The work of environmental/climate humanists is premised on the assumption that the way we make sense of the world matters. This means that the dreams we have — Covid pandemic dreams, climate change dreams — also matter. The best artists, in turn, help shape our collective dreaming. The environmental arts and humanities aim to help […]
Archive for the ‘Spirit matter’ Category
Dreamlife of the Anthropocene
Posted in Spirit matter, tagged brain, COVID-19, dream research, dreaming, dreamlife, emotional practices, mind, pandemic, psychology on November 8, 2021 | 4 Comments »
Being present while screaming
Posted in Spirit matter, tagged askesis, G. I. Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff Work, mindfulness, philosophy as a way of life, philosophy as way of life, practice, presence, Shadowing the Anthropocene, Shinzen Young, triune brain, vibrant materialism, Vipassana meditation on October 20, 2021 | Leave a Comment »
One of the things modern humans aren’t very good at is being fully present in a given moment — being here now, as Ram Dass famously put it — and remaining so in the midst of the activities, distractions, and challenges of the day. Meditation apps and mindfulness teachers can train you to do that […]
Thoughts on an equinox
Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Manifestos & auguries, Spirit matter, tagged climate crisis, climate justice, equinox, future, Holocene, hope, inequality, seasons on September 22, 2021 | 1 Comment »
Marking the passage of the seasons from summer to winter and back again is something people have done for millennia. Seasons are reliable — anyone living outside the equatorial band will continue to have colder and warmer seasons, probably for the rest of our lives. But many of us are realizing that larger cycles may […]
The four ontological aces
Posted in Philosophy, Spirit matter, tagged apophaticism, Buddhism, C. S. Peirce, eco-ethico-aesthetics, epistemology, Four Truths, G. I. Gurdjieff, Graham Harman, Heidegger, Nagarjuna, object-oriented ontology, Ontology, Peirce, process-relational ontology, quadrinity, Three Truths, Tiantai, triadism, Two Truths, Zhiyi on May 25, 2021 | 6 Comments »
Buddhism has its “Two Truths” and its “Three Truths“: the “Two” were made famous by Indian philosopher Nagarjuna; the “Three” a little less famous by Chinese philosopher Zhiyi. About a year ago, I offered up four perspectives on mortality, and here I want to make the case that they could be seen as a kind […]
On (not) being human
Posted in Media ecology, Music & soundscape, Spirit matter, tagged artificial intelligence, artificially generated faces, emotional intelligence, emotional politics, emotional practice, emotions, facial expression, fake people, Greta Thunberg, mirror neurons, neuropolitics on November 23, 2020 | 1 Comment »
The New York Times has published an article on AI-generated faces which strikes me as an informal litmus test of our humanity, or at least of neurotypical emotional response. Here’s how to work it. Scroll through the mega-composite image at the top of the article — do it slowly, then quickly, then varying your speed […]
America is waiting: Meme magic & the spiritual practices of the Interregnum
Posted in Cultural politics, Manifestos & auguries, Spirit matter, tagged alt-right, America is Waiting, Byrne and Eno, election interregnum, election magic, Interregnum, Interregnum before the Interregnum, meme magic, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Paula White, power of prayer, prayer, remix culture, spiritual practices, Trumpism on November 6, 2020 | Leave a Comment »
One of the things I study is spiritual practices – which I’ll define (for simplicity’s sake) as the things people do to enhance their capacity to live in accordance with chosen ideals. Those ideals can be defined in religious terms (for instance, as salvation, enlightenment, or unity with God) or in more secular and philosophical […]
The Qanization of the world
Posted in Cultural politics, Media ecology, Spirit matter, tagged 8chan, AI, Anomalies, artificial intelligence, China, conspiracies, conspiracy culture, conspiracy entrepreneurs, conspiracy theories, conspiratistics, conspiratology, conspirituality, Donald Trump, evil, Falun Gong, Instagram influencers, internet cultures, LARPs, machine intelligence, pastel QAnon, QAnon, redemptive societies, satanic cult, surveillance capitalism, wellness QAnon on October 18, 2020 | 3 Comments »
As I’ve been preparing to cover QAnon in my media course (and trying to keep up with it, since it’s really been ramping up ahead of the election), I’ve seriously begun to think of it is a work of evil genius. Let me explain why. For starters, it’s worth reminding ourselves that QAnon was designated […]
Above us only sky (or, Stoic & Epicurean takes on things)
Posted in Philosophy, Spirit matter, tagged argument from nature, Epicureanism, Pierre Hadot, spiritual exercises, spiritual practice, Stoicism, view from above, world situation on September 22, 2020 | Leave a Comment »
My course “Self-Cultivation and Spiritual Practice” starts from the premise that philosophy — at least as it has existed outside of today’s analytical philosophy departments — has generally been about how to live, and that the best philosophers around the world have offered detailed instructions on how to get better at that. Historian of philosophy […]
Emotional practices, part 2: Affective construction, the triune self, & the art of joyful deliberation
Posted in Spirit matter, tagged A. H. Almaas, affect theory, affective neuroscience, affective practice, askesis, C. S. Peirce, constructivism, emotional practice, G. I. Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff, Hadot, inquiry, Jacques Lacan, neo-Spinozism, Paul Maclean, philosophy as way of life, philosophy of the moment, Shadowing the Anthropocene, Shinzen Young, Spinoza, spiritual practice, three-body practice, triune brain, triune self on August 25, 2020 | 1 Comment »
In part 1 of this article, I compared two recent books, each of which proclaims a “new paradigm” in the scientific study of emotions and affect: Lisa Feldman Barrett’s “constructivist” How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain and Stephen Asma’s and Rami Gabriel’s “basic emotions”-rooted The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition. In […]
Deep Adaptation & its critics: a question of reality
Posted in Eco-culture, Spirit matter, tagged Deep Adaptation, ecospirituality, environmentalism, Jem Bendell, Open Democracy, radical environmentalism, religion and ecology, societal collapse, spiritual environmentalism, spiritual movements on July 18, 2020 | 6 Comments »
I’ve long been receptive to the idea that we need a spiritual, or even a religious, movement to address the climate crisis. Of course, I define both “spiritual” and “religious” quite broadly, and am well aware of how both terms have been shaped within histories that are Eurocentric and dominated by monotheistic, Christian, and more […]
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