranging discussion that includes film studies, media studies, cultural studies, fiction writing, the Black Arts Movement, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., disrupting "business as usual," the co-opting of social change and liberatory movements , and Christianity as a force for liberation. Dr. Adrian Mack is the Director of Business Development for Social Impact at 3C Institute for Social Development and is an adjunct faculty member in Interdisciplinary Studies at Southern New Hampshire University. He has a PhD in Transformative Studies from CIIS, a MA in Christian Ministry from Liberty University, a MA in Christian Studies from Duke University, and a BA in History from the University of Virginia. His research focus is in cultural studies, media studies, and literary studies, and he enjoys writing fiction. *** Adrian Mack's article, "The Black Arts Movement, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, & Cultural Discourse" will be published in a special issue for Comparative American Studies on the Black Arts Movement. We'll add the information on accessing it here once it is released.

In this episode with Dr. May Elawar, we discuss postcolonial feminism, epistemic vigilance, how can knowledge liberate rather than oppress, knowledge at the borderlands, going a step beyond identity politics, spiritual activism, being and becoming, interdependence, Gloria Anzaldua and conocimiento, Starhawk's work and vision for humanity, decolonizing the divine, and why liberatory work needs magic and magic needs to be liberatory. May Elawar, PhD, teaches in the Transformative Inquiry program at CIIS and previously taught in the Women's Spirituality program. May received her PhD in Philosophy and Religion with a concentration in Women's Spirituality from CIIS. She holds an MA in International Relations from the American University in Washington, DC, and a BA in Political Science. She is interested in bridging spirituality/religion with social justice activism. May is Lebanese, and came to the US as an international student. She is particularly interested in exploring alternative and non-western philosophical frameworks to address theories of knowledge, identity, gender, colonialism/postcolonialism, and globalization. May's research and activism has focused greatly on social justice in the Arab and Muslim world, particularly for women. Through her work in the Women's Spirituality Program, May is active with a number of groups in the Bay Area who are involved in exploring transformative practices for healing gender-based violence. NOTES: Chandra Talpade Mohanty Lila Fernandes, Decolonizing the Divine Gloria Anzaldua Kwok Pui-lan

Gabrielle Donnelly, Ph.D. is a scholar and practitioner of creativity, social change, and innovation. In this episode, we discuss the dynamic between the scholar and practitioner sides of oneself; working with perceived polarities in groups, individuals, and society at large; finding your voice as a scholar; the dissertation process as creative and personal transformation; "kissing people over the edge," and much more. Co-founder of Brave Space, Gabrielle works with methods for meaningful public engagement, participatory leadership, and systems change such as The Art of Hosting, Deep Democracy, and Participatory Action Research. Her passion for integrating theory and practice leads her to work with organizations like Coady International Institute, FoodARC, ALIA Institute, Government of Nova Scotia, Ecology Action Centre, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, and Now Lunenburg County. Gabrielle is a professor at Acadia University, an associate of the Taos Institute, ​and publishes in the areas of creativity, social change, participatory leadership, and transdisciplinarity. She is the Managing Editor of World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research. Born in London, England and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Gabrielle lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Dr. Donnelly's website: www.gabrielledonnelly.ca The Brave Space website is www.bravespace.ca The Art of Hosting website www.artofhosting.org/ Deep Democracy (Lewis Method) https://deep-democracy.net/ Rune Soup episode with Dr. Jeffrey Kripal: https://runesoup.com/2018/03/talking-secret-body-jeffrey-kripal/ Strieber, W., & Kripal, J. (2016). The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained. Tarcher Perigee. Zia Sardar: http://ziauddinsardar.com/2011/03/welcome-to-postnormal-times/ Montuori, A. (2005). How to make enemies and influence people: anatomy of the anti-pluralist, totalitarian mindset. Futures, 37(1), 18-38. Link to Montuori article on academia: https://www.academia.edu/168673/How_to_Make_Enemies_and_Influence_People_The_Totalitarian_Mindset Jordan Peterson: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jordan-peterson-clinical-psychologist-canada-popularity-convincing-why-left-wing-alt-right-cathy-a8208301.html https://medium.com/s/story/a-field-guide-to-jordan-petersons-political-arguments-312153eac99a

If you're intrigued by a professor who teaches courses called "Divine Madness: Dreams, Visions, Hallucinations," "Religion, Medicine, and Healing," and "Good Deaths: From the Tibetan Book of the Dead to the ICU," then this episode is for you. Sara Lewis, Ph.D., is an Anthropologist of religion and medicine specializing in Tibet and South Asia. We discuss her ethnographic research with Tibetan exiles which investigates how Buddhist concepts of time and memory shape responses to trauma, and how those cultural ideals collide with global human rights narratives. We explore the creativity of designing a syllabus, creative inquiry as pedagogy, what it means to have a flexible or spacious mind, the balance of compassion and the Buddhist notion of "emptiness," the creativity of ethnographic research and qualitative interviews, and much more. -- Sara Lewis, Ph.D., is an Anthropologist of religion and medicine specializing in Tibet and South Asia. As an anthropologist working at the intersection of culture, religion, and mental health, her work considers how individuals and communities cope with distress and cultivate resilience. Her forthcoming book from Cornell University Press investigates how Buddhist concepts of time and memory shape responses to trauma, and how those cultural ideals collide with global human rights narratives. A new project--a transnational ethnography on death and dying among Tibetan exiles--considers an apparent paradox: how a temporal focus on rebirth may enhance agency and empowerment in the present. Watch out for a Twin Peaks (original series) spoiler at 11:15-11:30. Dr. Lewis currently teaches at Wellesley College in the area of religion, healing and medicine. Her courses are interdisciplinary and engage approaches and methods in anthropology, religion, Buddhist Studies, and global health. She is particularly interested in mentoring students who wish to explore the dynamic intersections of global health, medicine, and other clinical endeavors. She currently chairs the Critical Anthropology for Global Health (CAGH) Special Interest Group of the Society for Medical Anthropology, which examines how critical medical anthropology theory and practices may inform global health. In addition to her research and services activities, Sara previously worked in community mental health as a social worker in the areas of serious mental illness, mindfulness, and palliative care. Outside of the classroom, she can be found in the mountains or on a meditation retreat. You can access a selection of Sara's publications here: https://wellesley.academia.edu/SaraLewis

A powerful conversation about neurodiversity, neurodivergent scholarship, disability justice, immanent critique, the experiential and political aspects of disability and neurodiversity, and of course, magic. Sara Maria Acevedo is a neurodivergent mestiza, activist scholar, educator and disability justice advocate born and raised in Colombia, South America. She has served as a Diversity and Disability Advocacy Fellow at California Institute of Integral Studies and is currently a Fellow in the Center for Writing and Scholarship. She’s also the co-founder of the National Coalition for Latinxs with Disablities and serves on the board of directors. Her current research explores activism as history making and qualitative collaborative research methods to challenge oppressive systems impinging on the right of disabled communities to produce cultural and political spaces of inherent value by and for themselves. Sara is currently exploring and documenting the politics of self-direction and self-governance across neurodivergent grassroots communities serving autistic and otherwise neurodivergent transitioning youth in the Bay Area. She utilizes activist ethnographic methods as a strategy to amplify the voices and lived experiences of disabled communities living oppressively at the intersections of race, class, gender expression, sexual orientation, religious practice, and political affiliation. Sara recently received an honorable mention for the Irving Zola award from the Society for Disability Studies for her paper, “Neuroqueering Compositon: Sensual Reflections on the Inconclusive Life of Thoughts,” which she reads from during our conversation, and I think will be a real treat for you all to hear. Sara is a doctoral candidate in the Anthropology and Social Change Program at CIIS, and both her pedagogy and scholarship as well as her grassroots work invite a re-figuration of disability as a vibrant political and cultural experience as opposed to a flat clinical diagnosis. Notes: A written transcript of this podcast will be available later today! Sara Acevedo's piece, "Neuroqueering Composition" cannot be reproduced without her permission. Scholars Sara cites during interview include: Deleuze and Guattari, Elizabeth Povinelli, Jasbir Puar, David Mitchell, Sharon Snyder, Shelley Tremain, Michel Foucault.

A conversation with Julian Michels on mythology, blending the rational and intuitive, education, creativity emerging out of difference, deep democracy & process work, alchemy, animism and taking spirits seriously, and considering how the "dead-world" scientific materialist viewpoint is really going. Julian Michels is a doctoral student who researches comparative philosophy, religion, and mysticism at California Institute of Integral Studies. He is particularly interested in holistic education, myth & ritual, and depth psychology. Julian also currently serves as an associate managing editor with the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, where he is part of a team working to bring transpersonal scholarship into a new era of visibility and excellence.

In this solo episode, I share the story of my dissertation proposal process and how it leads me forward, not the other way around. I discuss the inseparability of personal explorations and scholarly inquiry, the internalized taskmaster, and how creative inquiry might be related to a meditation practice called "aimless wandering."

Dan & Shah discuss creative inquiry as magic, creativity as self-making and world-making, anthropology and activism, decolonizing anthropology, queer black feminism, free-writing, autoethnography, and how creative or magical approaches to knowledge production can further empower marginalized communities. Shah Noor Hussein, M.A. is a graduate of the CIIS Anthropology and Social Change Program where their emphasis included queer black feminism, alternative epistemologies, and liberatory pedagogies. As an artist, scholar, and activist, Shah values the roles of spirituality, embodiment, creativity, and pleasure within the writing process and the classroom. Often, experiential and integral learning practices are central to Shah’s teaching, learning and writing styles. Shah practices a teaching pedagogy that aims to hold a decolonized, racially unbiased, gender-inclusive, non-ableist, class conscious, spiritually welcoming space for all students with the ultimate goal of a career in education that is liberating for both students and professors.

Daniel Deslauriers and Dan discuss dreams, arts-based inquiry, contact improvisation, alternative epistemologies, living knowledge, inquiry and personal transformation. Daniel Deslauriers, PhD, received his doctorate (1989) in Psychology from the University of Montreal (Quebec) and conducted research at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and the Chronopsychology Laboratory, Carleton University (Ontario). He lived in Indonesia and has studied the religion and sacred arts of Bali, and trained in Gamelan music and Balinese dance. He was co-founder of the Montreal Center for the Study of Dreams. Daniel co-authored Le rêve: sa nature, sa fonction et une methode d'analyse (P.U.Q., 1987), has published articles on epistemology and narrative research, and and has co-authored (with Fariba Bogzaran) Integral Dreaming (SUNY Press, 2012). His professional interests in consciousness studies include: traditional and contemporary approaches to dreams and imagination, altered states of consciousness, spiritual intelligence, and integral psychology. He is also a practitioner and teacher of Unity in Motion, a bodymind integrative practice. Daniel was selected as winner of the Templeton 2000 Science and Religion Course Award Competition for a course he developed entitled "Consciousness, Science and Religion." Dr. Deslauriers' article referenced in the interview is: Deslauriers, D. (1992). Dimensions of knowing: Narrative, paradigm, and ritual. ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation, 14(4), 187-193.

Constance Jones, PhD, is a sociologist of religion who researches new religious movements, Hinduism and Buddhism in the West, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Knowledge, Transdisciplinarity, Heuristic Methods, J. Krishnamurti, the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, and the meeting of East and West in intellectual history. In this episode, we discuss the social/psychological variables affecting how people relate to religion today; knowing and not knowing in religious pursuits and he ability to dwell in uncertainty; new religious movements as creative inquiry; the interplay of self-inquiry and outer inquiry; and objectivity vs. subjectivity in the study of religions. After receiving a doctorate with honors, Dr. Jones was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center for the Study of New Religious Movements of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Beginning with her doctoral dissertation on the caste system in India, she has pursued a life-long interest in the cultures and religions of India, including the adoption of Eastern beliefs and practices into Western systems of thought. She has served on faculties of a number of graduate programs of religion, including the Graduate Theological Union; the Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara; and Columbia Theological Seminary. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Institutes of Health, the Ford Foundation, and the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars. As a Fulbright scholar in India, she taught at Banaras Hindu University and Vasanta College and conducted research at the Krishnamurti Study Center, Varanasi. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for the Study of American Religion, Santa Barbara, California and Waco, Texas; is an active member of CESNUR, Association for the Study of New Religions, Torino, Italy; and is a member of the International Advisory Board for “The Complete Teachings of J. Krishnamurti, 1910-1986.” For the last 13 years, Connie has been a member of a multi-disciplinary team of scholars that investigates new religious movements around the world. The team has done research on a wide range of new religions, including the Kashi Community in Roseland, Florida; the Church Universal and Triumphant in Boseman, Montana; Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment in Yelm, Washington, the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness in Los Angeles, California; and the True Buddha School in Seattle, Washington. This research analyses the dissemination of Eastern thought in the West through religious movements with Hindu and Buddhist roots. For the last six years, Connie has been a member of an international team of scholars working with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing researching “The Future of Religion in China.” Following four visits to mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, the team will publish a multi-disciplinary volume with analyses of religion and culture in traditional Chinese culture areas. You can hear the podcast at the Soundcloud link below, or on iTunes or Stitcher. Please subscribe and rate/review if you enjoy, and follow us on Twitter: @CreativeInqPod.

Sam Grant is a transformative organizer, educator and facilitator working through multiple formations to advance the convivial dreaming process of individuals and networks actively manifesting health in self, relationships and local to planetary socio-ecologies. Dan and Sam discuss creativity in activism, transdisciplinarity and the fallacies of academic disciplines, the problem with "expertise," heeding the call of intuition and the "dreaming" process, and the messiness, joy, and agony of creative inquiry. Sam’s PhD work at the California Institute for Integral Studies focuses on integrating his life-long passions in environmental, economic and cultural justice through the lens of Africana Critical Theory to theoretically imagine how we co-transform the domination –control paradigm toward an intercultural ecological democracy. Sam is doing grassroots prototypes of what this could look like in the United States and Sierra Leone. Sam has been on community faculty at Metropolitan State University since 1990, where he created and leads their Minor in Community Organizing and Development. He is the Faculty Director of the Environmental Sustainability program at the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, working with students from 26 colleges and universities to engage in climate justice through local to global socio-ecological systems. He is a lead consultant with three firms: a) a firm assemblage he founded with his wife – the Movement Center for Deep Democracy and Embody Deep Democracy – through which he is currently a capacity building consultant on a local food systems initiative funded by the Greater Twin Cities United Way; b) he has a long-standing consulting partnership with The Public Policy Project, which is now working on a major environmental justice initiative; and c) he is a consultant with Creative Catalysts, working on the African American Futures Initiative with the Saint Paul Foundation. In addition, Sam is on the participatory design team for the revamp of a long-standing arts-based community development initiative – the Creative Community Leadership Institute. He current lives in the Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota with his wife Zea and their daughter Sol – two of the most amazing creative catalysts in his own life. You can llearn a little more about his work at – www.slfnd.org, www.hecua.org, and www.susted.com/wordpress/content/2017/05/ The article Sam wrote, "Organizing Alternative Food Futures in the Peripheries of the Industrial Food System," referenced in the interview can be found here: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-06-12/organizing-alternative-food-futures-peripheries-industrial-food-system/

We debut our Creative Inquiry conversations with a bang, starting with the man who coined the term, Dr. Alfonso Montuori. We discuss his influences, his developing of the ideas that led to the creation of the Transformative Inquiry programs at California Institute of Integral Studies, the detrimental effects of reproductive education, the creative process, complexity, jazz and improvisation, and more. Alfonso Montuori is an educator, consultant, and musician. His transdisciplinary research has focused on the application of creativity research and complexity to better understand how to live in a complex, pluralistic, uncertain world. He has focused particularly in the areas of creativity, leadership, future studies, cultural pluralism, transdisciplinarity, and Creative Inquiry. Alfonso’s books include Evolutionary Competence; From Power to Partnership (co-authored with Isabella Conti), Creators on Creating (co-edited w/Barron & Barron), and Social Creativity, vols. 1-2 (co-edited w/R. Purser). In 2006 he became a San Francisco Library Laureate. He is core faculty in the Transformative Leadership and Transformative Studies programs at CIIS. You can find Alfonso on Twitter at @amontuori, and the Creative Inquiry podcast at @CreativeInqPod. Please subscribe on Soundcloud, iTunes, or Stitcher if you enjoy the podcast!

This is a short introductory episode in which Dan provides an overview of Creative Inquiry before diving into interviews beginning next episode. References: Montuori, A. (2012). Creative Inquiry: Confronting the challenges of scholarship in the 21st century. Futures, 44(1), 64-70. Montuori, A. (2008). The joy of inquiry. Journal of Transformative Education, 6(1), 8-26.