Explore every episode of the podcast The Integral Stage Expanded Universe (ISEU)

Jonathan Mozenter is an organizational consultant and personal coach working at the intersection of integral theory, process thinking, artificial intelligence, psychedelics, and shadow work.

psychedelicsandhighperformance.com

We sit down with Mat from the Claymont Society to discuss the life, work and vision of JG Bennett. Bennett was a prominent integrative thinker, futurist, developmentalist, environmentalist and visionary associated with a particular lineages in the Gurdjieff Work.

https://claymont.org/about-us/

For episode 5 of The Dreaming Arts, Layman meets with psychotherapists Willow Pearson Trimbach & Eva Tuschman Leonard to talk about their new book, The Emotional Truth of Dreams. The Emotional Truth of Dreams (book)https://www.amazon.com/dp/1032964707Willow's Professional Websitehttps://drwillowpearson.com/Eva's Professional Websitehttps://www.evatuschman.com/about

dimensions of the Awakened Wholeness project which is being stewarded by Abigail Lynam and Geoff Fitch, with special support from Tucker Walsh.In the eighth and final episode of the series, Layman, Abigail and Geoff explore the facet they call the collectivehttps://pacificintegral.substack.com/p/the-seven-facets-of-awakened-wholeness-bb0

In this new Integral Stage Authors interview, Layman meets with Brendan Graham Dempsey to talk about his latest book in The Evolution of Meaning series, Psyche and Symbolic Learning."Having established in Volume 1 that meaning is a kind of adaptive knowledge complexifying across emergent information processing regimes (structural, genetic, neuronal, and symbolic), Volume 2 of The Evolution of Meaning zooms in on the last of these levels to examine in detail how the socialized human mind acquires increasingly adaptive knowledge through symbolic learning. Summarizing the findings of 150 years of research from developmental psychologists into how the mind learns via evolutionary dynamics, Dempsey shows not only how our notions of morality, self, value, and God evolve as the psyche complexifies but also how these changes can be precisely measured. Using hierarchical complexity as a universal metric, he argues, we can identify distinct systems of meaning-making and justification that emerge across the developmental spectrum. Charting this empirically grounded map of worldviews will be essential for orienting efforts in future volumes to track the evolution of meaning and the sacred across human cultural history."https://www.amazon.com/Psyche-Symbolic-Learning-Evolution-Meaning/dp/B0FPV8M3Z8/

This discussion continues the exploration of the intellectual journey to the Cosmo-Erotic Humanism model of the Center for World Philosophy & Religion. We take a deep look at the intricacies of the "acosmic humanism" of Mordechai Leiner through the lens of the book Radical Kabbalah.

Explore the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Kabbalah-Set-Marc-Gafni/dp/1467522740/"

Claudia Fabrizy meets with Layman to talk about the inner life, spiritual development, narcissism, sovereignty, shadow work, and much more.Claudia Fabrizy's YT Channel   / @claudiafabrizy  

The Facets of Awakened Wholeness Project

https://pacificintegral.substack.com/p/the-seven-facets-of-awakened-wholeness-bb0

Layman Pascal sits down with author and noted esoteric theorist Erik Davis to explore the strange loop that connects humor and spirituality.

Erik Davis is an author, scholar, award-winning journalist, podcaster, and professional talker. My wide-ranging work dances around the intersection of alternative religion, media, the popular imagination, and the cultural history of California.

TechGnosis website:

https://techgnosis.com/

The Liminal Café is where the locals of the liminal web gather for coffee and conversation. In this new series, Layman chats with the people and patrons who, for some curious reason, find themselves drawn to this sketchy corner of the internet...For episode 17 of the Liminal Café, Sher Griffin meets with Layman to talk about her 'integral' origin story, and her interests in mental health, spirituality, an approach she calls cognitive ecology, and much more.Sher Griffin's Substackhttps://shergriffin.substack.com/about

Layman meets with author, educator, entrepreneur and tech-friendly "energy worker," Peter Merry, to explore the nature and function of subtle energy and a technology he has developed to possibly begin to better measure and interact with it, and to promote greater group cohesion, which he calls the Wyrd Commons.Peter Merry websitehttps://petermerry.org/

The Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness series is a special Integral Stage / Pacific Integral co-production, highlighting dimensions of the Awakened Wholeness project which is being stewarded by Abigail Lynam and Geoff Fitch, with special support from Tucker Walsh.

The Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness series is a special Integral Stage / Pacific Integral co-production, highlighting dimensions of the Awakened Wholeness project which is being stewarded by Abigail Lynam and Geoff Fitch, with special support from Tucker Walsh.

The Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness series is a special Integral Stage / Pacific Integral co-production, highlighting dimensions of the Awakened Wholeness project which is being stewarded by Abigail Lynam and Geoff Fitch, with special support from Tucker Walsh

The Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness series is a special Integral Stage / Pacific Integral co-production, highlighting dimensions of the Awakened Wholeness project which is being stewarded by Abigail Lynam and Geoff Fitch, with special support from Tucker Walsh

Layman sits down with Nish Dubashia to talk about his recent Sky Meadow publication, A Brief History of God."A Brief History of God: From Nature Spirits to Cosmic Consciousness is a thought-provoking journey through the evolution of humanity's spiritual understanding. In this compelling exploration, Nish Dubashia traces the arc of religious and spiritual thought, from the earliest tribal beliefs rooted in ancestral spirits, to the modern search for unity and connection in a fragmented world. With clarity and depth, Dubashia reveals how our concepts of God, the self, and spirituality have shifted through the ages, shaped by culture, power, and the quest for meaning."Nish is a published author of two novels (Gifted and Dancing with Angels) and a shorter book (The Unity of Everything) containing his 1991 conversation with physicist David Bohm, and has spoken at international conferences about his “Diamond Model”; a universal pattern he believes might help us gain some understanding of cross-religious commonalities.https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-God-Spirits-Consciousness/dp/B0FH28Q63K/

The audio is a little sketchy. And perhaps not just the audio. I had a nice time talking with Blake who is someone I banned from an online space.

His "right-wing trolling" and "problematic behavior" upset a lot of folks. Partly legitimately and partly, perhaps, because developmental, spiritual and integrative spaces may have an allergy to conservatism.

Is meta-conservatism even possible? What is a right-wing pluralist or integralist? And more importantly, what does it take to have more complex discussions among people who have different combinations of political values and concerns?

Cris Beasley joins Layman in an exploration of alternative sensemaking to talk about the generative principles and practices that help her creatively navigate the challenges of life in this time between worlds.Cris founded a sustainable AI company nine years ago – well before it was the latest thing on the block. It was featured in a cover story of The Atlantic. She stopped Sequoia Capital from trying to build an AI that was obviously never going to work. It was obvious if you bothered to do the back-of-the-envelope math, which Amazon did not do. They attempted the same thing, failed, and wasted a few million bucks. They should've had someone like Cris on their team. Before that, she led the redesign of Firefox support, which resulted in an extra 7MM users per year finding the answer to their questions immediately. Cris was selected to be in the first cohort of ambassadors to the Interledger Foundation. Their $15k grant supported her project about Jungian emotional polarities, Becoming Dragon, which was covered in Forbes. She advises Earthcodes.org on strategy for their regenerative data cycles project, AI for Gaia, in partnership with the Biomimicry Institute. In her copious spare time, she convinces two mischievous black cats to come when they're called, paints with watercolors, makes AI-generated short films, and plays electronic music that takes you into meditative theta brainwave states.Cris Beasley portfoliohttps://www.crisbeasley.com/portfolio

In this Integral Stage Authors Series video, Layman gets together with Peter Mitchell and Anne Sweet to talk about the new book, The Space Between Us, and to explore the "field dynamics" of dialogue and intersubjective contemplative practice.The Space Between Us: Awakening Together in a Fractured World invites you into a radical shift in how we meet ourselves, each other, and the moment. Drawing on decades of spiritual practice and, more recently, a deep shared inquiry, Peter Mitchell explores the possibility that the most profound transformations happen not in isolation, but in relationship—within the subtle field that awakens when we meet in presence. Told through the first-hand experiences of a group discovering how coming together with vulnerability and radical honesty allows something larger to emerge, the book reveals how dialogue, shared presence, and authenticity can open the door to the Real. It shows that when we rest deeply in who we already are, the walls of identity begin to fall away. In that freedom, genuine meeting becomes possible—beyond the masks, roles, and labels we usually hide behind—offering a glimpse of the mystery that holds us all."Book

https://www.amazon.com/Space-Between-Us-Awakening-Fractured/dp/1954642725/

Group

https://www.between-us-groups.com/join-us

In this special episode, Layman meets with Steve McIntosh to talk about the overlaps between their respective approaches to post-postmodern spirituality, and in particular about the 6 Agreements that Steve proposes are necessary to move towards a genuinely pluralist, post-postmodern spiritual understanding and practice.

This is the second part of a deep dive into the nuances of the pre-tragic, tragic & post-tragic framing. It begins in speculative theory space and moves into a consideration of power, post-tragic sexual narratives, the integrity of developmental communities, self-harm, and the collective future of inquiry into the concept of the Post-Tragic. Oblique references are made to the film Fight Club, the comedian Richard Lewis, cult classic "The Room," and Spiral Dynamics. Plus, in an act of supreme magnanimity, Layman retracts his curse and saves Marc from a fiery death...

The Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness series is a special Integral Stage / Pacific Integral co-production, highlighting dimensions of the Awakened Wholeness project which is being stewarded by Abigail Lynam and Geoff Fitch, with special support from Tucker Walsh.If episode 1 was an opportunity for oxen to graze widely in the field, episode 2 (The Principle of Integration) explores how a bolus becomes a fat, happy cow.Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness workshop:https://www.pacificintegral.com/workshopsAbigail Lynam, PhD, is faculty for Fielding University’s PhD program in Human and Organizational Development and for Pacific Integral’s Generating Transformative Change leadership development program in Seattle and Ethiopia. Abigail’s scholarship and practice integrates the interior dimensions of human knowledge and experience (culture, worldviews, adult developmental psychology, wisdom traditions, etc.) with adult learning, leadership development, and social and ecological change work. Abigail is a skilled facilitator, developmental scorer, debriefer, and coach, teacher of awareness, shadow, and embodiment practices, and facilitator of Work that Reconnects. She lives in the Seattle area and is passionate about supporting personal, interpersonal, and collective development for healthier and more just systems.Geoff Fitch, MA, is a founding partner of Pacific Integral. Geoff is a coach, trainer, and facilitator of transformative growth in individuals and organizations. He has been studying and practicing diverse approaches to cultivating higher human potentials for twenty years. He also has twenty years experience in leadership in business.

In this new Integral Stage Author Series episode, Layman sits down with Dr. Jen Peer Rich to talk about her recently published book, The Alchemy of Being a House.In this poetic, fiercely honest memoir, Jen Peer Rich invites us inside the living house of her body shaped by early childhood cancer, trauma, chronic illness, disability, caregiving and decades of survival. Told through many rooms and different selves, this is the story of what happens when a person dares to listen to their inner voice and follow them home. Inside these pages lives Ruth, Jen’s loyal guide dog of cosmic wisdom. There are splintered selves and barking truths, mystical blueprints and healing thresholds. Through it all moves the question: What if I was never meant to be fixed—but listened to? The Alchemy of Being a House is not a linear story, it’s a circle. A memoir of multiplicity, spiritual embodiment, and transformation that resonates with anyone navigating trauma, chronic pain, intergenerational healing, or the longing to belong to oneself.Jen Peer Rich, PhD is an author, artist, and alchemist whose work explores healing, multiplicity, and the spiritual architecture of selves. Her debut memoir, The Alchemy of Being a House, is the first in The Circle of Selves Trilogy-a series of intimate, genre-defying books tracing the nonlinear path of trauma integration and homecoming. With a background in ecological philosophy and decades of lived experience as a disabled, queer caregiver, Jen brings a rare blend of insight, humor, and radical compassion to her storytelling. She writes in collaboration with her many inner selves-including Ruth, a loyal inner watchdog who speaks in barked wisdom-and lives in Florida beside a lake with her beloved wife, daughter, and rescue dogs.https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Being-House-Memoir-Trilogy/dp/B0FLWHZ829/

This is the first half of a discussion in which Layman and the Rabbi discuss the origins, nature, community use, philosophical necessity, and intriguing extensions of the tripartite concept of pre-tragic, tragic & post-tragic.

How do we cultivate robust, ethical, convivial human beings who have access to their full cognitive, emotional, and motivational resources? How can we better live functional, enjoyable lives, contribute to our societies' health and evolution, keep growing internally, and maximize the potentials of our best states? In this new Integral Stage series, we will be talking to Integral psychotherapists about their practices and experiences, and about the psychotechnologies, philosophical maps, and emerging clinical insights that can best help us to clean up and grow up -- to heal and thrive.For episode 10, Layman is joined by Bettina Wichers to discuss her groundbreaking research into transpersonal gerontology and the overlap of certain features of dementia with transpersonal or mystical experience.Bettina Wichers is an independent gerontologist and lecturer at the University of Göttingen who has specialized in the understanding dementia. She has worked for more than 25 years with nurses and care-givers in nursing homes, and has developed a unique framework, based upon Integral Theory, which aims to brings all the issues surrounding dementia – medical, psychological, social, spiritual – into a coherent framework. She is currently engaged in writing a book which expresses her evolving understanding of dementia from a unitive perspective.

Pema Dragpa's new book, An Integral View of Tibetan Buddhism, is the inspiration for and ostensible focus of this conversation between Dragpa and Layman, but it is also just an excuse for them to get together to chat about their favorite dharma, meditation, and "transformative practice in a time between worlds" topics.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=an+integral+view+of+tibetan+buddhism+pema+dragpaLama Pema Dragpa is a resident Dharma teacher at Padma Samye Ling (PSL), the main monastery and retreat center of the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center (padmasambhava.org). This institute was founded and directed by the Nyingma Dzogchen masters Ven. Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Ven. Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, who both trained and mastered the ancient traditions of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Dragpa lives and teaches at Padma Samye Ling, and was ordained as a lama by the Ven. Khenpo Rinpoches. He is a senior editor of over 20 books on philosophy, meditation, and Buddhist tenets. Lama Dragpa graduated with honors in philosophy and religious studies from NYU in 2002, and is a certified Hospice volunteer. He has taught at Colgate University, Scranton University, and Binghamton Community College, and regularly travels to lead PBC events on traditional and contemporary Buddhist philosophy and meditation.

This was recorded in two parts earlier this year following the death of the influential, controversial and "integrally-informed" teacher of radical, evolutionary and collective enlightenment processes -- Andrew Cohen.

The Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness series is a special Integral Stage / Pacific Integral co-production, highlighting dimensions of the Awakened Wholeness project which is being stewarded by Abigail Lynam and Geoff Fitch, with special support from Tucker Walsh.https://pacificintegral.substack.com/p/the-seven-facets-of-awakened-wholeness-bb0----------------------Abigail Lynam, PhD, is faculty for Fielding University’s PhD program in Human and Organizational Development and for Pacific Integral’s Generating Transformative Change leadership development program in Seattle and Ethiopia. Abigail’s scholarship and practice integrates the interior dimensions of human knowledge and experience (culture, worldviews, adult developmental psychology, wisdom traditions, etc.) with adult learning, leadership development, and social and ecological change work. Abigail is a skilled facilitator, developmental scorer, debriefer, and coach, teacher of awareness, shadow, and embodiment practices, and facilitator of Work that Reconnects. She lives in the Seattle area and is passionate about supporting personal, interpersonal, and collective development for healthier and more just systems.Geoff Fitch, MA, is a founding partner of Pacific Integral. Geoff is a coach, trainer, and facilitator of transformative growth in individuals and organizations. He has been studying and practicing diverse approaches to cultivating higher human potentials for twenty years. He also has twenty years experience in leadership in business.

Our exploration of "The Evolution of Tears" concludes with a look at the role of sorrow in visionary experience & spiritual maturity with a special focus on the need to reclaim and integrate the tears that we might displace onto "the angels." The key textual references here are Isaac and Ishmael.

The intricacies of establishing and unfolding intentional spiritual and philosophical communities with the Sensei of the Clear Sky Monastery.

The concept of the "post-tragic," associated with the work of Marc Gafni and a few others, is not in broad circulation. Alexander Love is deploying and investigating the term and I join him to suggest that it is basically a redux of Nietzsche's concept of the Tragic per se. Plus we talk Painting!

LIFE ITSELF, THE SECOND RENAISSANCE, AND HUMAN TRANSFORMATION IN A TIME OF META-CRISISFor episode 14, Layman sits down with Rufus Pollock and Sylvie Barbier to talk about the Life Itself and Second Renaissance communities and organizations, the importance of mapping the meta-communities, the role of art in cultural transformation, and the upcoming Harvard conference on the meta-crisis.Rufus Pollock is a Founder of Open Knowledge, an award-winning international digital non-profit. Formerly a Shuttleworth Fellow, the Mead Fellow in Economics at Cambridge University.Sylvie Barbier is a French-Taiwanese performance artist, entrepreneur and educator. She co-founded Life Itself to build a wiser future through culture, space and community.Life Itselfhttps://lifeitself.org/Second Renaissancehttps://secondrenaissance.net/intro

We continue our exploration of the backstory and intellectual journey to "Cosmo-erotic Humanism" with a further exploration of the relentless Rabbi's book on Tears. This time we focus on questions related to God's Voice, Laughter in Hell, Bondage & the Abraham/Isaac tale.

For the 50th (?) episode of the Integral Stage's Author Series, Layman meets with novelist and linguistic philosopher, Lisa Maroski, to explore her ideas around the enactive power of language and speech, and her experiments in finding new forms of language to more deeply embody liminal and nondual sensibilities.From the book's description:In Embracing Paradox, Evolving Language: Expressing the Unity and Complexity of Integral Consciousness, L.E. Maroski proposes that humanity is poised on the cusp of a transformation of consciousness that requires not only a shift in values and perspectives, but also a shift in a basic technology we take for granted-language. Because we use language to create social structures and institutions, including education, governance, and our most intimate relationships, the structure of our language contributes to the way we structure those creations. Maroski questions the cultural assumptions that are built into the structure of language-primarily English-and invites the reader to imagine and ultimately to help develop novel structures of language that arise from different assumptions. To do so, she shows how we can draw inspiration from paradoxical topological forms, such as the Möbius strip and Klein bottle, as they embody both unity and duality/multiplicity. By seeing our reality not simply in terms of either/or but also in terms of both (many)/and, perhaps our feelings of fragmentation and the stultifying oppositions that have polarized society can transform into appreciation for the wholeness of all existence.L.E. Maroski blends philosophy, psychology, and science with the spiritual to describe her vision for a new type of language and to provide stepping stones for possible ways to express the paradoxical wholeness of Life. In Embracing Paradox, Evolving Language, her words ring out as a clarion call to visionaries who seek to bring into existence a world of many worlds that works for everybody.Embracing Paradox, Evolving Language

https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Paradox-Evolving-Language-Consciousness/dp/1961334100

A MONK, A SHAMAN, AND A SCIENTIST WALK INTO A BAR AT THE EDGE OF THE APOCALYPSE...

Layman sits down with meditation and planetary dharma teacher, John Churchill, to enjoy a Double Venti Alchemist's Elixir and a rich, wide-ranging conversation exploring the shape of emergent integrative spiritualities at the edge of the Apocalypse.Born in London, Dr. Churchill's interest in psycho-spiritual development, Integral theory, Contemplative studies, Western Esotericism, and Mahayana Buddhism began in his adolescence, eventually leading him to spend several years as a Buddhist monk at Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland. During this time, John received the esoteric Planetary Dharma transmissions that would in time unfold as his contribution to a planetary fourth turning teaching. Dr. Churchill spent 15 years training and teaching “Great Seal” meditation in an Indo-Tibetan Mahayana lineage under the mentorship of the late senior Western teacher, translator, respected author, and clinical psychologist Dr. Daniel P. Brown. He is also a founding member of the Integral Institute led by esteemed Transpersonal/Integral philosopher, Ken Wilber.Planetary Dharma websitehttps://www.planetarydharma.com/

My upcoming Parallax course Integral Theory for Idiots starts July 6th. I thought it would be intriguing to compare the audio of a course description that I wrote and the alternative descriptions put together by three different free online AIs -- Claude, Deepseek & Perplexity. The tone they favor and the particular elements they "chose" to emphasize are very interesting...

The Liminal Café is where the locals of the liminal web gather for coffee and conversation. In this new series, Layman chats with the people and patrons who, for some curious reason, find themselves drawn to this sketchy corner of the internet...NAGARJUNA, DELEUZE, AND WHITEHEAD ADVANCED RHIZOMATICALLY INTO A BARFor episode 11, Layman joins Kazi Adi Shakti in the Amaravathi branch of the Liminal Café for a wide-ranging, paradigm- and continent-crossing exploration of the development of a Process Buddhism.Kazi is an artist and theorist whose theoretical work primarily consists in the study and creative synthesis of process thought, Madhyamaka Buddhism, Western Marxism and Eco-feminist ethics. She graduated with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she majored in Interdisciplinary Sculpture with a focus on computer modeling, 3D scanning and digital fabrication and currently works as a scanning specialist and digital artist in the 3D digitization industry.Kazi's blog, Holo-Poiesishttps://holo-poiesis.com/

It might be totally appropriate, and even wise, to fear integral postmetaphysics. But in this inaugural episode of our new Integral Stage series, Who's Afraid of Integral Postmetaphysics?, Layman and Alexander Love will try to convince you otherwise...Alexander Love is an acupuncturist, life coach, and craniosacral therapist. With gentleness, lightness and depth, he invites us to listen to the voice of our inner wisdom & potency and allow that to move us outward into the world and make a difference. The call to embark on this journey invites us to recognize that we matter beyond measure. Our individual voices, when allowed to speak from the depths of our intrinsic beauty, weave a complex melody of an emblazoned, sacred heart inscribed and aflame with the majestic mystery of life.

https://www.eoswellnesscenter.com/alexander-love

For the forty-seventh episode of the Integral Stage Author Series, Layman meets with Dr. Nava Israel to discuss her "Cone" model, which describes a common pattern through which often well-meaning solutions to problems end up transforming into dogmatic systems that rob individuals of their freedoms and worsen their problems. Layman invites Dr. Nava to unpack the inner workings of the systems that oppress and control individuals under the guise of wisdom, necessity, kindness, greatness, unity, or progress. Nava Israel is a lifelong innovator, entrepreneur, author, researcher, facilitator, speaker, educator, a business and academic consultant, and a social and cultural innovator with a PhD in epidemiology. Beyond formal titles, she is a philosopher at heart with an insatiable curiosity for all forms of science, critical thinking, human behaviour, patterns, social justice, true and deep healing, our place in the universe, and the intersections of all the above.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Nava-Israel-Ph.D./author/B0D7XVDDQL

Layman continues the discussion with Marc Gafni and Zak Stein about their jointly authored book, First Principles and First Values, this time focusing on some of the core philosophical arguments.

They are publishing the book pseudonymously under the name, David J. Temple.

For episode 10, Layman sits down again with Ēlen Awalom, this time to talk about unhealthy and healthy gender models, and the roles of attachment, trauma, and development in contemporary gender relations. Ēlen Awalom is an Eritrean-American Somatic Experiencing practitioner, writer, entrepreneur and cultural commentator. She lives and works in DC where she is the founder of The Almaz Institute, an organization that provides trauma-sensitive leadership and communication trainings steeped in the most cutting edge insights from developmental and somatic psychology. In a previous life she was an exhibiting Afrofuturist visual artist, women’s dating coach focused on developing securely attached relationships, political activist and serial tech entrepreneur who successfully raised millions of dollars from Google Ventures. Ēlen's Professional website https://www.elenawalom.com/

In this special episode, Layman meets with human woman, Jill Nephew, to explore the intricacies of projection and shadow, image and truth, public identities and dopplegangers, in our highly mediated, complexly entangled, and increasingly manipulable digital information spaces. Jill Nephew is the founder of Inqwire, PBC a company on a mission to help the world make sense. The Inqwire technology is designed to enhance and accelerate human sensemaking abilities. The designing of the system required her to attempt to answer a fundamental question: how does technology interact with the mind's ability to do individual and collective sensemaking, and what are the principles that technology should follow to maximize these abilities? Jill's background includes developing tools, platforms, and meta-data-based software languages to help people find solutions to complex, real-world problems. She developed algorithms and models in the area of constraint-based optimization, drug binding, motion control, disease kinetics, protein folding, atmospheric pollution, human articulated movement, complex fluids, and most recently sensemaking. Personal website https://jillnephew.com/index.html

For the thirteenth episode of The Soul of AI, Layman sits down with shaman and spiritual teacher, Evelyn Paul, to explore a shamanic take on the emergence and nature of AI, and to discuss some of her shamanic journeys that have shaped her insights into the topic.

For episode 9, Layman sits down with Alexander Love for a rich conversation about his life and healing journey, love and forgiveness, creativity, integral and Taoist thought, and a book he is working on on what he calls the five evolutionary gestures. Alexander Love is an acupuncturist, life coach, and craniosacral therapist. With gentleness, lightness and depth, he invites us to listen to the voice of our inner wisdom & potency and allow that to move us outward into the world and make a difference. The call to embark on this journey invites us to recognize that we matter beyond measure. Our individual voices, when allowed to speak from the depths of our intrinsic beauty, weave a complex melody of an emblazoned, sacred heart inscribed and aflame with the majestic mystery of life. https://www.eoswellnesscenter.com/alexander-love

For the forty-sixth episode of the Integral Stage Author Series, Layman sits down to talk with John H. Buchanan about his new autobiographical and philosophical meditation on process thought, death, psychedelics, and the journey from addiction to sobriety and meaningful living. John H. Buchanan received his master’s degree in humanistic/transpersonal psychology from West Georgia College and his doctorate from the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University. He has been trained and certified as a Holotropic Breathwork practitioner by Stan and Christina Grof. His book, "Processing Reality: Finding Meaning in Death, Psychedelics, and Sobriety", based upon his continuing interests in process philosophy and transpersonal psychology, was published in the fall of 2022. Buchanan has contributed a number of journal articles and book chapters on similar topics, and in 2020 was co-editor for "Rethinking Consciousness: Extraordinary Challenges for Contemporary Science". https://www.amazon.com/Processing-Reality-Finding-Psychedelics-Sobriety-ebook/dp/B0BM6KYDNH/

Layman meets with Alyssa Allegretti, to talk about her Substack-published book in progress, The Only Constant: How to Stay (Somewhat) Stable & Organized During Times of Transition & Grief. Dubbing her the Meta-Marie Kondo, Layman invites Alyssa to share her insights into the art of internal housekeeping, and the transformational significance of everyday tasks. http://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/the-post-tragic-art-of-liminal-housekeeping

https://adaptivedaydream.substack.com/p/the-only-constant-883

Our research into the philosophical premises of whatever is going under the names of "Cosmo-Erotic Humanism" and "David J. Temple" continues with a first pass into Tears -- a book that uses the Jewish Rite of Rosh Hashanah to explore the necessity of the return of ritual and the importance of that religion plays beyond philosophy and spirituality.

Layman huddles in a Finnish grove with Robin Hummel (Bassareus) to talk about his new book, Alchemy of the Psyche. Robin discusses his journey leading up to the book, and together they explore the nature of archetypes, the difference between direct and indirect approaches to interacting with the archetypes, the importance of ritual, shadow work, and much more. https://www.lulu.com/shop/bassareus/alchemy-of-the-psyche/hardcover/product-v88dkze.html?page=1&pageSize=4

On The Meta-Podcast (formerly Integral Podcasters), we talk with podcasters, YouTubers, and other media producers who are trying to offer, or who can't help but offer, more integrative perspectives. Who are these people, what do they collectively understand and point towards, and how can they be interlinked, mutually supported, clarified, and amplified? For episode 41, Layman is joined again by Dr. Sally Adnams Jones and Dr. Jen Peer Rich, this time to talk about their experience with successfully running and concluding their Radical Emergence podcast project. What did they accomplish, what did they learn from it that can inform our larger community, and what do they plan to do next? Radical Emergence Podcast https://radicalemergence.org/

Layman sits down again with Middle Way philosopher and author, Robert M. Ellis, this time to discuss his new book, The Five Principles of Middle Way Philosophy -- the second book in a planned 9-part series on the Middle Way. Layman and Robert review the essential arguments of the book, exploring how a post-traditional, universalized middle-way philosophy might show up and what it might contribute to addressing the challenges of the contemporary world. From the book's description: "This second book in the 'Middle Way Philosophy' series develops five general principles that are distinctive to the universal Middle Way as a practical response to absolutization. These begin with the consistent acknowledgement of human uncertainty (scepticism), and follow through with openness to alternative possibilities (provisionality), the importance of judging things as a matter of degree (incrementality), the clear rejection of polarised absolute claims (agnosticism) and the cultivation of cognitive and emotional states that will help us resolve conflict (integration). These are discussed not only in theory, but with links to the wide range of established human practices that can help us to follow them. Like all of Robert M. Ellis's work, this book is highly inter-disciplinary, drawing on philosophical argument, psychological models and values that prioritize practical application." Robert M. Ellis is a philosopher, writer and teacher. He has produced a series of books about the Middle Way, understood as a principle of judgement that throws us onto experience by avoiding absolutes, both positive and negative. He has also founded the Middle Way Society to support the development and practice of the Middle Way understood in this way, and he has recently opened a retreat center, Tirylan House, in rural South Wales. The Five Principles of Middle Way Philosophy: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Principles-Middle-Philosophy-Experientially/dp/1800503032/