Metamodern Christianity | 1. Whats Missing from the Discussion @BrendanGrahamDempsey

Brendan Graham Dempsey In this episode, I offer my own take on the "God Pivot" towards Christianity in the Intellectual Dark Web and adjacent communities (e.g., the liminal web, "This Corner of the Internet," and beyond). Reflecting on my recent interview with Jordan Hall, I see something glaringly absent from the broader conversation: the modern historical-critical perspective. Therefore, I ask: 1) How does the Traditional-Devotional perspective differ from the Modern Historical-Critical one with regard to the Old and New Testaments? 2) What might a metamodern Christianity look like that could successfully and syngergistically toggle between these different lenses to yield something progressive and robust?

0:00 Introduction
4:40 Hermeneutic Lenses: The Traditional-Devotional and Modern Historical-Critical Perspectives

7:46 Old Testament: Traditional-Devotional
13:13 Old Testament: Modern Historical-Critical

32:01 New Testament: Traditional-Devotional
37:53 New Testament: Modern Historical-Critical

47:58 Implications and Synthesis

Jules Evans's piece:
ecstaticintegration.org/p/blessed-are-the-sense-makers

updated 7 months ago

Metamodern Christianity | 1. Whats Missing from the Discussion

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-03-17 | In this episode, I offer my own take on the "God Pivot" towards Christianity in the Intellectual Dark Web and adjacent communities (e.g., the liminal web, "This Corner of the Internet," and beyond). Reflecting on my recent interview with Jordan Hall, I see something glaringly absent from the broader conversation: the modern historical-critical perspective. Therefore, I ask: 1) How does the Traditional-Devotional perspective differ from the Modern Historical-Critical one with regard to the Old and New Testaments? 2) What might a metamodern Christianity look like that could successfully and syngergistically toggle between these different lenses to yield something progressive and robust?

0:00 Introduction
4:40 Hermeneutic Lenses: The Traditional-Devotional and Modern Historical-Critical Perspectives

7:46 Old Testament: Traditional-Devotional
13:13 Old Testament: Modern Historical-Critical

32:01 New Testament: Traditional-Devotional
37:53 New Testament: Modern Historical-Critical

47:58 Implications and Synthesis

Jules Evans's piece:
ecstaticintegration.org/p/blessed-are-the-sense-makers

Metamodern Spirituality | A Praxis for Development in Metamodern Christianity (w/ Doug Scott)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-10-10 | I'm joined by Doug Scott, LCSW, to discuss his SH!PS approach to interpersonal transformation and development. Doug is a clinical social worker with a background in ministry and has worked as a mental health counselor since 2001. Here we discuss the common pattern Doug has abstracted from his counseling and pastoral experience for achieving growth and connection, uniting spiritual and mental health perspectives.

0:00 Introduction
1:26 Doug's Story
6:47 A Praxis for Development and Transformation

The SH!PS Approach
12:18 (I)nterview: Perspective-Taking
21:32 (S)olidarity: We're All in this Together
27:27 (H)ope: Cultivating Aspirational Purpose
56:55 (P)rocess: Honoring the Way Things Become
1:03:22 (S)ervice: How to Human Better
1:11:24 Conclusion

Metamodern Spirituality | UTOK and Metamodern Alchemy (w/ Gregg Henriques)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-10-03 | Gregg Henriques and I talk about the release of his new book UTOK: The Unified Theory of Knowledge through Sky Meadow Press. We discuss how this book is different from other works Gregg has written, its aesthetic nod to the classic alchemical tradition, and the arc of his journey from hard-nosed materialism to metamodern metatheoretical mythopoeia. We talk about UTOK through the lens of personal mythology and religio and the grand takeaway about the nature of meaning and the sacred from such a system.

The book is available at skymeadowinstitute.org/press

0:00 Introduction
0:28 UTOK: The Unified Theory of Knowledge Published by Sky Meadow Press
2:56 An Accessible, Aesthetic Primer for UTOK
6:32 Big Picture Thinking and Metamodern Alchemy
16:27 From Modern Materialist Reductionism to Metamodern Emergent Mythos
22:20 Life and Calling: Personal Myth and "Building the Cathedral"
27:08 Avoiding the Pitfalls of Imaginal/Archetypal Projects
34:10 Relating to Meaning and the Sacred
38:32 Mythos and Logos: Waking up to a New Worldview
44:21 Ritual and Praxis in a Time Between Worlds
48:07 UTOK as Framework for Religio
50:44 Mythopoeia admidst the Desire for Tradition
56:46 UTOK...? So What? The Miracle of Self Knowing the World
1:07:09 Conclusion

Check out the brand new UTOK website for more:
utokunifiedtheoryofknowledge.com

Metamodern Spirituality | Reality, Abstraction, Mysticism (w/ Matt Segall)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-09-08 | Process thinker Matt Segall joins me again to continue our ongoing metaphysical exploration of a panmatheistic universe coming to self-knowledge. Here we discuss modern science's "blind spot" with regard to direct experience vs. scientific abstraction and the problem of "misplaced concreteness" before considering the proper understanding of the role of the human in the cosmos.

0:00 Introduction
2:02 "The Blind Spot": Mistaking Scientific Models for Reality
12:59 The Limits of Abstraction: From Idea to Feeling
34:18 Learning as Movement from Concrete to Abstract
46:00 Quantum Mechanics, Misplaced Concreteness, and Conceptual Prehension
58:16 The Will of the Universe to Wake Up: Towards Anthropos + Christ
1:11:03 Towards a 360° Platonism
1:20:50 Art, Incarnation, and the Face of God
1:33:09 Next Questions

Metamodern Spirituality Labs: The Vibe from Inside

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-09-07 | On the day our spring 2024 metamodern spirituality lab ended, Aviv Shahar of the Portals podcast interviewed me and Layman Pascal to get a sense of the vibe here at these events and discuss a little bit of what goes on. The next lab is less than a week away (with spots still available), but here's a preview of folks interested in the sort of things we get up to at these meaningful gatherings.
You can register for the fall 2024 lab (September 13-15) at www.skymeadowinstitute.org

Aviv Shahar hosts the Portals of Perception podcast
portalsofperception.org

Fall 2024 Metamodern Spirituality Lab

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-08-19 | September 13-15, join us for the fall metamodern spirituality lab, happening at Sky Meadow Institute in northeastern Vermont.
Register at skymeadowinstitute.org

Metamodern Spirituality | The Development of Meaning (w/ Theo Dawson)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-08-19 | Neo-Piagetian scholar Theo Dawson joins me to discuss her profound contributions to the field of cognitive developmental psychology. Building off the insights of Piaget, neo-Piagetian researchers have developed impressive frameworks for understanding human learning. Dawson's work has offered a way to quantitatively model such frameworks — an advance which has allowed her to refine the developmental metric of "hierarchical complexity" with unprecedented precision and accuracy. Using this refined metric, the development of semantic information in human linguistic content over time can be mapped. Could such data reveal a pattern to the way human (systems of) meaning complexify through history? Using her computerized scoring system ("CLAS"), I am working on a so-called "Cultural Complexity Index" (CCI) for assessing the evolution of human meaning systems across the cultural record. By measuring a representative sampling of literary works from the dawn of human civilization to today, can we reveal the ways in which not just conceptual meanings but concepts of meaning have evolved?

0:00 Introduction
0:57 The Legacy of Piaget's Theory of Learning
5:42 Dawson's Early Neo-Piagetian Work: A Turn to Quantitative Modeling
22:01 Refining a Scale of Hierarchichal Complexity
27:34 Making a Developmental Dictionary of Meanings
39:48 Scoring Textual Responses on a 1300-Point Scale
49:01 Towards a Map of Meanings: Capacity vs. Content
55:14 Our Project, The Cultural Complexity Index (CCI): Measuring the Historiogenesis of Meaning
1:07:23 Conclusion

Metamodern Spirituality | Experience, Science, Christianity (w/ Rafe Kelley)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-08-12 | Rafe Kelley and I discuss his recent transformational experiences with Christianity, then consider the best sense-making frames for such life-altering religious experiences. What are the role of Christianity's traditional propositional claims relative to direct experiential encounters with the Christ archetype? Can the activation of transformational memetic archetypes actually require acting "as if" some false claims are true?

0:00 Introduction
2:06 Character: Who Do You Want to Be?
7:08 Rafe's Background
30:35 The Christian Lure in the West
49:56 Mythos and Logos
1:03:25 Rafe's Conversion
1:16:45 Experience vs. Theology
1:26:17 Faith and the Transhistorical
1:39:22 Toggling into the Christ Archetype
1:47:17 Metamemes, Consciousness, and Believing "As If"
1:57:18 Building the Cathedral
2:03:58 Conclusion

Metamodern Spirituality | Physics, Metaphysics, Meta-Metaphysics (w/ Matt Segall)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-08-10 | Matt Segall joins me to explore the notion of a learning universe. Matt has read my most recent book, A Universal Learning Process, but has some contributions and critiques based on his deep engagement with Whitehead and process philosophy. In this discussion, we begin to explore the metaphysical aspects of such a project and dig into the details of such a world picture.

0:00 Introduction
2:47 "Panmatheism": Being the Universe Learning
6:24 Matt Summarizes Brendan's Project
10:58 Brendan Summarizes Matt's Project
19:07 Complexification and Metaphysical Categories
35:06 A Minimal Metaphysics for Meaning and Value
1:03:23 Continuity and Discontinuity
1:10:48 Efficient (+ Formal + Final + etc.) Causal Closure
1:26:06 Cells Worship the Body
1:33:00 Explaining Sacrifice: "I Am Because You Are"
1:37:50 Conclusion and Next Steps

Matt's response to the book can be found here: footnotes2plato.com/2024/08/05/evolution-as-a-universal-learning-process

Goddess Talk: Looking Towards the Next Metamodern Spirituality Lab

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-07-23 | I'm joined by Layman Pascal and Schuyler Brown to consider some avenues of exploration for the next metamodern spirituality lab, during which our thematic focus will turn to "The Goddess." Such a shift marks a logical turn after the spring gathering's theme of "God." But what semantic aura tinges this term, Goddess? What sort of things can we expect this next gathering (September 13-15) to foreground and emphasize? What are the archetypes--and stereotypes--involved, and how might we be called to attend to this field of possibilities?

To learn more/register for the lab, go to skymeadowinstitute.org/.

Metamodern Spirituality | Complexity and Identity (w/ Neil Theise)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-07-17 | Neil Theise joins me to talk about his book Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being. As a liver pathologist gazing daily through his microscope, Neil lives in an ongoing liminal state between scales: the micro cellular and the macro organismic. How is it, he asks, that any given "thing" seems to disappear when you zoom in or out? Neil brings a complexity science lens to this issue of lensing, which he synthesizes with his longterm practice of Zen meditation to interesting conclusions. Is this processual "no-thing-ness" what the Buddhists speak of as "emptiness"? What is the "I" if it can be similarly deconstructed? What insights can meditation add to the metaphysical picture once we appreciate the limits of other ways of knowing?

0:00 Introduction
0:57 Spark-'Notes on Complexity'
4:30 Neil's Interdisciplinary Background
14:33 Body or Cells? Scale, Process, and (Relative) No-Thing-ness
40:29 "Self" and Complimentarity
50:03 Self and the Limits of Science: Consciousness and Quantum Physics
56:24 Self and the Limits of Mathematics: Incompleteness and Intuition
1:08:45 Can Meditative Practice Reveal Metaphysical Realities?
1:26:51 No Separation

Metamodern Spirituality | Emergent Spirituality (w/ Tim Freke)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-07-08 | Philosopher and author Tim Freke joins me to talk about his conceptions of an "emergent spirituality." We discuss his 2017 book Soul Story, in which he lays out a vision for a developing cosmos leading to deeper self-realization. From there we discuss his thinking about the continuation of imaginal phenomena after the biological death of the individual.

0:00 Introduction
1:22 Soul Story and Emergent Spirituality
8:56 Is Consciousness Fundamental? Tim's Recent Move to Emergentism 9:25 card to Tim's video on emergentism of consciousness
19:59 The Profound Meaning within Emergentism
26:02 Psyche after Death?
36:11 Imaginal Information in an Inforverse
48:52 God as Real Dream: Temporal Holonic Emergence
56:57 Soul and the Redemption of Suffering
1:01:34 A New Understanding
1:05:57 Praxis: "Why Your Life Really Matters"
1:11:30 Conclusion

Sky Meadow Mystery School - Harvest 2024

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-07-01 | August 21, 2024, 2:00 PM – August 28, 2024, 2:00 PM

The Sky Meadow Mystery School is a free, week-long residential immersion into wholesome work and Deep Play in Vermont’s beautiful Northeast Kingdom.

Our theme at the 2024 Harvest Mystery School is memento mori ergo carpe diem; “remember death and therefore seize the day.” For millennia there has existed an underground, countercultural perspective on mortality; life as the Art of Being Well-Remembered. The Mystery School embodies this philosophy through a balanced program of practical homesteading skills and creative, mythopoetic exploration.

Between 10am–12pm and 2–4pm each day, you will learn (or hone) harvest skills such as crop gathering, apple picking, wood stacking, and produce canning: all vital, down-to-Earth tasks as the full-time residents of the Sky Meadow Retreat Center prepare for the winter months. No prior homesteading experience is necessary, but Scholars should be comfortable doing active outdoors work and come ready to get their hands dirty.

Each early afternoon and evening at the Mystery School is an immersion into mythopoetic Life-and-Death mystery through the Deep Play of communal storytelling, craft, symbolic ritual, music and poetry, led by Tony Wolf, Kathrynne Wolf and/or Brendan Graham Dempsey. Here you will learn ways to sustain and be sustained by the memento mori ergo carpe diem perspective, finding (or creating) and deepening your own meaning as a mortal human being in communion with others of like mind.

As a Scholar, you will experience a quasi-monastic, semi-communal lifestyle for the week, with your choice of free accommodation in one of the dorm-style rooms in the Barn (the hub of Sky Meadow) or quaint cabins. While you provide your own food and transportation, communal dining and resource-sharing enrich the experience. The nearby mountain town of Hardwick offers plenty of grocery and restaurant options.

There are ponds to swim in and forests to explore. A herd of sheep, a brood of chickens and one magical cat. The sauna beckons after a fulfilling day’s work. Soulful conversations with kindred spirits abound. Sky Meadow is also just 20 minutes from the famous Bread and Puppet Theater, whose al fresco political circus/giant puppet shows have been a mainstay of the East Coast counterculture since 1974, and whose 2024 performance season nicely coincides with the Mystery School (just saying).

At the end of the School, a delicious feast of local (some very local) produce awaits you!

If you wish to be one of the twelve to join us at Sky Meadow this Harvest season, please get in touch to reserve your place.
skymeadowinstitute.org/event-details-registration/sky-meadow-mystery-school-harvest-2024

Metamodern Spirituality | Metamodern Gurdjieff (w/ Layman Pascal)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-06-26 | Layman Pascal joins me to discuss his new book, Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds. Who was G. I. Gurdjieff and why is he keenly relevant to our present metamodern moment? In what ways can we see in his work anticipations of contemporary spiritual modalities, such as sincere irony, integration of pluralities, immanent transcendence, and the mythopoeic construction of new imaginal narratives gesturing beyond modernity? With classic flare and verbal acuity, Layman unpacks his "hyperpersonal essays for the grandfather of metamodern spirituality."

0:00 Introduction
1:38 Who was G. I. Gurdjieff?
5:21 Gurdjieff and Metamodernity
9:29 "The Sly Man": Serious Play, Sincere Irony, Crazy Wisdom
20:04 Integrating Pluralities
31:04 Gurdjieff the Shamanoid
36:51 Real vs. Imaginal Mythos
51:35 Eso-, Meso-, Exo-teric
56:31 Pascal's Imaginal Gurdjieff?
1:05:25 Transcendent Immanence

Get the book here: skymeadowinstitute.org/press

Metamodern Spirituality | The Thermodynamics of Meaning (w/ David Wolpert)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-06-07 | Complexity scientist David Wolpert joins me to consider the idea of meaning at its most fundamental level. Historically, information theory has helped us quantify information (e.g., bits), but says nothing about the ways information might be useful, significant, relevant, or meaningful. Recently, however, Wolpert and colleagues have filled in what's missing from that account, offering a theory of "semantic" or "meaningful" information by showing how some information actually has causal power to influence the well-being and viability of systems in context. Here we explore this idea and a number of its implications for what's "meaningful" across the complexity stack, from a whirlpool to a bacterium all the way up to us.

0:00 Introduction
0:46 Meaning and Semantic Information
2:17 Background Context: Information Theory, Utility Functions, and Statistical Thermodynamics
14:03 Meaning FOR a System: What Information Helps One Stay Far from Equilibrium
21:54 Meaning: Mutual Information with Causal Power for Viability
27:57 Meaning and Meaurement up the Complexity Stack
33:42 Indirect Meaning, Chains of Significance, and Intelligence
37:20 A Semantic Information Theory of Individuality?
42:03 Relative vs. Absolute Semantic Information Metrics
49:52 The Complexification of Meaningful Information through Evolutionary Transitions
52:30 Layered Meaning through Evolution

A link to the paper "Semantic information, autonomous agency and non-equilibrium statistical physics":
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2018.0041

Metamodern Spirituality | Arethion: Spiritual Community after Christianity

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-06-03 | Caleb Cuccaro-Green is the founder of Arethion, a new kind of spiritual community for seekers, questioners, and those who've left the church but haven't given up on community, service, and a spiritually meaningful orientation to life. Here we discuss how Arethion arose, beginning with Caleb's story of deconstruction out of his fundamentalist Christian faith through modern historical-critical studies of archeology and biblical criticism and on into his reconstructive path towards meaning on the other side. We discuss the video series put out through Arethion that covers the important information he encountered as part of his studies but otherwise unavailable in the Christian informational ecosystem. From there, we talk about the new sort of spiritual community Caleb has founded, where seekers from all backgrounds are welcome to participate in a "church that is not a church." Is Arethion, and other groups like it, the future of metamodern spirituality?

0:00 Introduction
2:00 What is Arethion?
5:45 Caleb's Story: Leaving Christianity
11:07 Deconstruction through Modern Biblical Archeology
17:38 Group Responses to Questioning and Critique
24:20 Compassionate Criticism: Asking the Tough Questions of Traditional Faith
32:38 From Legacy Religion to a New Kind of Spiritual Community
41:39 Meaning Reconstructed
58:17 "You Don't Have to Believe to Belong": What Arethion Is Doing
1:08:00 Is This a Cult?
1:10:12 Is This a Religion?
1:17:06 The "God" of Arethion

Arethion's website:
arethion.com

Arethion's YouTube: @join.arethion
youtube.com/@join.arethion

Metamodern Spirituality | Devotional Arts (w/ Swan Frayne-Dao)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-05-29 | Dr. Swan Frayne-Dao joins me to discuss their work with the Institute of Devotional Arts and preview the upcoming retreat we will both be participating in here at Sky Meadow in July. Our conversation ranges from the theoretical to the personal to the practical as we explore the topic of igniting the sacred imagination through artistic ritual, creation, and performance. To register for the retreat, go to devotionalarts.org/events/devotional-arts-retreat-imagination-now.

0:00 Introduction and Event Information
1:34 The Sacred Imagination: The Mission of the Institute of Devotional Arts
10:35 Swan's Story
22:12 The Search for Integration
38:41 The Sacred Arts of Fullness and Devotion
49:23 All Traditions Complete, All Traditions Unfinished
57:00 The Devotional Arts Retreat at Sky Meadow (July 17-21)

Metamodern Spirituality | Reconstructing Value (w/ Zak Stein)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-05-15 | Philosopher Zak Stein joins me to discuss the "the great post-postmodern project, the reconstruction of value itself," and get into the nuances of what his framework looks like as presented in his new co-authored book First Principles & First Values. What does it mean to say that value is both fundamental and relational? How does a metaphysics of value avoid premodern pitfalls (e.g., the myth of the given, a God's-eye view/view from nowhere, etc.)? What are the challenges posed by language when trying to track value across discontinuities in the complexity stack? Here we compare notes on our respective projects and try to clarify key points.

0:00 Introduction
1:58 Summary Overview of First Principles & First Values
7:35 The Project: A Post-Postmodern Reconstruction of Value
12:44 Is Positing Value as Fundamental a Premodern Move?
32:24 "Value": Avoiding Reification
39:11 Languaging the Reconstruction: Difficulties and Diversity
48:29 The Challenge and Importance of Modern Critique of Value
52:39 "Intimacy" or "Complexity"? Seeking Normative Terminology without Anthropomorphizing
1:03:07 Shifting the Paradigm: Translation or Equivocation?
1:06:25 Panpsychist vs. Emergentist Framings
1:10:26 Shifting Telos across Scales: E.g., Dissipative Structures
1:17:56 Value and Anti-Value
1:22:04 New God: Moving towards the Infinite Intimate
1:27:21 Building the Cathedral/Temple: Living with Sacred Purpose

Book available here: amazon.com/First-Principles-Values-Propositions-Cosmoerotic/dp/B0CS85WYVX

Metamodern Spirituality | Traditional Faith and Metamodernism (w/ Jared Morningstar)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-05-09 | Process thinker Jared Morningstar joins me to discuss the relationship of metamodernism to traditional forms of religion. How can engaging the traditional frame be done without losing hard-won gains in complexity and perspective-taking? Here Jared advocates for an open, flexible, and epistemically humble form of experimentation and participation in different religious modalities. We consider the role of 'causal opacity' in religious functionality and whether reflection is inherently harmful to generating emergent potential in religious contexts. We also explore the ways traditional faiths may be genuinely engaging with hyper-complex phenomena and how tradition-specific language can be helpful in extending faith into metamodernity. Finally, we discuss the role of plurality and singularity, the general and the particular, in what it means to engage religion from a metamodern perspective.

0:00 Introduction
1:34 Reaction vs. Reconstruction: Which Direction Is Calling?
10:50 Unseen Causes: Participatory Experimentation and Epistemic Humility
17:43 Breaking the Frame: Causation, Disenchantment, and Etic vs. Emic Perspectives
24:25 Moving In and Out of Tradition: Looking Back or Going Back?
35:24 Superstition or Super-Complexity? Parsing Tradition's Relationship with Hyperobjects
50:03 Beyond Perennialism: Religious Pluralism and Traditional Particularity
1:03:09 Living the Openness
1:10:59 Orienting Value in the Uncertainty
1:18:46 Integrating the General and the Particular: Heading Out and Coming Home
1:23:33 Conclusion

Deconstruction and Spiritual Growth: Reflections on Metamodern Spirituality

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-05-05 | A 2021 talk I was invited to give on the Integral Stage, pehaps even more relevant right now...

"What paths lie ahead for religion and spirituality in the 21st Century? How might the insights of modernity and post-modernity impact and inform humanity's ancient wisdom traditions? How are we to enact, together, new spiritual visions – independently, or within our respective traditions – that can respond adequately to the challenges of our times?"

0:00 Meta-Crisis from a Meaning Crisis
9:42 Correcting a False Dichotomy
13:05 Losing Our (Traditional) Religion
18:06 Grieving the Loss of Naive Traditionalism
22:00 Disillusionment: The Chaos between Worlds
27:48 Insights of Modernity
32:37 Insights of Postmodernity
36:36 Failures of Modernity and Postmodernity
40:46 Integration and Development
42:56 Reconstructing Religion
55:40 Conclusion

*The original video can be found on The Integral Stage @theintegralstage8140 podcast:
youtube.com/watch?v=zj5_3zwHtTE

Gods Fight with the Dragon | Yahwehs Cosmic New Year Festival

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-05-03 | See how ancient Israel's New Year festival celebrating Yahweh's combat with the Dragon of chaos got transformed into Axial Age visions of a cosmic world order, which opened the gateway, in turn, to full-blown apocalyptic thought, as the battle with chaos and resultant victory/regeneration became the lens through which struggling Jews in the Second Temple period came to interpret all of reality.

TEXT VERSION HERE: brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/p/gods-fight-with-the-dragon-part-iii

0:00 The Combat Myth Background for Later Scriptural Allusions
2:04 Rousing the Divine Warrior
5:56 Exilic Transformations of the Myth by Deutero-Isaiah
21:35 Similar Allusions in Nahum
23:40 Axial Abstraction and Apocalyptic Idealization
30:18 Second Zecariach's Apocalyptic Day of Yahweh

Metamodern Spirituality | God After Deconstruction (w/ Thomas Jay Oord)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-05-01 | Theologian and philosopher Thomas Jay Oord joins me to discuss God after deconstruction, a topic important to metamodern Christianity as well as the title of his new book with Tripp Fuller. We talk about the relationship of deconstruction and postmodernism, Tom's personal story of multiple deconstructions, and the path beyond deconstruction through open and relational theology.

0:00 Introduction
2:08 Meanings of Deconstruction: Relationship with Postmodernism
12:10 Reconstruction, Not Return: Towards a God "After Deconstruction"
15:55 Tom's Deconstruction Story: Moving through the Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern
25:54 Stages of Faith and Unfaith: The Direction of Growth as the Movement towards God
33:48 Reconstructing Christianity: Love beyond Certainty and Definitions
43:45 Open and Relational Theology
47:48 A Living, Changing God
55:27 An Evolving, Learning God
1:02:14 Jesus after Deconstruction
1:04:05 Relating across the Deconstructive Divide
1:11:42 Going Deeper

Metamodern Christianity | 4. The Metamodern Christ

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-20 | Who is the Christ of faith? What if he is the telos of existence itself? the direction to which all of thought and action tend? What if Christ Consciousness is the goal of a more comprehensive, open, de-centered, contextualized, and other-sensitive perspective? What if we (you and me) actually participate in the unfolding of God in the world?...

0:00 "After Deconstruction Must Come Reconstruction"
6:34 Metamodernism and Relating to the Christ of Faith
9:18 Moving Beyond Postmodern Relativistic Perspectivalism
19:43 Metamodernism: Seeing the Pattern of Perspectives
34:28 Christ as the Aim of Sacred History
48:13 "Christ" as Expanding Consciousness
54:10 Idols vs. Icons: The Death and Resurrection of "God"
1:00:19 Metamodern Informed Naivete
1:03:07 Forking the Lightning of God

Metamodern Christianity | 2. Metamodernism, Miracles, and the Historical Jesus

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-18 | Does the modern historical-critical lens on the Bible reject miracles on principle and thereby exclude in advance what it presupposes not to be true? Here I counter this critique by explaining how the miracles in the Gospels are problematized not by metaphysical prejudice but historical analysis. Taking the miracles in the Gospels at face value as historical events is problematic even if we work within a metaphysical frame that allows for miracles. Ultimately, it's a matter of historical reconstruction, not worldview, that forces us to rethink how much of the materials can be taken as reliable accounts of "what happened."

0:00 Does Modern Historical-Critical Scholarship Preclude Miracles on Principle?
2:23 A Metamodern Christianity Needs the Modern
3:59 Anti-Miracle Modernism: Steelmanning that Argument (Even Though It's Not Mine)
9:37 The Argument I *Am* Making: More Information Problematizes Naive Readings
13:09 Setting the Stage: Messianic Expectation and Prophecy Fulfilment

Assessing Miracle Accounts in Light of the Historical Context
17:07 1. Jesus' Birth
29:15 2. Jesus' Calming of the Storm
36:00 3. Jesus' Crucifixion
39:38 4. Jesus' Resurrection
41:38 5. Jesus' Ascension

44:15 Other Historical Considerations
53:50 "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?" Misses the Point Entirely
58:10 Meta-Naturalism: Appreciating an Incomplete Scientific Paradigm
1:03:28 Metamodern Christianity Should Be Robust and Include the Modern Lens
1:06:38 Metamodern Christianity: Informed Naivete and Truth in Development
1:09:50 Conclusion

*Thanks to @xaviervelascosuarez who pointed out an error in the previous version of this video. Correction: Matthew writes Herod's massacre to conform to a prophecy about the Messiah coming out of Egypt (Matthew 2 14-15), not Bethlehem.

Conversations with TLC | Luke Thompson

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-17 | As "This Little Corner (of the internet)" (TLC) engages with metamodernism and its relationship to Christianity, I'll be dialoging with various members to see how folks are putting the pieces together.

Here, I chat with Luke Thompson, a frequent live-streamer and conversation partner in TLC.

Metamodern Spirituality | God: A Metamodern Perspective (w/ Layman Pascal)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-16 | Integrative thinker Layman Pascal joins me to talk about the meaning of "God" from a metamodern perspective. How does thinking in terms of "surplus cohesion" point us to a helpful way of relating to all the meanings of the term? Why and when is a 2nd person relationship with Reality warranted? Who is this Face in the Universe summoning us to greater communion and transcendence? How do we communicate about all this across the various memetic sensemaking structures of culture (traditional, modern, postmodern metamodern)? Finally, what can folks expect about the upcoming metamodern spirituality gathering on the topic, which will be hosted at Sky Meadow in May and led by Layman?

0:00 Introduction
1:21 Layman's "Surplus Cohesion" Framework
4:48 God as Ultimate Reality in the 2nd Person
9:52 The Face of the Universe: Seeking the 2nd Person in the Complexity Stack
16:27 Some Framing: Reality as Dynamic Becoming, Not Static Being
21:36 Reflecting on the Alpha and the Omega: Problematizing the "Creator" Image
27:46 But Is This Still God? Communicating across Memetic Tribes
37:22 "Real in What Way?" across Levels of Memetic Complexity
45:05 Summarizing a Metamodern Sort of God
47:06 "God" in Quotation Marks: Moving beyond Totality
52:10 The God Encounter
1:08:12 The Divine Other
1:13:33 Praxis: Courting Visio Divina
1:16:41 Pluralistic Mysticism
1:23:10 Trinity as Dynamic Architectonic Plurality
1:27:08 Naturalism and Metaphysics
1:30:46 God is Love
1:37:20 Talking about "The G Word"
1:39:40 The Upcoming Metamodern Spirituality Lab on "God" at Sky Meadow (May 24-26)

More on the metamodern spirituality lab at www.skymeadowinstitute.org

God as Emergent Potential

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-15 | A stream-of-conscious sermon-ramble synthesizing ideas from psychology, big history, complexity theory, sociology, and more into a transcendent-naturalistic vision of the sacred. How do the insights from thinkers like Layman Pascal, John Vervaeke, Gregg Henriques, Ken Wilber, Bobby Azarian, Michael Levin, and others cohere into a metamodern conception of the divine? With maddening jargon and name-dropping, I explain. Hopefully of value to some. Pretentious and pedantic for most.

0:00 The Sacred as Surplus Cohesion
0:47 Optimal Grip of Affordances in Context
1:41 Flow and Reciprocal Opening
2:21 Learning
3:08 Relevance Realization as Complexification
4:04 The Zone of Proximal Development
5:16 Leveling Up
5:44 Meaning
6:26 Evolution as Learning: The Integrated Evolutionary Synthesis
7:28 Energy Flow and Informational Richness
8:28 The Sacred as the Call to Transcend, Evolve, Complexify
15:37 Traditional Socialization through the Sacred
16:24 The Call into Uncharted Territory: Updating the Sacred
17:24 Emergence
18:30 God
19:20 Learning and Worldviews
19:59 The Sacred as Transcendence in Human Culture
21:38 Evolution of the God-Concept
25:06 Telos: The God Beyond All "Gods"

Metamodern Spirituality | UTOK Consilience Conference 2024 Preview

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-11 | Gregg Henriques joins me to offer a sneak peek at the 2024 UTOK Consilience Conference, which goes from Friday, April 12 to Saturday, April 13.

Register here: events.zoom.us/ev/AiZSf1lvPBtp9qu2nvN7w7ICUms98Vkgto8PTx-OmegbQpi5spxw~AoeQ6Qxv9FG4799Wts70Tie7Qit-PoHG9Qw8tLkwfHJKDFPprlOrsZe74w?

Metamodern Christianity | 3. Metamodern Christianity is Transhistorical

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-11 | To get beyond the enduring impasse of the "science vs. religion" debate, let's give science its due—and then leave it in the dust! There's no need to affirm the historical basis of the Christian story to relate to the Christ of faith. If we can accept that the Gospels are prehistorical materials, we can get beyond the classic hangups and begin to see how "it's all made up" AND "it's all real!" are both true simultaneously. Here I frame the current debates around history and religion in light of the "pre/trans fallacy" so well described by integral theory. This framing, I think, helps position us to appreciate what a truly metamodern Christianity can look like. By accepting the historical Jesus account, we are freed to embrace the Christ of faith and tradition—not in spite of the facts, but because we have transcended them.

0:00 Introduction
2:01 Moving Beyond History
4:20 The Pre/Trans Fallacy
8:31 "Trans-" Demonstrates Capacity and Transformation
13:56 The Gospels and the History of History
21:05 Christianity and the Fallacy of Origins
24:38 Transcending the Claims History Makes on Us
39:11 Cultural Metamodernism and the Transhistorical
46:41 Owning Deconstruction without Equivocation
54:41 The Growth Edge of Christianity
56:31 Conclusion

Gods Fight with the Dragon | The Hebrew Combat Myth

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-09 | Having looked at other combat myths from the ancient Near East, here we turn to the tradition from ancient Israel, and note the continuity with earlier motifs. In ancient Israel, Yahweh is the mighty divine warrior storm god, and his enemies are Sea, Leviathan the dragon, and perhaps Death as well. I then consider the various political uses to which the combat myth was deployed as well as the cultic context in which it was celebrated as part of the ancient New Year festival in Israel.

TEXT VERSION HERE: brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/p/gods-fight-with-the-dragon-part-ii

0:00 Introduction
0:34 God as Divine Warrior
1:22 No Complete Narrative
2:38 Yahweh vs. Sea
7:21 Yahweh vs. Leviathan
11:27 Yahweh vs. Draconic Helpers
12:06 Yahweh vs. Death?
13:41 Political Uses of the Hebrew Combat Myth
20:53 The Combat Myth in Hebrew Cult
24:24 The Divine Warrior Hymn in the Psalter
25:47 Enthronement Psalms and the Feast of Tabernacles

Metamodern Spirituality Lab - Spring 2024

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-08 | The spring 2024 metamodern spirituality lab, led by Layman Pascal and hosted at Sky Meadow Institute, is happening May 24-26, with an extended retreat starting May 21.

Metamodern Christianity | 5. Catechism for a Metamodern Christian (w/ Brendan Graham Dempsey)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-08 | Catechism has meant "religious education," especially as a coming-of-age initiation into the fullness of spiritual community and engagement with its mysteries. It has to do with what sort of support and instruction young people and converts receive about their faith as they move into deeper spiritual relationship with God and church. Here I ask, What would a supportive catechism look like for Christians on the path towards a metamodern form of faith? How might religious learning unfold in healthy and sustainable ways such as would foster a kind of Christianity that is truly metamodern in outlook? What are the right developmental moments for literalism, doubt, even atheism, and conviction?

0:00 An Education for Faith
1:55 Grades or Phases of Spiritual Learning
4:32 Age 0-7*: Childhood Enchantment
9:20 Age 7-10: Mythic Literalism
15:12 Age 10-13: Symbolic Belief
21:03 Age 13-15: Reflective Religion
26:24 Age 15-18: Rational Meaning-Making
29:28 Age 18-23: Deconstructive Questioning
41:33 Age 23-27: Integrative Wisdom
50:13 What's Missing?
54:13 Invitation to Keep Learning

*All ages are just rough approximations

Gods Fight with the Dragon | Ancient Near Eastern Influences

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-07 | It may come as a shock to learn that the most important story about God in ancient Israelite religion was the one in which he battles a draconic sea monster using his lightning bolts and mighty storm winds. Most people will not even know such a story existed, let alone that it formed the core of ancient Temple worship, or that it was the basis for the later invention of the Devil in Christian mythology. But, if we’re to understand the history of apocalyptic thought, and early Christianity specifically, we must consider the crucial role played by this ancient myth and its various transformations throughout history, tracking the evolution of the “combat myth” from ancient near eastern cultic traditions into ancient Israelite religion, Jewish apocalypticism, and, finally, the early Christian church.

TEXT BASED VERSION: brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/p/gods-fight-with-the-dragon-part-i

0:00 Introduction
1:24 The Combat Myth

Meanings of the Myth
5:50 1. Agricultural
7:21 2. Cultic
12:32 3. Political
13:50 4. Philosophical/Theological

15:56 Structure/Plot
20:05 Motifs/Imagery

Examples
22:32 Ninurta vs. Azag
28:13 Ninurta vs. Anzu
31:23 The Storm God vs. the Serpent
35:30 Marduk vs. Tiamat
41:49 Baal vs. Sea (Yamm)
50:27 Baal/Anat vs. the Dragon
52:13 Baal vs. Death (Mot)

57:52 Conclusion

Metamodern Spirituality | Christianity as Process (w/ Jay McDaniel)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-05 | Process theologian Jay McDaniel joins me to discuss the contributions of process thought to the Christian tradition. What points of similarity and dissimilarity are there between process thinking and traditional, modern, and postmodern lenses?

0:00 Introduction
1:06 What Does Theology Look Like from a "Process" Lens?

Relationship with Traditional Faith
5:44 A Feeling, Responding God
8:40 Not All-Powerful
14:40 A Dynamic, Living Whole

Relationship with Modern Thought
19:41 The Naturalistic Paradigm and (the) Beyond
24:30 A Theology of Organism and Complexity
29:30 "God" as Counter-Entropic Lure and Preserver of Good
39:33 A Modern Gestalt for Christianity?
49:31 Looking Forward, Not Back
54:52 The Pathos of God

Relationship with Postmodern Thought
1:04:38 Play, Beauty, Reality

Relationship with Metamodernism
1:10:33 Lineages, Legacies, and Futures

1:14:40 Conclusion

Jay's essay relating process theology to metamodernism can be found here:
openhorizons.org/christian-process-theology-and-metamodernism-springboards-for-conversation.html

Metamodern Religion is Just Getting Started

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-05 | Despite the recent uptick of high-profile conversions to traditional Christianity, metamodern spirituality remains centered in progressive developments of and radically novel innovations to religion. Here I foreground and recall these efforts in the desire to reconnect our community to its essential insights about the nature and role of religion in this time between worlds. Metamodern interpretations of legacy religions remains an important and vital aspect of the work, but we shouldn't lose sight of what has characterized the movement to date. We are only beginning to see the emergence of metamodern religion...

The Defiant Rebirth of Spirit

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-04-01 | The God emerges...

Text version here: brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/p/easter

The Death of God

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-03-29 | A meditation on the death of God as the death of our older versions of the God-concept. This is a passage from 'The GOD Emerging'': a reading for Good Friday 2024.

Text version here: brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/p/good-friday

Metamodern Spirituality | Further Reflections on Integrating Modernity in Metamodern Christianity

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-03-27 | By request, I offer some more responses/reflections on my chat with Paul VanderKlay as it relates to integrating the genuine insights of modernity into a metamodern Christianity. These responses are to comments about the discussion that were posted on Paul's channel.

0:00 Introduction
1:14 "Aren't you just a modernist?" Response to @newglof9558
4:08 "What is 'real'?" (on the reality of "body"/"spirit" etc.) Response to @CNArtDesign and @TheRationalCarpenter
33:52 "What's your telos?" Response to @andymurphree
36:41 "How can we know the good?" Response to @pik377
41:41 "Are you saying we just have to get stuck with historical criticism (like you did)?" Response to @ryanalderson7133
44:48 "Isn't historical criticism just hubristic nonsense?"* Response to @anselman3156 and @xaviervelascosuarez
1:00:16 "Why not trust tradition?" Response to @ButterBobBriggs
1:08:54 "Isn't modernity worse than tradition?" Response to @ddod7236
1:13:23 "Be nice." Response to @Neal_Daedalus
1:15:54 Conclusion

It wasn't Reuban but Esau. Gen 26;34-35 (P), then all of Gen 27 (J), then Gen 27;46 (P)

Metamodern Spirituality | Metamodern Christianity (w/ Brendan Graham Dempsey)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-03-23 | Here I lay out my conception of what a metamodern version of Christianity looks like. Drawing on the insights of all the previous cultural paradigms, the revelation of God's nature and the deepening quality of the relationship between God and man can be understood as progressing through a series of covenants/dispensations that map to a learning process unfolding through time. Such a perspective helps us non-arbitrarily coordinate tribal, imperial, traditional, modern, and postmodern conceptions of God that have manifested across sacred history. All of these are necessary and contribute to a coherent story of deepening understanding about and relationship with the ever-transcendent Divine.

0:00 Introduction
0:56 "Metamodern"
5:50 "Christianity"
9:00 Sacred History as Learning and Expansion
11:43 Dynamics of Learning: Assimilation and Accomodation
16:47 Learning as Complexification of Thought
18:04 The Revelation of God as a Learning Process
24:34 1. The Sacred Relationship in the Tribal Epoch
26:12 2. Relationship with God in the Monarchy
29:02 3. Deepening Divine Relationship in the Prophets and Gospels
31:10 Recap: The Arc of Learning God Better
33:41 4. Revelation in the Modern Era
40:05 5. The Way of Jesus in Postmodernity
42:09 6. Metamodern Christianity: Embracing All Stages of Revelation
53:37 Conclusion

My videos on metamodernism:
Metamodernism 101: youtube.com/watch?v=9BzD3wUEMaQ
Metamodernism, Part I: youtube.com/watch?v=i-0zSy6nkoQ
Metamodernism, Part II: youtube.com/watch?v=Rvxeqb7e8lY

Response to My Conversation with Paul VanderKlay

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-03-23 | Continuing the recent deep-dive into the "God pivot"/metamodern Christianity discussion, here I offer a direct reply to some comments left on my recent chat with Paul VanderKlay before concluding with some general reflections about the nature of the discussion going forward.

0:00 Introduction

Responses to:
1:27 @user-yg1di4ui1t
14:16 @Christustotalis
17:19 @christianbaxter_yt
19:12 @acuerdox
31:20 @mixk1d
34:16 @vivienneb6199
36:27 @williambranch4283
41:21 @rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr1

44:50 General Reflections

Metamodern Spirituality | Debating the Legacy of Modernity for Christianity (w/ Paul VanderKlay)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-03-21 | In this episode, I assume the modern historical-critical perspective with pastor and 'This Little Corner of the Internet' thinker @PaulVanderKlay to explore the tension points it has with the traditional-devotional lens--and to consider if and how these impasses might be transcended. Does history matter to faith and to the faithful? If so, how, when, and why? Can we avoid equivocating discussions around the "reality" of Christianity? How crucial is the nonrational? Overall, we rehearse what challenges the traditional approach to Christianity faces as it develops into modern expressions and interpretations on the way towards a metamodern instantiation.

0:00 Introduction
0:55 The "God Pivot" and Metamodernism: The Missing Modern
7:39 How Does Faith Relate to Modern & Postmodern Critical Approaches?
24:30 The Reality of Religion in Different Psycho-Social Contexts
36:18 Reality vs. History: Language as Metaphor or Fact
52:38 Worldview, Rationality, and Projection
1:04:28 "Spirit": Substance Reification vs. Transjective Relationality
1:07:22 Avoiding Equivocation and Taking Modern Science Seriously
1:20:59 Pragmatic and Developmental Hermeneutics
1:47:17 Nonrationality and the Meaning Crisis
1:59:15 Different Metamodern Spiritual Arcs: The Theological is Personal
2:16:00 Conclusion

Check out Paul's channel here: youtube.com/c/paulvanderklay

Metamodern Spirituality | Trans-Paradigmatic Christianity? (w/ Jordan Hall)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-03-14 | Following a recent conversion to Christianity, Jordan Hall offers his perspective on the Christian worldview, its orienting beliefs and how they inform (and affirm) ways of being in the world. Brendan brings his own background of being raised in and and leaving the church to the conversation, trying to gain deeper understanding about how one can affirm Christian doctrine in the context of a metamodern world.

0:00 Introduction
2:47 Faith and Understanding: Christian Propositional vs. Participatory Knowing
15:36 Beyond a "Religion vs. Reason" Debate
20:26 Jordan's Reasons to Believe: Scripture, History, 1st Person Experience*
30:36 Jordan Not Impressed by Naturalistic Challenge to the Resurrection
35:56 Notions of Gospel and Sin: Faith Changing Behavior --- For Good or Ill
41:53 Jordan's Rejection of Naturalism and His Faith in Christian Historicity and Ontology
52:21 (Brendan Has a Lot of Responses He Won't Get Into in This Context)
53:07 Self-Confirming Faith: Reciprocal Opening in Other Faiths?
1:02:32 Excursus: Historicity and Hermeneutics of the Doctrine of the Trinity
1:08:52 Self-Confirming Faith: Pathologies in Self-Justifying Beliefs
1:16:20 Self-Confirming Faith: Participatory Knowing and Confirmation Bias
1:27:53 Conclusion

*Brendan meant to say "premodern" epistemological framework at 21 38

Metamodern Spirituality | Beyond Science vs. Religion (w/ Patrick Barry)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-02-21 | Patrick Barry joins me to continue our discussion about the emerging contours of a metamodern wisdom school and the secular spirituality beginning to fill in the "missing tradition" between and beyond science and religion.

0:00 Introduction
0:34 Towards a Secular Spirituality
5:01 Awe and Mystery in Both Religion and Science
10:25 "Faith" in What Is
17:18 Being Naturally At Home in the Universe
27:08 Past Church and Academia: Forging a New Kind of Wisdom Institution
46:21 A New Story: A Self-Appreciating Cosmos
58:40 Meaning as Awe as Learning
1:04:18 Significance vs. Scale
1:09:58 Speculating on God and Telos: Finding Ourselves in the Depths of Being
1:24:23 Conclusion

Metamodern Spirituality | Postmodern Philosophy and Beyond (w/ Stephen Hicks)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-02-01 | Stephen Hicks, a professor of philosophy and author of Explaining Postmodernism, joins me to discuss the transformation of worldviews from the premodern to the modern and from the modern to the postmodern. After his incisive overview of these dramatic shifts, we discuss what it might look like to integrate the genuinely positive contributions of postmodern thought, and consider where we are headed in a post-postmodern world.

0:00 Introduction
1:58 How to Trace Philosophical History
4:15 From Premodern to Modern
15:56 From Modern to Postmodern
34:07 How Do We Move Beyond the Modern and Postmodern while Integrating Their Strengths?
43:28 Relativizing the Critique
51:14 Living After Postmodernism

www.BrendanGrahamDempsey.com

Education and the Future of Democracy - Feb 23-25, Sky Meadow Institute

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-01-30 | Sky Meadow Institute is hosting a weekend-long, in-person symposium February 23-25, 2024 exploring the nexus of education, technology, Bildung, and democracy.
Register here:
brendangrahamdempsey.com/event-details/education-and-the-future-of-democracy

Metamodern Spirituality | Rebuilding Our Cultures Missing Tradition (w/ Patrick Barry)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-01-29 | Patrick Barry, a former science journalist and current coder for the popular Waking Up meditation app, joins me to talk about building wisdom communities and Stoas for secular spirituality. As those who claim no affiliation with organized religion (the "nones") are now the most populous religious identity in America, what institutions of meaning, virtue, and self-reflection might we see appear that can properly meet the needs of metamodern seekers?

0:00 Introduction
4:13 Stoicism, Empiricism, and Secular Spirituality: Towards a Sacred Naturalism
12:55 Science and the Sublime: Finding Significance in the Known
22:52 The Missing Tradition
27:02 Wisdom Gyms for Lived Philosophy: Adding 1st- and 2nd-Person Truths to 3rd-Person Fact
51:30 Know Thyself: A Second Curriculum
57:44 "Broicism"?: Shadow and the Developmental Conveyor Belt
1:03:27 Integrating Tradition and Myth
1:12:02 Stoicism in Metamodernity
1:15:15 Conclusion

Metamodern Spirituality | Metamodernism and the Legacy of Integral Theory (w/ Bruce Alderman)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-01-12 | I'm joined by Integral thinker, theorist, teacher, writer, and community elder Bruce Alderman to talk about the ongoing love/hate relationship between metamodernism and Integral Theory, especially as the debate has been stirred up anew by the publication of my new book Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics. Here we tackle some of the ongoing controversies that continue to swirl in some parts of the metamodern discourse, especially around the degree to which Ken Wilber and his formulation of the post-postmodern does/does not, should/should not inform our understanding of theories of the metamodern. Given the relationship that does exist, how do we best acknowledge and utilize it in pragmatic and integrous ways? How do we properly parse and distinguish these post-postmodern paradigms? What are the genuine fault lines and distinguishing characteristics of each framework, and what's just meme fluff?

0:00 Introduction
1:55 Bruce's Integral Context/Background
5:06 Brendan's Metamodern Context/Background
8:07 Did Hanzi Just Rip Off Wilber?
13:03 Did Hanzi Just Steal the Term "Metamodern" for an Integral Framework?
25:26 Has the Ship Sailed? Could Metamodernism Be the/a Future of Integral?
42:48 Did Brendan Just Excise/Ignore Wilber?
51:33 Does Metamodernism Offer a Workable Social Science Where Integral Doesn't?
1:01:03 The "Woo" Factor
1:14:15 Conclusion

Metamodern Spirituality | Embodied Connection in Digital Spaces (w/ Ēlen Awalom)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2024-01-09 | Embodiment practitioner and teacher Ēlen Awalom joins me to talk about the promise and necessity of bringing more embodied wisdom into our world and, especially, our online spaces. We consider some approaches one can use in the context of triggering or polarizing engagements in digital forums in an attempt to return the focus back to the body and lived emotional experience in very disembodied contexts. Finally, we talk in broad terms about the importance of increasing our somatic intelligence in all areas of life, whether that's in response to the meta-crisis or our own interpersonal relationships.

0:00 Introduction
2:00 Bringing More Embodiment to Metamodern Discourse
9:13 Responding with Somatic Intelligence: Step 1. Center Yourself and Feel the Emotion
16:47 Step 2. Respond with Open Questions
20:00 Step 3. Use "I Statements"
23:15 Step 4. Know When to Step Back
31:20 The Challenge of Bypassing
36:19 Intentions for Embodied Leadership
50:19 Conclusion

For more on Ēlen's work, check out elenawalom.com/.

Metamodern Spirituality | Prehension: Is Experience Fundamental? (w/ Matt Segall)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2023-12-15 | Whitehead scholar and process thinker Matt Segall joins me to deepen our conversation about responses to the meaning crisis as it relates to reconnecting cosmos, consciousness, and value. In this discussion, we dive into the topic of "prehension," an idea from Whitehead that posits an experiential component to all phenomena in the universe.

0:00 Introduction
5:08 Prehension: Not Interior, but the Interior/Exterior Bridge
12:06 Prehension and Panpsychism
16:27 Identifying Basal Experience: Subjectivity and Time
25:52 Experience and Complexity
33:40 Attempting to Describe Fundamental Experience
47:06 Is Time Subjective?
54:36 Metaphysics and Novelty: Evolving Laws?
1:00:16 The Spectrum of Consciousness
1:04:22 Whitehead vs. Anthroposophy?
1:10:28 Philosophy's Role in a Scientific Age
1:21:43 Next Steps

For more of Matt's ideas on this topic, check out his essay "The Varieties of Physicalist Ontology: A Study in Whitehead’s Process-Relational Alternative":
matthewsegall.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/segall_ptsc_7_1_105-131.pdf?

Metamodern Spirituality | Debating the Place of the Human in Cosmology (w/ Matt Segall)

Brendan Graham Dempsey 2023-12-07 | Matt Segall joins me to debate the relative merits of "anthroposophical" aproaches to addressing the meaning crisis, such as those adopted in the works of Steiner, Stein and Gafni, and, to some degree, Whitehead.

0:00 Introduction
4:15 Revisiting the Image of Nature: Revitalizing Romanticism?
12:00 Humans in a Cosmos or a Cosmos Known by Humans?
21:17 Is Mechanism Just a Part of the Process? Emergence All the Way Down
30:05 Advance or Regression? Thinking in Terms of Assimilation and Accomodation
38:13 Defining a "Mechanistic" Approach: The Minimal Need for Causality
41:17 Retrojecting Novelty into Primals? Positing "Prehension"
57:01 Upshot: So...Is the Universe Expanding or Not?
1:11:52 Against a Model--or ...Models?
1:17:13 What Does an "Emodied" Knowledge Entail?
1:25:25 Conclusion

Here's a link to the full article by Matt mentioned in the discussion:
matthewsegall.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/goethe-and-whitehead_holistic-science-journal.pdf?