Friday June 4th – 8:00PM (EST)/5:00PM (PST)
running time: 1hr42min
“Relational Rhythms“
an evening with Lehua Lopez & Tiokasin Ghosthorse
Host Jeremy Vaeni introduces the symposium, leading us into a deep conversation with Tiokasin and Lehua about the differences between Western mind and indigenous minds in thinking, language, and being. This description is short and sweet, but don’t let that fool you. Their talk packs a wallop and may change how you think forever.
Saturday June 5th
running time: approx. 3hr54min
(In Order of Appearance)
“Origins of the Imagination: Speculations on the Antiquity of Consciousness“
with Dennis McKenna
1PM EST/10AM PST
Imagination makes us human. Certainly it’s at the heart of all art. Yet we rarely stop to consider where the imagination came from. If evolution endows nature’s creatures with traits that aid in survival and reproduction, what may she have intended when she created the imagination? And from a physiological perspective, how may the imagination have come about?
Please join us as renowned ethnopharmacologist Dr. Dennis McKenna discusses how our ancestors’ interactions with plants over millions of years may have laid the foundation for imagination.
The biochemical co-evolutionary relationship between plants and insects are well-studied. The same principles apply to co-evolution with herbivores, which includes humans. Interactions between plant chemical compounds and our complex neural machinery, which can trigger synesthesia–the nexus where sound, vision and symbol come together–may have been the stimulus for the cognitive evolution of the mind. Many have experienced these effects in the form of the psychedelic experience, but their impact on our culture predates the 60’s by several million years. In fact, plants may have given us the ability to understand meaning and abstractions, and therefore laid the foundation for language. And with language came the ability to share ideas across continents and centuries, which created the foundations for culture.
“The Superhumanities“
with Jeff Kripal
2:40PM EST/11:40AM PST
Just when you thought you knew anything at all about Friedrich Nietzsche….
In a completely unplanned callback to Jeremy’s final question for Lehua and Tiokasin, this absorbing talk picks up the idea that complex thought need not be hard-won through time and personal intention. It often can and does come all at once because, “We do not think. We are thought. A corollary follows.” To see what this means, look no further than the completely misunderstood philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. In this talk, Jeff Kripal turns what you’ve been taught about him inside out to illustrate what so many scholars know, yet won’t say publicly: the humanities are filled with people for whom great wisdom came by way of visionary and mystical means.
Impossible as it sounds, the humanities are superhumanities.
“Mysterious Consciousness of the Interconnecting Kind“
with Whitley Strieber
3:50PM EST/12:50PM PST
Since experiencing a close encounter of the third kind in 1985, Communion author Whitley Strieber has experienced a profound challenge to everything he once understood about the nature of reality and our relationship to it. In this talk, he explores the evolution of his understanding through the lens of his life experiences, which are, for the most part, impossible—and yet which are, at the same time, somehow true. But how? Join him in the exploration of this fundamental question.
Sunday June 6th – 4:00PM (EST)/1:00PM (PST)
Running Time: approx. 90min
Live Roundtable Chat
with All Speakers
We take your questions live! But first, let’s have a chat amongst ourselves about what we’ve learned from each other.
If you’d like to ask questions of our speakers, you may do so by either typing them into the chat box of whichever platform you’re watching on or writing to me directly: jeremy@ourundoing.com. In the subject line just put the name of the person your question is for.
NOTE: If you see a link below this that says GET TICKETS HERE, please ignore it. It doesn’t seem to want to leave the website. There are no tickets needed. This is free live-streaming.
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