Live Q&A with Brendan Graham Dempsey | Questions, Dialogue, and the Pursuit of Wisdom

27:36Um, and so I guess ultimately then the, the, the truth is in the pudding, right? The proof is in the pudding, um, where if people feel like that is happening for them, if they, if they're, they're working, uh, in those modes and they don't feel beholden to some thinker, uh, they feel beholden to the truth. They feel beholden to a method and a process and a, and a, and a life of learning. Then I think the consequences are going to emerge. And, you know, you say you judge a fruit, uh, you judge a tree by its fruits, that sort of thing. So I think that that's a lot how that works. So yeah. That's, so there's something I want to just sort of share as an appreciation about first, I have to look at a technical thing, which is you're frozen on my screen.

28:21And it's as endearing as it is. But you are not moving for me anymore. I just want to check, just do a quick tech check with Ben. Ben, is Brandon moving for you? He's frozen? I'm moving on my side.

28:40Oh my gosh. Brandon, could I trouble you to, oh my god, I want to do this, like, turn your camera off and turn it back on again kind of thing. Sure, yeah. Would that help?

28:54Hello? You know, because we don't want static truth. We want dynamic moving truth.

29:06Oh, he's good. Okay, so it's literally.

29:13Oh my gosh. Okay. So if that's what's happening, first of all, so I'm gonna I'm gonna just toss a question at you. But before we do that I want to really appreciate something that sort of came up for me as you were speaking around integrity and the way in which I think what you're calling for is also not just that people know the right things or have the right skills, but also that they actually embody the process. And I don't mean this in a trivial way, like animated by and are deeply enthusiastic and passionate about being on the journey at all. So, you know, I definitely, I mean, I definitely know that from John, but I also see that in people that I've spoken to, even who are not like from a particular lineage or who are not by any means sages, but like something that definitely does animate and vitalize my life is watching people who are deeply interested in something.

30:15To an almost like superhuman level, I had a guy talk for 20 minutes about bees. And it was the most bizarre thing because I remember for the first five minutes, I was like, man, this is, we're in a workshop. This is a long check-in. But the more that he got on, I was like, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait. What happens to Queens? Wait, keep going, keep going. You know, there's something contagious about the joy of learning. Yeah. So I want to sort of branch off that in that sense of like someone deeply caring. So this is a question coming in from Sandy. I know Sandy is here with us. Hi Sandy. So I'm gonna toss the question your way and then I'm gonna duck out and duck back in again hopefully you'll be dynamic on my screen.

31:05I'll just read this for you. So she says I have heard you reference in several faith contexts and conversations where the parameters are traditional modern, meta-modern religion views and discussions but these weeks reading your, I'm reading about your course on the lactate matters over time and following that, listening to one video on your Institute of Applied Meta Theory site with Dr. Michael Mascolow, I'm wondering more about what you're pointing to as meta theories and their place in what you call big picture. And there's a connection that Sandy is seeing where she says, I've been looking for answers in linguistics and social aspects of autism deafness health surgeries for something that tells me the how slash why of slow or delayed but not stopped developmental growth or arrested development.

31:58So without pinning it to just this what or why am I hearing it here in your course and the comments by Michael Muscola and what in the theory of theories am I seeing? So in short how does meta theory show up in small life, big picture places? Wow. Yeah. Well, gosh, there's a lot there. So thanks. So I guess, yeah, maybe the first thing I would say is some of this goes back to what Ethan and I were talking about at the top of the conversation around hopefully understanding how meta theory is deeply grounded in the live day to day that we're always doing a version of trying to see the big picture.

32:40You know, we're we're trying to orient ourselves to ultimate conditions in some in some profound way. And I think when we do that and it sort of works and it resonates with us, then we feel homed in the universe. We feel like the the macrocosm and our microcosm are in some deep relationship. And we feel if not, you know, one with the universe and at least at home in it that that And I think also, in particular, the ways that we're looking at these big picture models using big history and complexification narratives do more than that in terms of putting the human in a very important place in this big story, not in a kind of self -aggrandizing, anthropocentric sort of way, but to also not shy away from the fact that we occupy a very unique position in this complexifying arc of the universe.

33:30And so that actually then itself comes with a sense of real responsibility on the one hand, but also I think a sense that becomes difficult to denigrate your own sense of meaning in the world. That you feel like, oh, wow, yeah, I'm given this incredible opportunity to do something. What do I make of that, right? And so with millions of people these days waking up every day thinking, oh, why should I even get out of bed? Nothing really matters. I'm just this and blah, blah, blah. You know, this is a very different way of thinking about what the human is. And so when we have a big picture map, when we have a better understanding of reality, what it's been, where it's going and how we fit into that, I think that that can really deeply ground us in a sense of meaning and purpose.

34:19And in that sense, it's very akin to, again, like worldviews and religious systems because they're doing this in their own way. You know, I was having a conversation last night, every religion is itself kind of a meta theory, right? It's a big picture map of reality that helps situate you in the world and helps you make sense of it. And so, you know, the need now is just to recognize that that process is ongoing, that the more we learn, the more we need to keep updating those maps, the more we learn, the more we need to keep relating knowledge from different fields across those maps so that we don't get siloed or out of touch with all the new things that have come into our awareness in the past 50 to 100 years.

35:00So that's kind of the big picture meta theory aspect. And then you talked about a couple other things in terms of development there. I'd want to talk to you more and hear a little bit more of that story and kind of what you're surfacing because I'm just going from what I heard. I have a sense of it, but it sounds like There's a lot there. But you mentioned sort of linguistics and deafness and the role in the sense that language plays in development or maybe even arresting development, if I was hearing that right. So just some quick thoughts on that. I mean, that's a very interesting and fascinating thing and really important for a lot of reasons, including, yeah, how do we, you know, how do we approach development for, you know, people with all sorts of abilities or disabilities?

35:46Or how is this something that people can engage in across the whole multimodal set of capacities of what it means to be human and not sort of reduce this to one thing? All those are really important questions. in the developmental models that I use that relate to things like hierarchical complexity and particularly the electrical score, electrical scale, which we'll be looking at in the course and be using to help kind of navigate our maps of these different meaning systems. That is rooted in sort of linguistic analysis or language use, these kinds of things. And so that's how it's tracking kind of the complexification of concepts as people are communicating them using their own words.

36:31So obviously you could appreciate that if there's some kind of inhibition there or a limit or something that's blocking linguistic development, that that might have relationships to conceptual development more broadly. There's a way in which you could kind of see how the ideas that we're thinking are very much influenced by the kinds of conversations we can have, the books we can read, the way that we're floating in our kind of linguistic worlds, right? So that very much informs kind of how we're able to continue expanding our horizons of learning and knowledge. So all sorts of learning disabilities from dyslexia to aphasia to whatever can impact that in various ways.

37:15I don't think that there's anything directly linear there. And in fact, some of the most brilliant complexity theorists that I know have really advanced dyslexia. And so I also think that that's really interesting how our disabilities can be the very means by which we find new kinds of insights that actually maybe our broader society was missing. And this is true of a couple of really important thinkers in this field. So we get an insight through a different channel maybe than because we're otherwise abled. So those are interesting elements to this. But yeah, I mean, this could then very quickly get into the weeds and become a really dense theoretical conversation and conversation about developmental models and the metrics we use and how they're assessed and these sorts of things.

38:02And be happy to have those kinds of conversations in the course. But that's kind of the most I could offer here in this context based on at least what I heard. But maybe we can talk more about that. I was just about to say, is he still here? He's coming back. Ethan is... There he is. I'm stuck outside the room. Oh, no. Well, good timing. I was just kind of rounding out my response to that, which admittedly was a bit incomplete. But that's hopefully directly addressed. And yeah, I would like to continue that line of conversation at some point. But yeah. Awesome. Could you give me a quick download of what that was?

38:46Yeah, I would say, I mean, as I was interpreting it from what I heard, one kind of readdressing this issue of meta theory and where does this really connect to our lives and, you know, and kind of the stuff we were talking about at the outset. And then this question of linguistics and language and how that relates to development or arrested development just kind of touched on that. So and again, doing my best to interpret what I heard as the core of the question there. And so hopefully that at least began to address it. But these are really big topics too. And of course, things will be continually touching on and deepening into in the full course that we'll be doing.

39:22So if these are interesting topics, then we'll see you there. I mean, yes. And I think this is, so just to, not to kind of like hog this, but I want to like jump a little bit and see whether we can open up another thread here a little bit, which is what is your take on the capacity to hold complexity? Especially when you talk about sort of like developmentally, how can we play a role in as educators or as to a certain degree influences, how do we help to expand the capacity for holding that complexity? Because I think I've encountered multiple instances of people who have been actively discouraged from approaching any degree of complexity.

40:18And it's, you know, been demonized, like, you know, this kind of thing of like, don't think about it too much. And I push back on that. I go, no, think more, but think better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How do we, how do we do that? Yeah. I think that, oh, you're hitting on something that, yeah, I've also seen. And, uh, I just saw a conversation with a spiritual thinker named Tim Freak, who is basically saying the exact same thing. And I totally agree that there's often this sense out there of like, oh, the mind is the enemy, right? That there's a, oh, if you get lost in your thoughts, then this is the problem.

40:49And so what you really need to do is, is get rid of your thoughts and then you'll experience some enlightened insight. And there's certainly a partial truth there, right? Like, um, this is what meditation is great at doing is being able to still the thinking mind and then get in touch with this, the, this, the thisness and the suchness of reality. Um, and, uh, and of course this leads into really interesting questions around the relationship of meditation to contemplation and these kinds of things. But, um, but I guess what I would say is that, that, you know, there is an element to take seriously there of exploring, uh, trying to get out of certain thought traps that just might circulate in your head, but aren't necessarily, you know, good thinking to use that phrase, like thinking better, what does thinking better look like?

41:32So, yeah, I think, you know, being able to, to, to use thinking in a sense as a tool that does certain things very well, but then, you know, also appreciate that there are other, other ways of engaging with reality that do often require, you know, stilling the mind or just being immediately present.

41:53All Yeah, thinking and deepening into the understanding of reality in a conceptual way, I think is very much our unique inheritance as a species in a way that because we're using symbolic information in a way that is very, you know, seems idiosyncratic relative to other species that we know of, at least here on Earth. and we see the power of what that's able to do and how much more of reality that's able to disclose to us, we shouldn't kind of discard that kind of birthright in a sense. That's something deeply important to what we have to offer as sapient beings. And I mean, in terms of how we engage that as people online and influencers and people with these kinds of platforms and things, you know to be honest one of the hardest things for me isn't necessarily trying to encourage complexity it's really trying to speak with you know without unnecessary complexity I think this is one of the biggest challenges one of the things for me that is very much kind of a growing edge is like how can I just you know eschew you know even when I try to talk about this right I say I I used the word issue.

43:04You know, how can I let go of some of the big words? Yeah, the jargon, you know, all this stuff. It's a huge challenge, right? Because I use this analogy recently that I think works well. I don't know if you've ever played the game catchphrase, but you've got this thing and you've got it gives you a word and then you've got teammates and you have to describe the word or the phrase that you're looking at without using that word, right? Or in some cases, or maybe it's a different game, there actually, there's a whole list of other words that you're also not allowed to use. And so you've got to, you've got to like circumambulate the thing that you're actually trying to say by means of, and it's very hard.

43:44Otherwise that's, it wouldn't be a game that has a level of difficulty. And I feel a version of this when, you know, when trying to take some ideas that maybe I've learned through certain language, certain, uh, certain kinds of, uh, conceptual tools or jargon or something that that's been the way that that's landed. That's how my cognitive toolkit has kind of arranged itself relative to that insight. And now I've got to be like, Hmm, but how do I communicate that without using? Yeah, this and that. Okay. And it's very hard. Um, but I think we need to get better at that. Uh, uh, because you know, it's, um, it's sorely needed and it's, and being able to speak in a kind of simplex sort of way, right?

44:25Where you've got a simplicity on the other side of complexity, I think is what we all need to get better at in these spaces. Particularly if we feel like there's hard won wisdom in exploring these kinds of things, and then how does that get shared in a way that can be more effective, I think is a huge challenge. Yeah, I think you're pointing to a principle from integral theory, which is to transcend and include. That it's not enough to just have the big ideas, but they also have to be able to be translated down such that it can be offered, you know, and bring other people up as well. And then we get the loop that's happening.

45:05So in the interest of doing that, Ben, I'm going to ask you to see, keep your eye out for if there are any questions from the chat that you could sort of like post up for us here. And then we can take some questions from the live chat. Unfortunately, from my time ducked out of the studio, I've lost all of the public chat. So if you happen to see anything that catches your eye, Brendan, I believe you should be able to kind of like poke that as well or you can raise it. And then for those of you who are in the studio on Riverside, if you're on your computer, you should have a button at the bottom that says something like click to call in live.

45:49There's a live call in button. So if you would like to do that, we can do it kind of like an old talk show. We can just like call in and then you can ask your question live. And I'm sure Brandon will be more than happy to receive you. I know I would. So anything there for us, Ben? Let me address something. Somethingman200 asked, How are we going to create communities of wisdom when everything is behind a paywall? I'm actually very sympathetic to that. This is a polarity of its own terms. But I think one of those ways of navigating the integrity issue is being able to assess when is someone doing something for the money and when are they doing it with integrity, but doing things requires those financial resources in order to do.

46:36That's a big thing to navigate. But I do think that we could also, this is such a challenge for a lot of folks in this kind of corner because, you know, finances can be very limited and yet people are driven by their passion and their kind of, you know, philosophical integrity to explore these things and people are finding that stuff of value. But, you know, then there is a sense of sort of, you know, you're offering all that for free and that is what you're taking your time with. And so at a certain point, do we honor that and say, hey, thank you for the work that you're doing and pay people for that?

47:09There's another model, of course, it goes back to, you know, Socrates versus the pre-Socratics, right? Who was always like, look, I didn't I'm not taking any money. You know, I've actually heard a couple of times people are like, oh, man, I'd love to take this course, but it's six hundred dollars. And like, I'm, again, very sympathetic to that. So I think that's something that we can be mindful of as we try to engage these ideas, put these ideas out into the world is how can we make this more broadly accessible in a way that maintains sustainability with what goes into everything. I mean, the work that goes into producing various things requires, yeah, keeping that all going.

47:44But yeah, I think we need to find a balance there that people feel comfortable with. And and sometimes we can do that easy and just say, like, hey, here's a free thing and put that out. And, you know, I mean, a work like the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis series is amazing. It's this 50 lecture thing that's just out there and it's got, you know, and it's like, what an incredible offering. So anyway, I would say it's never there's not like an answer to that question. But I think that we should always keep that in mind of, you know, of of of trying to be accessible, not just in terms of complexity, but also in terms of resources and the things that relate to that.

48:22And while also being sensitive to all the polarities that go into the dynamics of that stuff. But anyway, I just wanted to highlight that because I think the more transparent and self-reflexive we can be around all of that, you know, the better. But that was something that stuck out for me. No, that's well pointed because this is in the project that we're doing, right? Like you are offering a course on the lectern. It's not for free as much as I would like it to be. But at the same time, also, the way that it's built is such that we have over time lowering the barrier of entry for folks. I think all of the last year's courses, I think are now much cheaper.

49:09I think they're only$300 from what it was when they just came out. It's like$450 for self-study. Now it's$300. So that there is a way that we can keep the lights on. At the same time, also with the eye forward to go like, hey, let more folks in the door. And this is a conversation that we're always having all the time. I think what's really tricky about it is, and I find this very difficult to manage, you know, on sort of like the back end of things, obviously, because I am on the front end talking to you, but I am also on the back end working on all this stuff. And I came from the arts, where it's like, we don't have any money, right?

49:45At the same time, wanting to get people in, and there's this notion of like, wow, you know, what comes to mind is Shakespeare in the public, at the public theater in New York, right? It's like$5 a ticket, It was even lower than that. Now it's free, right? It's always been free. So that notion is not just of like financial value, but also of like perceived value, but also applicable value, right? Like how does it transfer across not just the platform, but into somebody else's life? And the ways in which I'm hearing implicit in that question is like, if the information is good, why are we gatekeeping it in some way behind the paywall?

50:24And that's a deep ethical question, which if I had an answer for, I wouldn't be in the position that I'm in. I'm here trying to figure out what the best way to do this is. Sure. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. No, totally. And I appreciate, you know, all those moves that you're describing. And I've always really appreciated the Verveke Foundation and John and you and everyone for that integrity of, you know, doing this work and being, yeah, making this stuff available. and and and always I mean, John, in particular, being very self-reflexive on on his role and and and all this stuff. So I think I think all that's there.

51:04And, you know, I think also for the sheer quality of these kinds of materials, actually, that's, you know, pretty, pretty affordable in terms of when you compare that to some of the other things out there. But yeah, it's an ongoing thing, you know, to to be navigating. And I applaud. I applaud you and, And, you know, everyone else doing this work for doing that very well. But it's very different from, let's say, a college education right now. I know prices are insane. But yeah, I see something in the chat here. Hello, do you take questions on the scripture from this chat? I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I'd be very happy to explore anything related to, you know, scriptural things.

51:48One of the things that the course will be doing is looking at God and the different ways that God has been depicted and understood across human history. Of course, we're looking at the evolution of meaning and the sacred. And so how do our understandings of the most important, the grandest, most, you know, our issues of ultimate concern, how do those transform as thought has changed, developed and entered new contexts? And so one of the things I'll be doing in the course is looking at biblical scriptures as well as other traditions and religious canons, but with a particular kind of focus on the Judeo-Christian kind of scriptural tradition to look at, even in those different periods across history, how the conceptions of God have shifted potentially.

52:42And so anyway, so if anyone has any questions around that, I'd be happy to talk about that as well. Actually, Brenda, I want to double click on that a little bit. I'm a little bit shy, but I, you know, if you don't want to answer the question, you know, you don't have to. But I'm kind of curious from doing the work that you're doing at such a big picture level, how has that shifted your relationship to the sacred or your relationship to God? Like, yeah, well, I guess it depends on where you start. I mean, and this will be, there will be a, an autobiographical element, um, certainly to, to the course, because my interest in this comes through my personal engagement with it, um, in my own transformations of relating to God and the divine and the sacred.

53:32Um, so yeah, depending on where you start that story, you know, there've been a number of punctuated sort of transformations and shifts, some, you know, deepening in relationship to some losing relationship, uh, some coming back, some deepening again in different ways and all that. Um, so it is, it's a spiritual journey in that sense. Uh, and I mean, you know, it's hard at this point to differentiate this, this work from my life, you know, from my spiritual journey in a sense, right? Which I guess is a good thing in the sense that, you know, kind of what we were talking about a second ago, if a lot of the goal is to try to share with others, whatever, you know, insights or experience someone might have as they've moved along their journey.

54:22That's kind of what this is for me is sort of like, this is kind of preoccupied me for 37 years. Well, you know, At least until I started being able to think and talk and stuff. But that might sound like I'm not getting to the intimate vulnerability of your question, which I'm also willing to address. I would say, you know, like right now, how would I answer this? I mean, I have a spiritual connection. I have a spiritual life that relates to the divine. Um, I, I meditate, I pray, I, I relate to the divine. Um, I relate to God. Uh, and for me though, there's a lot of, I hesitate to use the word complexity, but a lot of, um, a lot of something there.

55:14It's, it's not an easy thing either. Uh, it's, you know, it's sort of like, there's an element of on the one hand, sometimes feeling like I'm just talking to myself, but maybe that's God. or I'm talking to something that doesn't reply back, or maybe it does reply back, but not in words or, Hey, wait a second. And then I look at my life and I'm like, how on earth can I possibly deny a kind of divine intervention into, you know, the arc of my existence. And then other times, you know, um, feeling like, yeah, 50, 50, you know? So I think that, um, there's, there's a way of, at least for me in my current relationship to this, what I'm interested in is precisely those modes of relating to the divine that somehow are able to really fold in a lot of what might otherwise or previously felt like doubt or skepticism or uncertainty or confusion and actually read those as part of the structure of faith itself, part of the structure of even reality itself, right?

56:21You know, if in the past, there was a sense of certainty of, oh, I've got it. Like, I've had this experience. And I know that this is the case, no matter what, I can always go back to that. And I know that XYZ, right? Like, I think we might feel like that is what we're searching for. But actually, I think a lot of this, the journey leads us to kind of the opposite. It leads us more to, wow, well, this and this over here and and this too, and I'm not quite sure how to put all those things together, but I'm going to sit with the complexity of it. I'm going to sit with the nuance and I'm not going to collapse this.

56:54And the very desire for certainty itself might open up into a realization that like, oh, maybe a more advanced or more developed relational aspect to the faith journey isn't looking for certainty. It's looking for something else. And it's looking for a different way of being and relating to reality, to relating to the divine. Um, and, and I think that that does actually start to, to converge towards more non-dual, uh, considerations of reality, right? That it's sort of like, oh, it's not just that, you know, ah, I found the absolute truth. It's like, oh, there is this and there's this, not this, and somehow maybe they're both mutually re-informing and, and, and that this isn't just, I don't get it.

57:41It's that, oh, I get it. It's like this and it's like this, right? Right. It's not one or not two. It's this it's this other thing. And so. So I wonder if a lot of the spiritual journey leads more into a a more multifarious kind of variegated tapestry of of these sorts of things that. And I think that that's important because if we understand the spiritual journey to be seeking some kind of ultimate knowledge, ultimate, absolute wisdom, you get it, enlightenment, you've done it, there it is, no question, then we might be, one, setting ourselves up for disappointment. And actually, two, when we do get closer to that, we might not even realize it because we're like, well, I'm not feeling this.

58:26I'm feeling this other thing. But it's like, oh, no, but that's good. That means that you're moving closer. Anyway, there's a lot more I could say to that. But that's kind of where I sit with a lot of this right now. And I think that there's something valuable of being able to sit with that kind of relationality. In normal English, please. Anyway, I'm sorry. Yeah, what did you say? In normal English, please? Yeah. This is what I mean. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, maybe that didn't make sense. So, you know, this, because what I'm hearing in that is like there is a, you're experiencing a kind of diversity in the different ways that God can show up.

59:03Sure. And, well, is that a fair capitulation? Yeah, no, it's, I mean, and there's a lot you can unpack there. Both, I would say yes, one way of that is that over the lifespan, you can experience different ways of God showing up. And then you can think about, well, is that God showing up in different ways? Or is this also me conceiving of God in different ways? Does God show up in terms of how I conceive of God in different ways? Meaning like, this is something we'll be getting into the course, looking at models like Fowler's faith development theory, right? Where, you know, if you're eight or nine or 10 years old and your conception of God is he's the old bearded white man on the throne and everything, you can have a kind of, you know, a divine relationship to that figure.

59:46Um, and, and that can be experienced now, is that the reality? Um, it's something that you can, you can, that can mediate your relationship to the divine in a way that can be powerful and efficacious. Um, but then maybe you move into a more individuative, reflective style faith. And now God's more theoretical, more abstract, you know, more, not something you can kind of have an easy image of, but something you have to, you know, relate to in your mind using more abstract immaterial categories. This also can be a way that God shows up, but it's also a way that, you know, it's a different God image that can mediate your relationship to the divine.

1:00:23Now, what I've just been describing is its own kind of God image, which is, I would say, yeah, one that, one that is multi-perspective, Inactival, in some ways, deeply non-dual. One that is multi-espectual. Multi-espectual. One that carries in it seeming paradoxes and contradictions. One that is deeply relational, but not necessarily in a kind of more direct kind of, oh, like I relate to my father. You know, it's more like, oh, how do I relate to reality? How do I relate to myself? What is the first person aspect of God? What's the third person or second person? So anyway, there's a lot to that in the sense of God being experienced in different ways.

1:01:05But then, you know, yeah, there's just the, that what I mean by sitting with the field of a relationship to divinity can be all sorts of things simultaneously, right? And sometimes that feels like a deep sense of connection. Sometimes it feels like alienation. And yeah. Yeah. Um, so it is hard to put into words, let alone normal English. Um, but, uh, but I think that there's something really, there's something actually really valuable there that I'm trying to communicate that, um, that I think might be a little bit different, I guess is what I'm saying from how we sometimes think about the attainments of a spiritual journey or something, right?

1:01:51Um, there's something about the dark night of the soul, right? That the mystics experienced that, and various ways you can interpret that sort of thing. There's something about the way that, you know, a mother Teresa experienced her faith, which was mostly a dark night of the soul or mostly just a, a, an absence of God. Right. Um, that's, there's something interesting there. There's, there's a way that Albert Schweitzer, when he talked about his relationship to the divine, where it's a sort of like, what do you do on the other side of the myths don't work anymore, you know, and then what's the ethical call and, you know, how do you give yourself to something as radically as Jesus did.

1:02:28And yet you maybe don't even have a Christology in any classical theological sense, right? There's all sorts of rather nuanced ways that when you go deep into these traditions and you go deep into a relationship with God, that, yeah, there's both a moving towards and a receding away from, and maybe the receding away from is a moving towards. And yeah. Well, it's interesting to name it that way. I mean, just to sort of reveal myself a little bit, you know and so what's on the back of that question it's like I've gone through recently like a kind of reconfiguration of that relationship as well and when I say recently I mean in recent years and I think my relationship to religion has become less of an agent to a figure right or one agent to another and it's kind of bizarre but it's kind of like I it's one more of inhabitation so there's less of the of the receding and and the advancing right or it's more like there's a there's a intimate kind of at-homeless or being in the world right um where it's almost like oh i i kind of live in the temple yeah i sometimes get that feeling um yeah and then just to extend it a little bit like the uh we're talking about the disclosure of of reality over time and you know it's like the temple is filled with birds.

1:03:54But I often use this thought experiment in my workshops or this metaphor to be specific. So if I showed you a holographic bird that was hyper realistic, it's interactive, it chirps at you, it looks super real, it's iridescent everything and as one is wont to do with a cute bird you want to go and touch it and then you touch it, your hand passes right through it. Something very profound happens in that moment, which is that it's revealed that it is not a real bird, but it is a very real hologram. And both of those are true at the same time. And that hinge point is that contact, that leaning in of like the, oh my God, from home, which can be literally a disillusionment.

1:04:43but in that there's also a disclosure of like ah oh i was fooled oh i'm foolable oh holograms are real they are this real huh yeah and so when i talk about you know living in a temple it's like some of the this popular by birds some of which are holograms and some of which are not and i won't know until i go and touch them yeah and that's that call to contact yeah so that's a simpler way maybe no that brings up a lot of things for me what one one thing what maybe if I can keep them all in order, I can go through these. But, um, one thing there is, uh, something that I think is interesting is the way that historically there have been metaphorical ways of speaking about the divine life, the relationship to the divine.

1:05:28However, we want to think about this kind of coming into contact with the deep ground of being and all that. Right. And, uh, and there might've been ways that people have communicated this, which as we've been getting at is very hard to communicate with language. Um, uh, and, and also has a lot of diversity to it. And, and also we're not always sure if one person experiences even the same kind of experience as another person, et cetera, like even just, yeah, talking about experiencing red is a hard thing to do, let alone, you know, trying to relate to, you know, divinity. But, um, but then, you know, across time, people have used metaphors to try to bridge that divide and use poetry and use symbol and these kinds of things.

1:06:08But then there's a way in which, while this can be really helpful, some people might take the metaphor very literally, right? It's sort of like, and then it sounds very grand, you know, like I could say, well, my relationship to the divine, you used like a temple with holographic birds. I mean, that's, that's badass, right? Or I could say something like, you know, well, it's like, you eventually see the tree and the tree is both glowing and it's also not glowing. And, and you see the, the, the incredible eternity of what that particular thing is. And you also see that it's just one particular tree and you know and this strikes you or something right and then so then but then people oh okay i gotta look out for the tree thing you know like that's that's the thing when i see that the tree is both glowing and it's not glowing then i'll know that i've i've done the thing and they don't necessarily appreciate that this is just one metaphor among many many other possibilities to communicate something that isn't about and i actually think that a lot of our um you know different uh paths or maps that we've been handed from traditions are operating in these kinds of registers that we tend to overly reify and then think, oh, these are signposts to getting it.

1:07:11When in fact, they're, they're really more like, you know, it's the finger pointing at the moon. Um, and so, or even that example, right? Oh, but there is a moon, right? Well, it's like, well, actually, but the moon here is, you know, a concept and metaphor. So, so I think that there's an interesting thing there.

1:07:29We've made a case for people taking up bird watching as a spiritual exercise. Hey, I love it. Yeah. You go, you see the tree and then also the bird and do it at night and then point at the moon. Yep. Back to the old augury even, you know? So I guess I think, I think there's something there though, because as you do follow along and this gets back to what you're talking about at the beginning with the mentor trying to communicate something and being like, well, no, that's not it. You know, if you can sit with this spiritual journey and you're on this path and you're like, you know, I think, I don't know, I've had examples like this, both in secular and, and, you know, religious context where you go to someone, you're like, oh, you know, like, for example, I don't know, I was meditating and I saw the blue disc.

1:08:10Does that mean anything? And, you know, it's like, maybe, maybe not, you know, or, you know, but similarly, you go to your academic advisor and you're like, oh, so it's like this, you know, and it's like dreams aren't actually anything. And because they're, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know about that. And again, if you just jump ship and you're like, I just washed my hands of this, there's too much here, then you're just going to kind of end. But if you commit to a lifelong journey of allowing yourself to like, no, I thought that was it, but that's not it. And you keep going and you keep, and then things happen.

1:08:40And then you have these experiences where you're like, well, that was something. And I don't know how to relate that to this other thing, but that was definitely a thing there. Anyway, you know, it's, it's, I also think that we need, I'm going to put that as a quote on the sales page, Brendan, things happen. Brendan Graham Dempsey. Yeah, there you go. Hey, no jargon there, right? That's practically Zen level, just, you know, immediate, that's, that's colonic. Um, so I think that there's a value in, in, in getting really to the, uh, to the, to the lived experience of this also like metaphors and analogies can be really helpful, but also like trying to be very specific about our own experiences is also really powerful.

1:09:28I did a three episode long, maybe there's even four at this point, a series with Lehman Pascal, just kind of getting into, he's a metamodern spirituality thinker, if people aren't familiar with him and does a lot of work in integrative spaces and, you know, really interested in neo-shamanics and whatnot. But, you know, we talked about his condition, his experience of reality, his phenomenology after a life of intense, you know, internal spiritual practices and what the kinds of fruits of those are. But rather than leaning on traditional images or metaphors, you know, just like doing deep phenomenological interpersonal communication of like, well, it's kind of like this or it's kind of like this or I don't know.

1:10:08And, you know, you try to express these things in ways that maybe haven't been given expression before. And I think if we do that, we can start to expand the vocabulary of these things. And that makes it both one more accessible, more, you know, more open in its and it makes it more real. It makes it like, oh, it's not just this one thing. It's all these things and none of them. And it also makes it. Yeah, I think more down to earth. Right. It's not like, well, I saw the golden ring and then the aura of, you know, Pantanjali. And then I ascended into realm four. And then, you know, it's like it's not maybe like that.

1:10:45Maybe it's. Yeah, I think you know what I'm saying. And so anyway. Well, there's an important point there, which is that the ways in which people, like each person experiences the divine, right, or has a relationship with the sacred is actually almost a doorway for us to help us experience what that might be. Yeah. We engulf them, we get an experience of that. And it helps increase vocabulary, not in a semantic or conceptual sense, right, not just, but also like an experiential sense. It opens up a doorway. way. And if I may, if I may, real quick, before we go to the next question, this is also meta theory, right?

1:11:21I think if people can appreciate this, this is actually really important, right? Because like, let's say you've, you talked to person A and they're like, my experience of the divine was a deep centered equanimity of total stillness and bliss. It's like, okay, that's a datum. And then you talk to person B, my experience of the divine was the glowing face of Christ, you know, who appeared to me at night and told me, you know, that I am love in the way. Okay, That's datum B, right? So, and then you have to need to map these things, right? And you're like, well, how does, what's going on here? We don't want to just blow open this kind of, it's a chaos of anything's possible, I guess, you know, because if there's a reality there, then it's coming through and it might come through in all sorts of ways.

1:12:00But we can also start to do some work to try to build those bridges and to try to build maps of like, hey, you know, and integral theory does this in its own way. And I think, you know, using neuroscience to do it is another way. And, you know, but that's what metatheory is also trying to get at is sort of what is reality? What are the data? How do we sync them up? How do we relate them so that we have a better understanding of what's going on here? And I think that that can be really valuable. So anyway, that's another pitch for metatheory. Well, here's a thought in that, which is a question from Green Man All Right.

1:12:37Brendan, would you consider yourself a perennialist? Um, depending on what one meant by that, uh, maybe I think what I'd say is, uh, um, a couple things. One, I'm really attracted to and find very compelling dynamic forms of spirituality and faith. And so I'm conversely then more allergic to ancient perennial static forms. Like this is the truth and it's always been the truth. and I'm not saying that there isn't a truth that and there isn't a truth that's always been the truth I'm just saying that forms of perennialism as they tend to be discussed often kind of draw a container of like here are the insights this is the nature of reality it was this way from the beginning it'll be this way at the end hence the perennial thing and you just gotta you just gotta get that kind of you know doctrine in your head and then and then this is one way I'm there's many ways of holding perennialism, let's say.

1:13:40And then there are other kinds of neo-perennialism that I think bring in a more dynamic element, right? Where we actually see, wait, things have been dynamic over time and they've changed. Like, what does it mean, you know, that emergence is real in existence, that there are new emergent levels that have come into being over time? What does it mean that, you know, there's chaos in the kind of chaos systems or complexity systems, that there's non-predictability, that there's all these things, right? That there's evolution, So there's deep processual evolutionary unfolding novelty in existence. And I want to take that very seriously.

1:14:16And I get very energized by spiritualities that can embrace and celebrate and really sink their teeth into that kind of dynamism. And to the degree that a perennial philosophy or wisdom is doing something other than that, there's a tension that I'll feel with that. Now, that being said, I'm certainly up to and supportive of ways of finding deep structures of reality that have an ancient, longstanding causal impact on what exists. And there are different ways that that can look, too. I mean, you could even say gravity has a perennialist element, right? Presumably it was there in the beginning and it's here today.

1:14:56Are there spiritual elements or other kinds of higher level emergent phenomena that have a kind of perennialist, you know, causal influence in the same sort of way? Very open to that. um and so that's one way into the question from sort of a broad view then there are other specifics around i think the kinds of specific claims that perennialism makes and um in in in general senses i'm i'm very comfortable with a lot of these i think that there's but i'm also very interested in ways that we can um naturalize this and and make them tractable in a way that if this is real then um then can we study it can we measure it can we can we learn more about it in a way that we can understand the causal dynamics better.

1:15:38Um, there's a learning process there that we could probably get better at in terms of understanding whatever the perennial truths of reality are. Um, and yeah, and then, and then you get into the hyper specifics around, you know, are there souls moving in perennial cycles of development over time and reincarnation and all that? And, um, you know, and I'm, I'm, I'm open to any number of things. I have my own kind of pet metaphysical system that I say, this basically seems like the way that reality seems to be working. And, and I don't have evidence for a lot of it, but I have, you know, you know, circumstantial evidence for enough of it.

1:16:11And I'm comfortable with that. And then I think you just have to own with the appropriate agnosticism, the things that require the appropriate agnosticism and with a kind of conviction, the things that merit the kind of conviction. Um, so I don't know, I'm being a little dodgy there. And so then the next step would be, well, let's have a conversation about the specifics and then talk about what you really mean by perennialism and And what aspects of it might I affirm or not? And why? And all that stuff. And that's a more interesting conversation to get into on that set. But that's just sort of an overview.

1:16:42Well, I think the way that you've answered that question is in a non-perennialistic way. Yeah? Have I revealed myself? Well, I mean, you're exemplifying the exact kind of thing that you were talking about with just staying on the path, right? So if you had just gone, you know, yeah, because this, then I would say, okay, well, you're a perennialist, right? Because that's the point. Is that sense of the getting off the bandwagon or the putting that down, right? That is something like the affordance of that. But the continual kind of questioning of like, okay, sure, this information is potentially partial, right?

1:17:22potentially perennial yeah yeah it just so happens that in the duration of your life that hasn't been um that hasn't fallen off or it's kept you on the track then well do you know if it's a perennial pattern don't know but you didn't live long enough to find out that it wasn't so yeah yeah well and also i mean again you can also build in um uh let's say uh i know let's say there was an experience someone had a near-death experience right and then And wow, I died and then I went to this place and blah, blah, blah. And then I came back and, whoa, this really matches what I interpret in the perennial tradition.

1:18:01Now, there's still multiple ways you can hold that experience, right? You can say, I'm a perennialist now. I've had the experience and now I know that that's the way it is. Or you could say, well, this was my experience and it seemed that whatever occurred in that space, if that has any metaphysical reality beyond what was going on in my brain at the time, physiologically speaking, that that would accord with certain perennialist descriptions of the way that reality works. And so that's a very viable interpretive option. You know what I mean? Like you can actually say all of that without then making this kind of full on.

1:18:34It is this way. Now, that might be viewed by someone as a dodge or a noncommittal kind of agnosticism. But again, coming back to that non-dual thing that we're talking about earlier, it's like maybe that's the way it works. Like, right, like maybe fundamentally, it is a kind of both and-ness. And if we can get more comfortable with that, then we don't have to be dogmatic about this. Yes, I'm a perennialist. It's like, you know, there's a different thing that is kind of in how we hold these things that I'm very interested in. Yeah, well, it's not that. It's something like saying that the way that we hear things cannot possibly be constrained only to just because somebody says a thing doesn't make it true.

1:19:21It's like I can make a claim about ontology without saying that this is the way it is. I can offer that as an idea. I can offer that as a proposal. in that middle place or something, it still leaves room to test it, to check it, to open up a conversation about it, to get on the path and figure out, well, is it? And I think, sort of answering the question that I asked earlier, something I'm concerned about within the cultural milieu is that when we hear somebody say something, we take that to necessarily be true. Yeah. Or that they think that that is true. Yeah. Both are. or probably both, you know, and that gets us into a lot of issues.

1:20:07Yeah. And again, this gets also back to the integrity question we were talking about earlier. You know, I'm really attracted to thinkers who will put on the table a number of options, right? And we'll try to make the case for one thing, but they're not trying to sell you something. And I don't even mean that literally though, of course, you know, there's the literal element too, which goes back to the other part of the conversation. But I mean, like, here's the truth. Let me tell you, just get it. Right. Um, so, so there's always a wariness, a kind of epistemological, um, dubiousness that enters in precisely in relationship to the degree that someone's trying to sell me on an idea set.

1:20:45Um, and I think that that kind of skepticism, uh, is a good thing. Um, and it's actually not even skepticism to some degree. It's a, it's a tell it's sort of like, um, now that being said, I'm not arguing that like, we should all just become radical agnostics about everything or that there's no truth or that we shouldn't make certain kinds of commitments i'm just saying that um particularly when it does come to these big picture things and and and grand narratives and um and uh ways of relating to reality that are also often you know require a kind of metaphysical leap of faith to some degree that this can help us adjudicate between different styles and different approaches.

1:21:28And I personally find a lot of power in the perspectives that will say, well, it seemed like I saw this. And, you know, you can take that one of three ways, you know. It's sort of like, you know, when you raise kids, you give them an option, right? It's sort of like, all right. You're like, instead of just saying, don't do that anymore, come over here. You say, well, you can do that for another 20 seconds and then come over here or, you know, OK, you can have either this vegetable or this vegetable. It's your choice. Right. And so having the choice. I mean, there's there's but I'm I'm kind of speaking tongue in cheek there.

1:22:02But I mean, giving giving an option is actually genuinely, I think it I guess the connection there is that there's still like you're still eating vegetables. Right. But you don't necessarily appreciate that. The deeper wisdom is that you're exploring options. Right. That you are that you're not closing in on something within with it, with an absoluteness, because as soon as you do that, you've kind of settled on something and you've kind of then committed to something that will continue to not allow you to be open to the next expansion of the horizon to to a greater level. So, yeah, I mean, the more I think that you kind of lean into this spiritual journey element, the more I think a comfortability with many interpretive options seems to be a sweet space to become more comfortable in, right?

1:22:54Of sort of, yeah. So, anyway.

1:23:00Do you want to finish that sentence? Because that's an amazing sentence to end on. I feel like, well, maybe I'm kind of repeating myself at this point, but I'll probably keep repeating it because it's worth repeating. But, but, but, yeah, the takeaway there is the pluralism isn't necessarily a lack of an answer. The pluralism might be the very answer because the conditions of existence are such that to decide would go against the spirit of the truth, right? To assert radical conviction, right? You could even say, I had an experience that felt more real than real. And, you know, it certainly seemed like that's ultimate reality, you know?

1:23:48And a lot of what I'm saying, you know, I'm deeply influenced by working with Lehman Pascal and his metaphysics of adjacency and his non-dual thought. I think it deeply resonates with my own interpretations as someone who at this point in my life has been in a wide array of different religious and spiritual contexts. And I've seen any number of dogmatisms, you know, out there ideas, kind of, you know, whoa, wooey kind of spiritualism. And, you know, there's a whole wealth of stuff that kind of exists out in that space. And I think some people feel like in order to like really experience the depths of the spiritual life, they need to just jump into that.

1:24:28And actually, I think that there's this other move of like noting all of that and seeing, well, OK, well, yeah, maybe, you know, that's the case. But and maybe even the things that you have direct experience with mean what they seem to mean metaphysically. Uh, but just holding that in a broader interpretive set of options, um, is more true to the experience. It's more true to the reality. It's more true to the epistemic nature of our relationship to reality. And don't we want to be in more alignment with the more true, the more real. Um, but maybe what that looks like is, is a, is a, a, a, in a certain kind of lack of closure that if you can identify people deeply comfortable with that, uh, then, uh, that's a good sign.

1:25:13amazing i think that's that's probably the best way to end thanks brendan for your time this has been amazing to everybody else um who's watching uh brendan's course is available on the lectern it's called matters over time um and it will be uh starting july 9th i believe well jones on my end of the my end of the world i think it's july 10th for me so figure out what part of the world you later on and then so yeah thank you all very very much please head over to the lectern website um and then uh we'll see you again soon my dear friend it's always such a joy to speak to you thank you very much good sir thank you appreciate it godspeed

1:26:11banyak сказала Thanks, Lord.