How I Made Friends With Reality

2018

With her signature wit and wisdom, Emily Levine meets her ultimate challenge as a comedian/philosopher: she makes dying funny. In this personal talk, she takes us on her journey to make friends with reality—and peace with death. Life is an enormous gift, Levine says: You enrich it as best you can, and then you give it back.

Workshop
Added 2 days ago
1

Thusness

Seminar
Added 5 weeks ago
02:48:48 22,232 17

Clarity of Mind

1973

Delivered at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Lecture
Added 7 weeks ago
44:08 4,304 10

Connections, Episode 2: Death in the Morning

1978

How did a test of gold's purity revolutionize the world 2500 years ago and lead to the atomic bomb? Standardizing precious metal in coins stimulated trade from Greece to Persia, causing the construction of a huge commercial center and library at Alexandria. This wealth of nautical knowledge aided navigators 14 centuries later. Mariners discovered that the compass's magnetized needle did not point directly north. Investigations into the nature of magnetism led to the discovery of electricity, radar and to the atomic bomb.

Television Episode
Added 7 weeks ago
49:21 7,004

Connections, Episode 1: The Trigger Effect

1978

Both the beginning and the end of the story are here. The end is our present dependence on complex technological networks illustrated by the NYC power blackouts. Life came almost to a standstill: support systems are taken for granted failed. How did we become so helpless? The technology originated with the plow and agriculture. Each invention demands its own follow-up: once started, it is hard to stop. This segment ends in Kuwait, where society has leaped from ancient Egypt to the technology of today in 30 years.

Television Episode
Added 7 weeks ago
49:30 6,064 4

Acceleration of Knowledge

1986

Lecture
Added 10 weeks ago
01:16:16 12,881 5

Plan, Plant, Planet

1989

McKenna urges us to look at plants more deeply and find within their biological organization a model for sustainable modern civilization. Published in Whole Earth Review, issue 64.

Article
Added 15 weeks ago
3,540 5

The Global Brain

1983

Peter Russell's award-winning video explores the idea that the Earth is an integrated, self-regulating living organism, and asks what function humanity might have for this planetary being. It suggests that we stand on the threshold of a major leap in evolution, as significant as the emergence of life itself, and the essence of this leap is inner spiritual evolution. Moreover, Russell maintains that it is only through such a shift in consciousness that we will be able to manage successfully the global crises now facing us.

Video
Added 15 weeks ago
35:14 4,121 11

Glimpsing the Global Brain

2021

Complex systems theorist Heylighen and evolutionary biologist Wilson discuss a possible phase transition of humanity in which the members of our species become neurons in a planetary brain.

Discussion
Added 15 weeks ago
01:19:03 10,973 14

Future of Art

1998

Workshop
Added 18 weeks ago
01:25:20 9,328 10

Tao Te Ching

506 B.C.E.

Written more than two thousand years ago, the Tao Te Ching is one of the true classics of spiritual literature. It is a guide to cultivating a life of peace, serenity, and compassion. Through aphorisms and parable, it leads readers toward the Tao, or the “Way”: harmony with the life force of the universe. (This version was translated/interpreted by Stephen Mitchell in 1988.)

Classic Literature
6,523 1 69

Mr. X

1969

Written under the pseudonym Mr. X to avoid the heavy social stigma associated with marijuana consumption at the time, Carl Sagan documented his personal experiences with cannabis in this essay in order to dispel common misconceptions about the drug. It was later published in the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered by Lester Grinspoon. Sagan enjoyed cannabis on a regular basis for the rest of his life, but never spoke of it publicly.

Essay
2,946 7 34

Pursuit of Pleasure

Where does pleasure come from? What are we trying to achieve in our frantic day-to-day activities? Why are we in such a hurry? And why do all of our efforts to pin the universe down and bring it under our control dial up the misery?

Lecture
03:24:14 22,887 32 25

Arcology: The City In The Image Of Man

1969

Visionary architect Paolo Soleri challenges us to think of cities as biological entities, and introduces us to a philosophy for a new kind of urban living: the arcology, a city-sized organism designed to exist in harmony with nature. Split into two sections, the book first explains the moral and economic necessity for humanity’s transition to arcological urban landscapes, and proposes that the general purpose of life is aesthetogenesis: the universe progressively complexifying and interconnecting, consciously reshaping itself into compassionate structures. In the second section, Soleri showcases 30 potential arcologies (including one space habitat) through the use of incredibly detailed diagrams, and explains how each was carefully designed to integrate itself economically and ecologically into the world.

Book
42,122 15 16

Out Of Your Mind 02: The Nature of Consciousness (Part 2)

1969

Seminar
01:03:55 8,270 16 14

Do You Do It Or Does It Do You?

Alan explores the meaning of personal free will in the context of core tenets in Eastern mythology: how is it possible to control anything when preexisting conditions outside of our influence determine our present situation? It is a realization of the hidden unity behind our apparent diversity and a relinquishing of obsessive control that enables us to unlock a pathway leading out of the conundrum and towards a celebration and reverence of life.

Seminar
02:37:23 19,089 24 13

Be Here Now

1971

This book is a classic text on Hindu spirituality that bloomed open like a lotus flower in the wake of the hippie movement. The seed for this book was planted in the mind of Harvard psychiatrist turned Indian mystic, Ram Dass, and was written—with the blessings of his guru Neem Karoli Baba—for a Western audience who were, for the most part, materially rich but spiritually poor. Be Here Now offers its readers and followers a drug-free alternative for attaining higher states of consciousness, while its simple message to live in the present encourages the pursuit and cultivation of inner peace.

Book
27,972 22 11

A Weekend with Terence McKenna

1993

The session for true McKenna enthusiasts: twelve hours with the bard himself, in which he touches upon practically all of his trademark topics. Recorded at the Esalen Institute in California.

Workshop
12:09:02 85,752 42 10

Game Theory of Ethics

Is playing the game of life is worth the effort required? Alan turns the question upside-down and investigatates the alternative, allowing us to appreciate the gamble with fate every being takes upon birth.

Lecture
56:03 6,518 14 9

The Joker

One of Alan’s most popular seminars, and for good reason—in The Joker, listeners will find out why every society needs fools in order to remind itself not to take life so damn seriously.

Seminar
03:08:18 20,436 14 9