The Lorecast

Let's hear about a kind of experience-based spirituality unique to the United States starting far back and long ago, long before the founding of the nation. It is a spirituality of unlimited vision and yet practical concern, of utopian goals and pragmatic methods, of aspiration blended with a yearning for freedom and justice. Chalquist.com

"Lamplighting" is my term for a new kind of change-making in the world by visionaries, dreamers, intuitives, and depth workers gathering in service to deep cultural (and personal) transformation. Those of us who work on ourselves have the privilege of a large and effective toolbox. Perhaps it's time to bring it more fully out into the world, and to make change through imagination, inspiration, and creativity. See "Carrying Light in Dark Times: Resources for Lamplighters" at Chalquist.com.Chalquist.com

There is no shortage of examples of ring-kissing, selling out, and being a moral windsock as entire companies, departments, and branches of government kiss up to authoritarian bullies. Isn't this when the heroes emerge? Some are. But the figure of the junzi, the exemplary person from Chinese folklore and philosophy, has something to offer as a model for integrity and courage. Chalquist.com

How many times must we be fooled by unscrupulous and event violent leaders until we wake up and get conscious? Persephone and Innana might be good examples of how to obtain the "night vision" of recognizing when we are being mistreated and refusing to put up with it. Chalquist.com

In January I made available the fifth book of the Assembling Terrania Cycle. In this podcast I discuss the need for a planetary mythology and new guiding stories and talk about A Chorus of Resistance, the fifth ATC book, and how voices from the margins can reinvigorate us inwardly and outwardly. Chalquist.com

Jung taught us that "imaginary" and "fictional" characters possess their own kind of autonomy and reality. I give some examples from how I write fiction to indicate my own creative conversation with such characters as they move their stories forward along with my own. (My thanks to Nigel Calvaire and Brenda Espuma, the fictional characters who volunteered to be examples.)Chalquist.com

In dark and difficult times, it's easy to fall into a psychology of contraction: self-guarding, self-protection, defense, diminished influence, lowered voice. But what if such times call instead for an expansion into possibilities that can inspire us?Chalquist.com

In the West, self-development (self-improvement, self-realization, individuation) is a multi-billion dollar industry. It is also defined in terms of a narrowly boundaried self. What if we pushed past the introverted take on self-development long enough to bring more of its methods out into the world?Chalquist.com

For all its long life, SF has predicted future events. It has even done this when the events seem improbable or impossible. How does it do this? What does SF say today about where we might be headed?Link to my novel Soulmapper, first book of the Lamplighter Trilogy.Chalquist.com

What do authoritarian followers, religious fundamentalists, and domestic violence perpetrators have in common? Idealization of a dual father image that alternates between violent and loving. Why is this? Chalquist.com

What can storytelling, visioning, mythologizing, and pleasure contribute to resisting oppression and injustice, especially when widespread? What would "the new Mythietai"--storytelling troublemakers who opposed tyranny in the ancient world--be like? Chalquist.com

Giantism, or Titanism, is an inflated psychology involved with building and taking over gigantic structures, organizations, and industries. In this episode we look at how deregulation and giantism have contributed to a worsening of quality in the airline industry. What might be some alternatives?Chalquist.com

If myths are wisdom stories and cultural dreamings rather than superstitions, what might an updated American mythology be like? One that helps us heal the crack in the Liberty Bell of the national heart? That stories how we can be together here while protecting and renewing the land itself? That helps us reach higher psychological maturity and responsibility? Blog: "Let's Repair the Liberty Bell."Chalquist.com

Mainstream Western psychology concentrates mainly on the self: an entity separate from other selves and from the world outside. But Jung observed that our dreams and symptoms often reflect events going on around us as well as in other people. What does this look like? How does it change our view of our struggles and stresses when we can trace at least some of them to outer happenings?Chalquist.com

It's not hard to spot a grandiose narcissist. The flagrant bragging, exaggerating, and fishing for compliments (for mirroring) is fairly obvious. But can you spot the quieter profile of the covert narcissist, the kind smart enough to hide their drive to exploit, gaslight, and retaliate? Chalquist.com

Why are so many transformative schools and programs failing? Is it possible that learnings about consciousness, depth, archetype, dream, and deep relations with nature, place, and Earth belong outside higher ed at this time? What might such a school be like? Chalquist.com

We've all seen them: organizations not only led by narcissists or other incompetent "leaders," but determined to stop any attempt at leading with wisdom, care, and intelligence. How do we know we are in such an organization? If so, what can we do about it? Chalquist.com

"Because it's familiar." This explanation for why we stay in burdensome or painful situations is no explanation at all. Why do we fight deep change? What does the figure of the Phoenix have to say to us about how to go about radical transfiguration?Chalquist.com

Are we possessed by the gods? Even when we don't believe in them? How would we know? Why would it matter, and what could we do about it? Chalquist.com

The debate of determinism vs. free will has played wearily out down the centuries through religion, philosophy, and science. In the end, though, it's only by making the assumption that our choices count that we move forward in life, heal from adversity, and make a difference to our time. Chalquist.com

For a planetary mythology, a cycle of engaging and inspiring stories grown from the ground up, how might we hold such stories so they retain their vitality and viability? How might we set aside literalism, judgmentalism, and absolute belief? Part 2 of 2. Chalquist.com

According to Thomas Berry and many voices before his, we are between big stories that make sense of who we are and our place in the world.  Perhaps what we need rather than one big story is a cycle of stories that show a way forward and give us realistic hope. What might such a cycle include? How might it help us reinterpret the lore and traditional teachings we still find valuable?Chalquist.com

Ever wonder why committees, task forces, regulations, procedures, and endless meetings never seem to bring lasting change? The missing ingredient is informal relationships. Hear some examples of how they bring about new results. Chalquist.com

Vibrations. Energies. Vortexes. Quantum yoga, consciousness, everything. How might we move beyond this sciency-sounding but vague language and come up with some that adequately expresses the subtlety of our direct experience? Chalquist.com

What would you make of an online space that is partly hopeful social media network, hub of creative community, source of uplifting news, and field for growing dreams? Enchantvale is based on the philosophy and practice of enchantivism: telling tales to move us out of exclusivity and division into hopeful new possibilities.  Visit the landing page.Chalquist.com

Many of us are familiar with Jung's 8 psychological types (including the introvert and extravert orientations) and the Myers-Briggs. But where does imagination go? It can't belong mainly to the intuitive types. We all have it. But some of us focus it on the here and now ("heredreamers") and some focus on possibilities and patterns ("theredreamers"). A new axis of imagination added to typologies would help account for this. Chalquist.com

According to the conflict theory of fiction, as enforced by literary agents, publishers, and Hollywood, your story must feature a Hero or Heroine who runs into or is filled with conflict. In Hollywood, this usually means images of someone tough and earnest holding a gun or sword. Do good stories really require this, or, at least for psychological adults, should they rely instead on complex characters in tension and suspense? Chalquist.com

Why is it that so many of us are open to the most flagrantly deceitful, impossible, and downright ludicrous conspiracy theories, especially those full of paranoia and hatred? The answer might surprise you. What can we do to diminish the risk of this kind of collective regression to irrationality? Chalquist.com

It has become a canard of the psychospiritual circuit: Meaning, value, purpose, etc. reside within you, not in the outer world. All you need is inside you. But is that really true? Let's explore this. Chalquist.com

Can fiction serve as a path of meaning, wisdom, and even spirituality? Especially for those of us uninterested in the dogmatic divisiveness of traditional religion? This podcast questions the "truth OR reality" distinction while giving examples of authors (the majority according to one study) whose characters advise us on what to write. They are imaginal, which means different from imaginary (made up). What is behind what they suggest to us? Chalquist.com

The dead: family, friends, lovers, ancestors. Are they really gone? What if we can't come to terms with them before they depart the earth? We still can. In this podcast I give examples of how to continue the conversation with those who have passed on until we feel more at peace with them. Chalquist.com

A strange thing about being kind of on the edge of things psychologically - in the group of us that question and wonder, for example - is how much everyday technological absurdity everybody else accepts as normal. This episode is a sequel in some ways to Episode 23, "Against Friendly Tech." Chalquist.com

According to Pew, Gallup, and other polls, record numbers of people are bowing out of religion altogether. This podcast considers these questions: Do we need religion, nor not? If so, can collecting evocative fiction serve to help us reinvent a path to the experience of the sacred? How else might it guide us? My newly released novel Soulmap contains the outlines of a religion based on imagination, vision, community, and play. (Correction: ref to Gen X should have been to Z and later generations.)Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

The crack in the Liberty Bell parallels a split in the polarized American soul, a split showing up in other nations as well. In the US, the split is so extreme that democracy itself is in danger, threatened by the rise of Christian nationalism. What is the nature of the split, what did the Founders say about religious freedom, and how might we begin to heal the split? Blog: "Let's Repair the Liberty Bell." Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Over the past year and a half, I've practiced how to write fiction and learned to reach out to agents who work with publishers. I've also learned that work which deviates in any way from the rigid heroic formula tends to go nowhere commercially. What are the alternatives for someone writing from the soul and yet desiring to work within the profit-driven system of book publishing? Note: In the podcast I mention thinking about publishing independently. Since recording this, I have done that, and the Kindle version of my novel Soulmap is now available. Paperback version coming soon. Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

As a followup to the previous episode, how might approaches to healing and wholeness create impossible standards? Does aiming for them as ends in themselves really serve us, especially when we feel broken and fragmented? What might be a more vital goal?Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Like any profession, psychotherapy is based in certain truths about who human beings are and what aids and ails us. And like any profession, psychotherapy includes "truths" that aren't always true. We will consider some limitations of the therapy paradigm and suggest a few alternatives. Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

In our families, invisible but powerful sets of emotional debts, loyalties, and obligations move down through the generations to impact, and sometimes limit, our freedom of action, especially in relationships. This episode looks at examples of these ledgers and legacies and discusses how to explore and transform the stories that power them. (My thanks to Catherine for suggesting this topic.)Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Why do people fall into authoritarian extremism? What keystone stories do they tell themselves about this, and how might these stories be changed such that isolation and grievance give way to belonging? Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

When you face an obstacle or dilemma and the usual methods for grappling with it won't work, then perhaps it's time to change the game. This episode gives several examples of how to do just that. More examples appear in my e-book When All Else Fails, Change the Game: 20 Strategies for Inventive Real-Life Problem-Solving. Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

There are many leadership models and practices available, yet how many really good leaders do you know? In a time of chaos and polarization, an important ingredient is missing from our leadership approaches. The missing ingredient has to do with the power of inspiration. This podcast mentions some ideas to be developed more fully in "Restorying Leadership: The View from Loreology," to be presented at the "Igniting Next-Level Leadership" summit offered by the Teton Leadership Center. Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

"I'm xx years young." Why do we fear the approach of old age? Is it because we fear death, or because we fear life? This podcast offers a few glimpses at some age-related learnings as we move inevitably forward through the cycle of life. (Recorded less than two weeks before a milestone birthday.)Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

The news is buzzing with dire warnings about how artificial intelligence (AI) will destroy us all. What are the actual dangers, and why are they so seldom mentioned? How is the psychology of hysteria involved? What might ancient cautionary tales tell us about when autonomous beings we create get out of our control?Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Writing when treated as commodity production gets disparaged, especially in relation to other occupations. How do you write with soul under capitalism? How do you have good money boundaries about writing even while approaching it as a sacred calling? Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

If human beings are good at the core, how can we explain the ongoing presence of harm, deception, and evil we do? And what do we mean by "good"? We will enlist some help from the Chinese sage Mencius (Meng Tzu), who pondered such questions long before anyone else seems to have and came up with insights that speak clearly to our time. Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Sometimes it seems like con artists, hucksters, and deceivers are everywhere. Certainly they can be found in many arenas of life: politics, business, religion, elsewhere. How do we spot these negative tricksters? What exactly should we look for in order to protect ourselves from them? Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

At some level, conscious of it or not, we all feel the distress of Earth as climate chaos accelerates. And this distress is spiritual, perhaps the deepest spiritual distress of our time. How is it spiritual, if not about religion or belief? How can we begin to address this planet-sized trauma within us? Recorded on Earth Day 2023. Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

"The technology that got us into climate crisis can't save us - it will only make things worse!" We will examine this assumption and also include examples of how a technological approach to climate mitigation is making a positive difference right now. 30Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Talk it over, talk it up, talk it out. Work through it. Process it. Get it off your chest. But what about the need to just be quiet in the midst of this manic overemphasis on talking, talking, and more talking? How do we make room for dwelling with ourselves instead of incessantly sharing? Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Badly organized or unnecessary meetings, micromanagement, and unneeded secrecy are three wasters of time we will discuss as we ponder how to be more conscious as managers. What are some alternatives to these irritating time- and morale-squanderers? Chalquist.com and Worldread.org

Personal change, social change, political change, change elsewhere: Why is it so seldom? Why does so much time and money and effort spent on change go nowhere? The same old corrupt leadership, traffic, scandals, bad news. Why? What is missing from our attempts to shift things? And when do they change deeply, for ourselves and for others? (I'm thinking about offering an online class on this topic for practical visionaries and for people who haven't given up.) Chalquist.com and Worldread.org