Read & Watch
Below is sampler of my work with consciousness, story, imagination, place, myth, and Earth. The sections below are: Humanities & Cultural Change, Engaged Psychology, Depth Philosophy, Myth & Spirituality, Terrapsychology & Eco, and Restorying the United States. Click titles to read or watch.
See also my blog Nouswire, my Fiction page, and my YouTube channel. My ORCID ID is here.
Humanities & Cultural Change
WRITINGS:
"Beacons from the Edge: How Story, Inspiration, and Love Change the World" - A report on the activity and wisdom of Global South change-makers who draw deeply on imagination, vision, relationship, wisdom, love, and hope to feed their struggles.
"Carrying Light in Dark Times" - A collection of resources for change-makers who work through story, imagination, and reenchantment; includes articles, practices, and links to videos.
"Cheerful Serenity" - A brief except from Hermann Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game on the kind of cheer that cannot be killed.
"Dreaming Up a Reenchanting Worldview" - The Afterword to my speculative story collection A Trio of Outliers. Does our time need a new mythology / worldview / saga? What would that incllude?
"Enchanting Change" - A short article on how appreciating and cultivating reenchantment can feed lasting cultural and personal transformation.
"Heartsteading: Forming and Strengthening Circles of Ecocommunity" - A framework for creating heartsteads: ongoing gatherings that provide support, sites of experimentation, and spaces for creative change-making.
"How Imagination and Play Move Us Forward" - A report plus research on how imagination and play are central to human life, accomplishment, self-regulation, and relationships.
"Human Potential 2.0: Educating the Full-Spectrum Earthly Human" - The Human Potential Movement brought in enormous resources for self-transformation, but it focused mainly on individuals and small groups. Can it be expanded?
"Idylls of the King and the Quest for the Good Society" - What might Tennyson's tale of Arthur and Camelot teach us about creating a fair and just society?
"Is Fear of Fantasy Curable?" - The fear of fantasy behind its continual disparagement might just deserve a clinical diagnostic category.
"Lamplighters: A New Kind of Change Agent" - A brief look at lamplighters, who encourage deep change through story, imagination, inspiration, wisdom, creativity, and hope.
"Nothing Changes Until the Story Changes" - A short piece on how when we change our guiding stories, everything built on top of them changes too.
"The Healing and Inspiring Power of Story" - Why stories matter, and not just the entertaining ones. Story is basic to our humanity. Includes some research.
"The Environmental Crisis is a Crisis of Consciousness" - Address to “Voices for Change,” an event organized by students at Sonoma State University.
"The Jeweled Highway" - A book review of esoteric traveler and teacher Ralph White's fascinating memoir.
"Toward Pronoian Wisdom" - Cultivation of wisdom has very little to do with immersion in abstract philosophical systems. Valuable wisdom can be used at home, at work, in the streets.
"What Good Are the Humanities?" - A short article on why we need them and why they deserve more appreciation and funding.
"What Is a Loreologist?" - Delineating the role of a storyteller / wisdom guide / possibility detective who helps us reimagine our way beyond constrictive guiding stories.
"When Characters Talk Back" - Many fiction writers (including this one) talk in imagination to "our" characters. What might we learn if we listen deeply when our characters tell us things our conscious minds don't know?
VIDEO AND PODCAST:
"Fictional Characters In Your Dreams" - What could that mean? What do they want? What wisdom might they hold for us?
"Humans on the Verge" podcast conversation with Kelly Carlin about enchantivism, listening to nature and place, and the need for deep cultural change.
"Outgrowing Outworn Worldviews" video series at TikTok and YouTube - TikTok channel - YouTube channel - "Restorying Leadership" at the Teton Leadership Conference - Jung Platform courses
Engaged Psychology
WRITINGS:
"A Folklore of Hope" - How can folklore help us deal with a warming world? My keynote to "The Anthropocene and Beyond" at Hong Kong Shue Yan University.
Alfred Adler quotations - Examples of the wit and wise words of one of the steadier, saner, and more grounded among the early depth psychologists.
"Can Psychology Heal Itself?" - When so many psychologists and their institutions inflict harm, often for political or economic gain, can the field repair and redeem itself?
"Ecopoetics, Enchantivism, and the Imaginal" - A respectful critique of how the multidisciplinary field of ecopoetics holds imagination.
"Engaged Psychology: Past, Present, Prospects" - I coined the term "engaged psychology" in 2013 to refer to kinds of psychology that enrich, reflect on, and deepen the intersecting structures of consciousness, culture, and planet.
Freud glossary - A collection of technical and clinical terms and concepts used throughout the work of Freud.
"Gnostic Antecedents of Jung's Key Concepts" - In his work, Jung mentions his debt to Gnosticism, but that debt is far larger than is generally acknowledged.
"Integral Education in the Light of Earthrise" - My CIIS Founders Symposium address on the importance for education of keeping Earth in mind.
James Hillman quotations - These are taken from several of Hillman's books. Hillman could be considered the trickster force which depth psychology, which had taken itself very seriously at first, eventually needed to be more balanced.
Jung glossary - Terms, ideas, and important concepts taken from the body of Jung's extensive work down the decades.
Karen Horney glossary - Key concepts, ideas, and psychological insights from neoanalyst and philosopher Karen Horney. Her books continue to deserve close study.
"Listening to the Rhino" - A brief review of Jungian analyst Janet O. Dallett's work on violence and healing in the scientific age.
"Maslow Revisited" - An appreciative overview of Maslow's work, including a critique of the Hierarchy of Needs and appreciation of his idea about "meta-counselors."
"Meet the Intellectuals" - A sideswipe of some of the more pretentious (or pretentiously verbose) self-promoting thinkers of our day and of the recent past.
"'My Tyrant is Psychology': Freud's Continuing Relevance" - Why we still need to go back to Freud's deeper insights into the workings of human nature.
"Resilience in the Wreckage: The Family as Crucible of Hardy Adaptation" - A short article on how families learn to adapt psychologically and relationally to chaotic times.
"The Black Books of C.G. Jung: Hermeticism Dreamed Onward" - An overview of Jung's journal through the lens of the Hermetic philosophy that so deeply influenced him.
"The Eco-Apocalypse Witnesses Only Club" - A blunt criticism of two depth psychology academics attacking ecopsychology, a field they know nothing about.
"What Good Is an Archetype?" - Making one of Jung's most confusing concepts real and relevant for how we actually live from day to day.
"Who was Carl Jung and Why Should We Study His Work?" - Introducing Carl Jung, psychologist, educator, and dreamer, and why so much of what he gave us is increasingly relevant in our day.
VIDEO:
"Truths for Hard Times" playlist at YouTube.
"Decode Your Dreams" playlist at YouTube.
Depth Philosophy
WRITINGS:
"Alchemical Green Fire: Annotating the Book of Nature" - Bringing together alchemy and the Book of Nature tradition in religion in the light of Aldo Leopold's "Green Fire" experience.
"Apocalypticism: The Lure of the Abyss" - In apocalyptic times -- and our time surely is one -- it's easy to succumb to hopelessness, but few have discussed why hopelessness can be so magically attractive.
"Follow Your Bliss, or Be Hunted Down By It" - As Joseph Campbell pointed out, when you follow your bliss, you also follow your blisters. But the alternative is much worse.
"From Confining to Spacious: Monocreedism vs. Lamplight" - A glance at two competing worldviews, one rigid, hierarchical, and patriarchal, and the other infused with inspiration.
"From Worship to Apprenticeship: Gods and Archetypes as Threshold Guardians" - What if the gods or God in our esoteric traditions don't really want us to worship them? What if they'd rather have some adult conversation and even pushback?
"Gnoesis Core Teachings" - A creative philosophy for living in a difficult and chaotic time. Also, a distillation of my thought and work.
"'Heaven in the World': Can a Lost Tradition of Nature Reverence Reenchant Our Worldview?" - Hermeticism is an embodied philosophical path with roots in ancient Egypt. What wisdoms can it offer us today?
"Heidegger's Ragnarok" - In his life and work, did Heidegger the philosopher unconsciously reenact the fall of Asgard in Norse mythology?
"How to (De)Compose French Post-Structural Philosophy in 10 Easy Steps" - Admit it. You've always wanted to write such pretentious, inflated prose. Well, now is your chance to look under the hood at how it works.
"Imagination as a Path to Knowledge" - For many philosophers as well as scientists, imagination isn’t a knack for making things up. Instead, it’s a path to wisdom, knowing, and deep transformation.
"Imagination: The Engine of Possibility" - A blog for the American Philosophical Association on how powerfully our imaginings can move us forward.
"Less than Meets the I: Zombies, Robots, and Philosophy of Mind" - One branch of philosophy in particular needs to bracket the mechanical metaphors that hem in its imaginings.
"Merleau-Ponty and an Earthly Gnosis of Imagination" - A paper on this philosopher's witnessing of the presence and animation of the natural world, especially in his later work.
"Possessed by Apollo" - Emerson left deep and wondrous testimonies to how strongly nature spoke to him. But he also left examples of how we sometimes get in our own way.
"The Dream Sky Is Weeping Crosses" - About an early dream of mine in which mono-authoritarian doctrines fell from the skies like teardrops.
"The Journey of Reenchantment" - Why I seldom teach the Hero's Journey anymore, and what I teach instead.
"What Good Are Consciousness Studies Programs?" Most in the US have been around since the early days of the Human Potential Movement. None have received anything like the attention they deserve.
"When Rocks Become Telephones" - A brief and whimsical philosophical look at how perhaps “inanimate” objects may not be after all.
"World Wide Wakening" - If the Internet were a personality, what would be its basic character? What would its natal chart say about it?
"What Is Happiness?" - It's probably not something you can scoop up on your own as an isolated individual seeking for something you're not clear about.
VIDEO:
"A Mythology for Our Time" - Do we need one? Why? How might it help us get reoriented?
"Gnostications" - a series applying Hermetic insights and ideas to current events.
"Lamplighting" - YouTube list of videos for bringing more light and inspiration into the world.
The Nousroom - depth insights applied to everyday situations and events.
WRITINGS:
"A Brief Mythology of Petroleum" - How fossil fuel operations are permeated with mythic images of the Underworld.
A glossary of German and Norse myth - A collection of deities and fantastic creatures who reappear in dreams, tales, and even on the land itself.
Celtic dieties and mythic figures - A detailed glossary of interesting creatures and powerful deities.
"Do We Need a New Mythology?" - What would a mythology for our time even look like? What traditions might frame it?
"Ending Tragic Titanic Replays" - In 2023, the submersible Titan imploded not far from the remains of the Titanic. If you know the tale of the downfall of the Titans, it all begins to make a kind of tragic sense--and suggest alternatives.
"Eve Reconsidered" - In old Gnostic tales, Eve is not the sinful underminer of humankind; rather, she is a wisdom teacher who embodies human salvation.
Gnosticism glossary - A large collection of Gnostic terms, deities, and realms of being.
Greek and Roman deities and myths - Beings familiar but also not commonly touched on.
"Hidden in What is Visible: Deliteralizing the Gnostic Worldview" - Much of what is said about the Gnostics being world-haters, disparagers of the flesh, and so on assumes they meant their wisdom tales literally. But what if they wrote in metaphors?
"Let's Rename Pluto" - The famous dwarf planet's discovery exudes an Underworld story. A deeper look traces a presence besides that of the shadowy ruler of Hades.
Meet the Orishas - These lively and powerful beings, originally from Yoruba sacred stories, made their way across the seas to settle in distant lands.
"Our Aphroditic Cosmos" - A philosopher once said that "the cosmos is an Aphrodite." What did he mean? Mythology provides a useful lens for understanding what cosmology can teach us.
Sami deities and mythic figures - Deities and various beings from an ancient culture that transcends the national boundaries of Europe.
"Sir John of Steinbeck" - Jung's letters suggest that we all have a mythic self, a kind of story behind our biography. Is that why so much of Steinbeck's biography points metaphorically to Lancelot?
"Spirituality Beyond Belief" - When the structures of religious belief crumble, and when belief itself is seen as unrealistically absolutist, what remains of spirituality?
"Where New Age Beliefs Come From" - Although it's surprisingly easy to trace how historically recent some New Age beliefs really are, few undertake the effort, perhaps because the results could be disturbing.
VIDEO AND PODCAST:
"A Mythology for Our Time" - As our guiding stories collapse, what if we turned to fiction as the basis for a new worldview?
"Stories that Reenchant" playlist - Because difficult times require reenchanting tales, including from the world of myth.
"When the Earth Speaks: Synchronicity, Story, and the Sacred," a podcast conversation between me and my friend and colleague Rev. Victoria Loorz.
Myth & Spirituality
Writings:
"A Psyche the Size of the Sea" - Musing terrapsychologically on the deep and powerful connections between our interiors and the vast reaches of the oceans of the world.
"An Appreciative Progeny" - How terrapsychology, the study of how places and the things in them also live inside us, is different from but indebted to Jungian psychology.
"A Terrapsychological Glance at Schumacher College" - Written after I taught my Introduction to Terrapsychology class there for a week. I miss both the school and Dr. Stephen Harding, who invited me there.
"A Terrapsychological Take on Personality Types" - In which I suggested the addition of an axis to the Myers-Briggs schema, one that charts two kinds of imagination.
"A Terrapsychological Glance at Bolinas, CA" - I wrote this as part of my visiting scholar activities at Commonweal. I aimed for something that would give a sense of how place presences work their way into the lives of people who live there.
"Climate Change’s Impact on the Health of Children: A Brief Look at Some Evidence" - Prepared for Greta Thunberg's team when they filed a formal complaint before the United Nations in 2019.
"Coming Home to a Sentient Planet" - Opening speech for “Conversations with a World Ensouled,” a California Institute of Integral Studies event to celebrate publication of the new anthology Rebearths: Conversations with a World Ensouled.
"Earthrise: Decoding the Speech of the Planet" - A report prepared as part of an Opus Archives grant to study the work of Joseph Campbell. What is our planet trying to tell us?
"Ecopsychology and Terrapsychology: Overlaps and Differences" - Terrapsychology emerged in part from ecopsychology, but with an interest in how the built environment, everyday objects, and particular places show up as presences within us.
"Ecotherapy: A Cultural Therapeutics for Coming Home" - A speech to Bioneers about what it would take to feel truly at home on our homeworld.
"Education for a Sense of Place" - Our education should include tools for tracing how where we are influences who we are.
"Ego Versus Eco: Psychologies in Contrast" - A table detailing features from each kind of psychology.
"El Cajon: Pandora's Jar" - A terrapsychological look at the East County, San Diego city I grew up in.
"Mental Health Lessons from the Garden" - Our gardens are full of wisdom conveyed not through words, but in how things act out there. From a talk shared during Master Gardener training after we set up a garden in Walnut Creek and invited the public to visit.
"Nature Practices that Heal" - This interview is with my friend and colleague Linda Buzzell.
"When Outside is Inside: Terrapsychological Inquiry" - Expanded from a panel presentation at Sustainable Societies Conference II: Visions for a Viable Future: In a Time of COVID & Climate Calamity held at the Graduate Theological Union.
Quotations by three terrapsychologists - Everyone practices terrapsychology in their own way, and the differences are as enriching as the commonalities. Three examples of that.
"Terrapsychology: The Environment is You!" - A short piece on how what we encounter outside ourselves has a way of reappearing inside as well.
"The Spell of the Sensuous" - An appreciative book review, including a friendly critique.
"What Is Terrapsychology?" - An introduction to the field, its goals, some of its publications, and its history since 2000, when three graduate students got together and discussed how strongly the things of the world recur symbolically in the human mind.
"Wombington, DC" - A glance at the recurring child, mother, and father motives that surround the history of the US capitol.
Video:
A Terrapsychological Inquiry playlist for anyone interested in learning just how we explore place.
Terrapsychology & Eco
Writings:
"A Cynical Glossary of American Terms" - Well, somebody has to say it, even when it smarts.
"American Gnosis" - Coming soon: a paper on our own homegrown blend of spirituality in the USA.
"Completing the American Revolution" - Ten values for bringing the US back from the brink.
Hermann Hesse on the arts in hard times - What is the duty of the artist/creator during times of national war and difficulty?
"Let's Repair the Liberty Bell" - An article suggesting a Declaration of Interdependence as a means to repair the cracked and split Liberty Bell in our hearts.
"The Postmodern Lemonade Stand" - A fable about progressive bullying.
"Why We Fight" - From a presentation at Santa Rosa Community College on the psychology of our predilection to violence.
Video:
Restorying the United States: A playlist on reimagining the US: how we live, our institutions, our governance. A call to visionary work.
