well-being technology — Philosophy for Life | Blog | Philosophy | Wisdom | Spirituality

Michael Murphy on Esalen and the mystical expats

Michael Murphy co-founded Esalen, a cross between an adult education college, a research institute, and an ashram, in 1962. It’s had a huge influence on contemporary spirituality, and was the incubator for everything from ecstatic dance to Authentic Relating to holotropic breathwork. Here, Murphy tells me how he was inspired by his friends, Alan Watts, Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley, and how Esalen managed to keep going for 53 years, when so many spiritual experiments went very wrong very quickly.

Uncategorized, Aldous Huxley, Landmark Forum, mysticism, New Age, Perennial Philosophy, Quakers, Spiritual tourism, SpiritualityJules EvansDecember 4, 2019Comment

What psychedelic and Christian communities can learn from each other

Christians could learn an openness to the messy mystery of spiritual experience and the surprising people who can be chosen by God, while psychonauts could learn how to ground ecstatic experience in community and charitable service.

Aldous Huxley, Christianity, God, PsychedelicsJules EvansNovember 23, 2019Comment

How to be whole

Can education help us to become more well-rounded, integrated, wise and whole people? This was the project explored both by Aldous Huxley, and by his ancestors - Thomas Huxley and Matthew Arnold - in their famous dispute over the role of sciences and the humanities in education.

The invention of the future

I met a futurist the other day. A traveller from a future land. We both gave keynotes at a conference on education. I sat next to him at dinner afterwards and asked him a bit about the futurism business, including what he charged for talks (I’m shameless). He shrugged. ’10, maybe 15’. ‘Pounds?’ ‘No…thousands’.

Aldous Huxley, Civilization and its D..., climate changeJules EvansMarch 28, 2019Comment

Aldous Huxley on why we need ecstatic dance

If you like this, come and hear me talk on Huxley's life and ideas, at the Bristol Psychedelic Society on April 3 (tickets here) or the London Psychedelic Society on April 16 (tickets here).

Aldous Huxley, Altered statesJules EvansMarch 21, 2019Comment

The making and breaking of the counter culture

Last week I came across a small book called The Making of a Counter Culture, written in 1969 by an American historian called Theodore Roszak. I loved it. Roszak was the first to coin the phrase ‘the counterculture’.

The politics of transcendence and the war on drugs

Aldous Huxley thought western societies needed to become more open to ego-transcendence. We need to find ways to be less stuck in our egos, less stuck in consumerism and materialism, and more conscious, loving and open to other beings. We need to wake up to our potential and our power.

Aldous Huxley, Altered states, Anti-depressants, Consciousness, PsychedelicsJules EvansFebruary 22, 2019 Comments

Spiritual technologies

Our psyches are deeply connected to the material and symbolic worlds we weave around us. The habitat of our daily lives re-inforces our habits, for good and ill. All our stuff – our apartments, our clothes, our books, our TV, our online activity, our food, our relationships – helps make us who we are, in a powerful feedback loop.

Art, Spirituality, Transhumanism, well-being technologyJules EvansNovember 2, 2018 Comments

Review: The Wellness Syndrome

How are you feeling? How well are you? Is your weight where you want it to be? Smoking too much? How happy are you on a scale of one to ten? Are you optimising your personal brand? How fast was your last five kilometre run? Would you like to share that via social media? Would you like a life-coach to help you overcome these challenges on a way to a better, happier, more awesome you?

Review: The Happiness Industry by William Davies

Watch out folks. There is a murky world lurking behind the scenes, a sinister cabal of policy-makers, psychologists, CEOs, advertizers and life-coaches, watching you, measuring you, nudging you, monitoring your every smile, all to try and make you happy. We must resist. This, broadly, is the message of sociologist William Davies’ book, The Happiness Industry: How Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being.