The Trialogues

Part I: Esalen, California, 1991. Not found in a book. Terence's interest in cannabis. The feminising and boundary-dissolving influence of cannabis. Cannabis intoxication and dreams. Cannabis and anxiety. Victorian tales of cannabis. The influence of hashish on India and the Middle East. Cannabis as the carrier of a new set of values. A tool for creativity and the enhancement of empathy and communication. A medicine for cultural evolution? The difference between smoking and eating cannabis. How hemp is related to stories. An aid to the appreciation of sacred places. The impact of abstinence on peak performance. Cannabis as an aid for concentration and connectivity.

Part 2 (38:55): Esalen, California, 1991. Not found in a book. The shadow side of cannabis. The dangers of habitual usage. Cannabis and energy levels. The chemistry of cannabis. The impact of cannabis on memory and language. Aphrodisiac effects. Cannabis versus alcohol. Why is it illegal? Early use of cannabis. The drug war. Researching the different qualities and various forms of cannabis. Age-related experimentation. Decriminalisation versus legalisation. The impact of legal restraints on the attraction for illegal substances. Hemp. Is the right to the exploration of consciousness a part of the pursuit of human freedom and happiness?

Part I Esalen, California, 1991. Not found in a book. Ralph's hypothesis of androgyny. A person's soul does not necessarily share the gender restriction of the biological body. Social practices that emphasize gender differences can hinder the exposure of a complete person. Achieving maximum androgyny through the exploration of sexual experience. Proposals for the salvation of the nuclear family. Healing emotional diseases in relationships. How would androgyny impact monogamy and the behaviour of women? Androgyny as a state of completeness in a person's psychological make up. Celibacy as a method for personal development. Men's and women's movements. Is gender differentiation a necessary feature of human society?

Part 2 (48:52): Esalen, California, 1991. Not found in a book. Exploring ways to recover the extended family. The popularity of computer networking. New ways to satisfy the need for community. Our addiction to travel and the need to minimise mobility. The benefits of travelling on foot. Can the computer revolution help reduce the need for travel? A model for a locally-based community. Can the men's and women's movements help stabilise gender relations? The revival of interest in rites of passage. Voluntary monogamy.

Part 1: Esalen, California, 1991. Not found in a book. What can be done to solve the problem of over-population and resource depletion? Could encouraging a population policy save the world without disregarding individual concerns? How do you provoke a shift in consciousness that would result in people wanting less children? Resource depletion in high-tech societies. The prejudice against only children. How could such a plan be implemented? A new way to empower women. Exploring the potential positive and negative effects of achieving zero population growth on a planetary scale.

Part 2 (42:34): Esalen, California, 1991. Not found in a book. Further speculations on the impact of population policies. How a capsule that enables gender choice of offspring could make population growth plummet. Saving resources by moving people to different locations. Curbing resource depletion and overpopulation. Grassroots research projects on family dynamics. The liberation of women. Reforming people's attitudes through family dynamics models. The role that social sciences, mathematics and myth could play in saving the world. A demographic modelling disc. Family numerology. A positive re-evaluation of the only child. A sociological research programme.

Part 1: Chapter 1 of The Evolutionary Mind. The institutionalisation of mainstream science has alienated the public and marginalised the amateur base of science. A new model for science is both possible and necessary. The need for big science to reintegrate with grassroots science. Examples of important low budget amateur research projects. How the computer revolution and the formulation of specific questions could empower grassroots science. Global environmental problems are likely to provide the main motivation for the revival of grassroots science. Rescuing science from the distorting demands of capitalism. The benefits of combining holistic and analytical research. A grassroots research project on holistic medicine.

Part 2(44:04): Chapter 1 of The Evolutionary Mind. Re-distributing the budget in science. How to motivate and fund more amateur research projects. How grassroots science could contribute towards the solution of global environmental problems. The grassroots component in archaeology; paleontology; astrology; nutritional studies and consciousness research. Large-scale projects can be influenced enormously by the discoveries of grassroots science. The benefits of taking a holistic approach to the whole field of knowledge. The importance of posing appropriate questions to researchers. Low budget experiments that could change the world. Encouraging amateur scientists through a revitalized scientific education.

Part 1: Chapter 10 of Trialogues at the Edge of the West. The apocalyptic tradition: paranoid self-fulfilling prophecy or an intuition of instability? Stripping the provincialism from apocalyptic messages. Apocalyptic scenarios, including the 'God-whistle' theory. The ecological catastrophe as the appropriate interpretation of the Apocalypse. Steering the Apocalypse toward a tolerable conclusion. The power of faith.

Part 2 (44:26) Chapter 10 of Trialogues at the Edge of the West. Big Bang cosmology as a projection of the Judaeo-Christian model of history. The fate of the sun. The projection of the Apocalypse in 2012. Ecological catastrophe and forces of novelty that may create planetary metamorphosis. Global crucifixion. The recovery of Eden. The personal apocalypse: a glimpse of post-mortal life. Interplanetary morphic resonance. The green version of the apocalyptic vision.

Part 1: Chapter 8 of Trialogues at the Edge of the West. In what ways can we bring the sacred back into the world? Ralph's religious background. Loss of connection to the sacred as a root cause of world problems. Resumption of rituals. Resacralization of music. The aesthetics of the world soul. Feminism, the revival of partnership society and a reinvigorated psychedelic priesthood. Revival of Gothic cathedral-building. Festivals and the sacralization of space and time. The 'greening of God'. The global consequences of the shift in the sense ratio. The 'Archaic Revival' and resacralization by religion.

Part 2 (43:47): Chapter 8 of Trialogues at the Edge of the West. The unifying flag of Gaia. A true Gaian religion. Revulsion at religion and scientism. Psychedelicizing and sacralizing green politics. The timescale problem. A green order associated with every religion. Connection with sacred places. The sacralization of science. Ritualized mushroom cults, and the mushroom as the Ur-symbiont of humanity. The will to make our own position relevant to the encroaching crisis. The forces in opposition to the resacralization programme. The revival of pilgrimage and a sense of sacred time. A possible nucleation event.

Part 1: Chapter 7 of Trialogues at the Edge of the West. What is the nature of the unconscious, and how can we access its restorative powers? Bifurcation theory of the unconscious. Evil and the repression of chaos. Escape from evil by bringing the unconscious back. The idea of the sacred city. From psychedelic partnership phase to restrictive dominator phase. Alcohol and cultural neurosis. The age-related reestablishment of shamanic sacraments. Habituation and the unconscious. The calendar as an engine for illuminating the unconscious, through rituals and festivals. The unavailable unconscious and the maintenance of consciousness. Christmas as a child's festival. Caffeine and industrial capitalism.

Part 2 (43:43): Chapter 7 of Trialogues at the Edge of the West. Sacred plants and calendar-based rituals. Sacred sites and celestial communication. Invocation, psychedelic visions and the consciousness of the natural world. The role of dominator drugs. Denial and its dangers for our evolution. Sacred festivals. The difficulty of accessing the restorative powers of the unavailable unconscious. Lightening the dark through prayer, astrology and a resurrection of magic. The Gaian unconscious. Included in Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West Chapter 7.

Part 1: Chapter 6 of 'Trialogues at the Edge of the West'. Are disincarnate and non-human entities mental projections or non-physical, autonomous entities? What can we learn from them? Their variety and persistence in human history. Early modern science and angelic communication. The shamanic model. The aversion to the irrational in Christianity and science. The need to analyze the entities' messages. A mathematical model of body, soul and spirit. Entities as inhabitants of the spiritual domain of the logos. The evolution of their multifarious representations. The dogma of purgatory. Contacting these entities through dreams and psychedelics. The deepest layers of the faery tradition. Metaphors of light? Entities as artificers and their use of language. Is the world soul behind these entities? Corn circles.

Part 2 (44:02): Pre-Christian ritual magic. The call to prepare language for these encounters. Experiential contact with the celestial sphere. The humanist illusion of self-sufficiency, leading to societal possession. Mammon. A celestial battle on earth? Redirecting attention to the positive forms. The ultimate partnership - reconnecting the Gaian and celestial spheres to the human spirit. Where could the new alchemical kingdom be? Included in Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West Chapter 6.

Part I: How is our own vision related to light, and how is the perception of the world soul related to light? What is the connection between physical light and other definitions of light? Where are visual images located? Attention felt across space and the sense of being stared at. The electromagnetic field as the medium of the morphic field. A look at some possible experiments in this area. Dowsing. Pheromones.

Part 2 (41:05): The electromagnetic field as intermediary among the physical fields. The field-like structure of perception and mental activity. Pheromones as the chemical regulation of the whole earth? The mystery of light and the self-luminosity of the imagination. DMT and attention. The anti-universe theory. The role of the electromagnetic field in the soul of the world. The hierarchical mental ecosystem. Galactic minds, the solar eye and divine omni-perception. How novelty can cause an unconscious Gaia to rise into awareness. A cognitive map of the Gaian mind. Included in Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West Chapter 5.

Part I: How can chaos theory and full access to the imagination aid us in our understanding of the world and in the creation of our future? Chaos in mythology. The repression of chaos, the rise of patriarchy and the fall into history. The chaos revolution. Bringing chaos tangential to the burning planet. Vision plants and shamanism. Our 'secret history' and how it relates to the Gaian mind. The creative act as the night sea journey. The living mystery of the imagination. Dominator and partnership culture. Included in Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West Chapter 3.

Part 2 (44:21): Festivals, a calendrical reform and 'pharmacological intervention'. Oscillating models of chaos, creativity and the imagination. Eleusis as a great turning point. The Virgin of Guadalupe. The Faustian pact with the physical world. The cultural cul-de-sac of the dominator mode. Restoring partnership values, opening our lives to chaos and the world soul. Chaos as Gaian fury and as a moment of opportunity. A forward escape into technology? Included in Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West Chapter 3.

Part I: The chaos revolution, chaotic attractors and indeterminism in nature. The emergence of form from the field of chaos. The formative process in cooling. Is the mathematical realm of the world soul in co-evolution with ordinary reality? The potential of mathematics to aid us in our own evolution by extending our language for dealing with complex systems. Visual intuitions and the Butterfly Effect. Included in Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West Chapter 1 (page 3).

Part 2 (45:20): The idea of an attractor for the entire cosmic evolutionary process. The role of the attractor in chaos dynamics. Motivation and attraction. The value of spoken language. Mathematical modelling. The relationship between mathematical models with chaotic behaviour and the chaos in life. Idolatry and models becoming reality. The feminine aspect of creativity. Included in Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West Chapter 2 (page 23).

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The fractal idea of history, and millenia as the plateaus of history. These bifurcation periods as opportunities to influence the creation of the future. What kind of future or change are we trying to create? The need for the enhancement and spread of clarity. Psychic pets and their role in breaking the spell of rationalism. Psychedelics, the World Wide Web and psychic pets as forms of boundary dissolution. The need for change in the educational system. The problem of the rejection of mathematics.