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

How to navigate a collective spiritual emergency

Homo sapiens is going through a collective spiritual emergency, a collective near-death experience. Executive authority is breaking down, established institutions and entrenched habits are dissolving, there is a loss of certainty and consensual reality; archetypal and apocalyptic thinking is flooding in from the margins of consciousness. For the first time ever, our collective species-consciousness is connected and focused on the same threat. We are walking together through the valley of death.

Altered states, Politics, Spiritual emergencyJules EvansApril 24, 2020Comment

We dream we are separate, lonely individuals. It's time to wake up.

In Oregon, there is a honey fungus that is four miles wide and possibly 8000 years old. It appears in our reality as small white mushrooms.

Altered states, Buddhism, Contemplation, Dreams, EnlightenmentJules EvansSeptember 14, 2019Comment

A kestrel for a knave

Three friends emerged from a consultation with a celebrity Glasontonbury shaman with remarkably similar predictions for their future. Were their destinies bizarrely intertwined? I went to find out.

Altered states, Spiritual tourism, Spirituality, New Age, GurusJules EvansJuly 26, 2019Comment

A magic theatre of pain and purgation

This is an excerpt from my new Amazon Kindle Single - Holiday From the Self: An Accidental Ayahuasca Adventure. It’s about a nine-day ayahuasca retreat I attended in the Amazon in October 2017, and the strange two weeks that followed.

Altered statesJules EvansJune 29, 2019 Comment

Is there a trans bubble?

A friend of mine told me recently that in a relative's class of 25 children, five of them are officially identified as trans. That means 20% of the children are on their way to hormone therapy and gender re-assignment.

Altered states, Civilization and its D...Jules EvansMarch 22, 2019 Comments

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

The Talented Mr Huxley

As you may know, I’m researching a book about Aldous Huxley and his friends Alan Watts, Christopher Isherwood and Gerald Heard, and how these four posh Brits moved to California and helped to invent the modern culture of ‘spiritual but not religious’.

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

'This is just a test'

Apologies for the delay in writing. I’ve been in California for the last three weeks, immersed in preparing for Burning Man, then going to Burning Man, then recovering from Burning Man.

The lazy mysticism of Alan Watts

The only thinker whose popularity on YouTube comes close to prophet-of-rage Jordan Peterson is Alan Watts, the British popularizer of Eastern wisdom. Watts’ talks from the 50s, 60s and early 70s have millions of views on YouTube, and are often edited to the accompaniment of orchestral or ‘chillstep’ soundtracks and jazzy collages of modern life.

The way of boredom

I remember being publicly called 'spiritually immature' a few years back. It was in 2014. I was at a seminar for the RSA's Spirituality project. The seminar had gathered various wise folk all competing to display their wisdom, as was I.

Altered states, EcstasyJules EvansMay 11, 2018 Comments

Integrating ayahuasca into western healthcare (part 2)

Here is part 2 of my interview with pioneering researcher Milan Scheidegger, who works in the psychedelics lab at University of Zurich. You can read part 1 here. In this half of the interview, we discuss how to translate aspects of indigenous ayahuasca rituals - such as the shaman or sacred plant songs - into the context of western healthcare. We also discuss Milan's plans to establish a psychedelic healing clinic in Switzerland.

Integrating ayahuasca into western healthcare: an interview with Milan Scheidegger

Milan Scheidegger is one of the most interesting young researchers in psychedelics, because he integrates several different perspectives. He's a clinical psychiatrist at the University of Zurich, who's spent a decade studying the effect of psychedelics on subjects in a laboratory, and on a meditation retreat.

The cabin in the woods

I covered a lot of different types of ecstatic experience in my book The Art of Losing Control - spontaneous ecstasy, ecstasy in nature, sexual ecstasy, psychedelic ecstasy, ecstasy through worship, war, sport, even the internet. I think it was one of the most comprehensive books on the subject - what few books there are on the topic tend to only cover positive experiences, and leave out stuff like, say, the ecstasy of mob violence.

Altered states, EcstasyJules EvansJune 25, 2017 Comment

A 10-day Vipassana retreat taught me the meaning of pain

Last Sunday I finished a 10-day Vipassana retreat, at a monastery in Sweden. This was my third attempt to do a monastic retreat - I’d done a runner from both previous efforts, from a Rusian monastery in Lent 2006 (the head monk kept trying to convert me to Orthodox Christianity) and from a Benedictine monastery on the Isle of Wight in January 2013 (I was bored). This time, I vowed not to do a runner.

Altered states, Buddhism, Ecstasy, meditation, Spiritual exercisesJules EvansMarch 24, 2016 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.