The diagram above illustrates my newly refined definition of religion, as a cultural system that links together (from the Latin religare) individual consciousness (or psychology, represented in the purple triangle) and the larger order of existence (or cosmology, represented in the dome overhead) by means of sacred stories (or mythology, represented in the moving waveContinue reading “Personal Myth and the Anatomy of Character”
Category Archives: The Creative Life & Leadership
The Supreme Paradox
I’ve written before on what I call the Matrix of Meaning, referring to a deep code of primary concerns and narrative motifs that generates the very fabric of our worldview. A sense of self and reality is the central construct in our personal myth, orienting us on the pressing challenges and emerging opportunities in our journey through life. TheContinue reading “The Supreme Paradox”
Liberated to Serve
I promised myself that I would pick up where I left off in my last post, which was at the point of having broken through the consensus trance that holds individuals under the spell of groupthink. As I explained, consensus trances are seductive forces in your life because they provide the (feeling of) security that you’veContinue reading “Liberated to Serve”
Life Outside the Consensus Trance
The psychologist Charles Tart coined the term consensus trance in reference to the shared assumptions and agreements that hold social organizations inside the rules of groupthink (Irving Janus, 1972). As an aspect of what he named a consensus reality orientation (CRO), it reflects the tendency we all have in adjusting our perspective and aspirations toContinue reading “Life Outside the Consensus Trance”
The Rhetoric of Democracy
In fifth-century BCE Athens, the birthplace of Western democracy, the political scene was an ongoing contest between the ‘rule of a few’ (oligarchy) and the ‘power of the people’ (democracy). By Plato’s time democracy had generated more problems than it could resolve, motivating the philosopher to reject it outright as a viable model for government.Continue reading “The Rhetoric of Democracy”
The Human Path
Human beings are on an evolutionary arc, progressing individually and as a species toward a ‘self-actualized’ fulfillment of our unique nature. With all the criticisms I have already directed against the personal ego – that conceited blowhard who craves validation, praise, glory, and immortality – it might come as a surprise for me to acknowledge it as the legitimateContinue reading “The Human Path”
What’s Your QIP?
One of my innovations in the field of human psychology is the notion of Quadratic Intelligence. Expanding on recent theory and research has helped us beyond the early 20th-century notion of intelligence as only our (IQ) competency in reading, writing, and arithmetic – the so-called academic set. Opening the definition of intelligence so as toContinue reading “What’s Your QIP?”
Journey Back to Reality
Just as soon as I make a case for the necessity of religion, it’s time to insist on our need to transcend it. If my atheist friends squirm at my insistence that we all have a religion – a system of beliefs, attitudes, values and practices that links the separate ego back to reality – my friends whoContinue reading “Journey Back to Reality”
Does Your Religion Work?
The question is not whether religion will one day be only a memory of our brutal and superstitious past as a species, or else singularly responsible for our future catastrophic self-destruction. A lot of people feel that we would be better off without it. In their perspective religion is unnecessary baggage crowding the mental spaceContinue reading “Does Your Religion Work?”
Terminal Education and the Death of Culture
Youth is being wasted on education. More and more young people are becoming victims of what can be called ‘terminal education’, which is not about lifelong learning and opening minds to the world – not anymore. Increasingly the education process is a conveyor-belt affair, where naive and optimistic youth are moved through a series of stationsContinue reading “Terminal Education and the Death of Culture”
Tracts of Revolution 