#145: Self-actualization, SpiritDAO, Societal Transformation, and Unexplainable Experiences with Ron Rivers
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Kia ora, ni hao and hello. Welcome to the Chiwi Journal podcast. I'm your host, Camille Yang. My guest today is Ron Rivers. I met Ron because of my previous guest, Tom Morgan. He introduced me to talk with him and read his book, Self-Extraization in the Age of Crisis.

I found it very fascinating. So we talked about some major topics he covered in this book related to self-extraization, spirit down, societal transformation, and unexplainable experience. I hope you enjoy this episode.

Welcome to the show, Rong. Thanks for our mutual friend, Tom Morgan's introduction and let me know your works and meet you online and schedule this podcast interview. So welcome. Oh, thank you so much, Camilla. I really do appreciate it. And yes, a special thank you and shout out to Tom Morgan for making the introduction. Do deeply appreciate it. Thank you.

That's good. So why don't we start with your motivation to write this book? I know it's a very big book and full of very deep information. So what motivates you to write it? And can you give me an introduction about your book? Yeah, I really appreciate that. Thank you. So the book, brief introduction is titled Self-Actualization in the Age of Crisis.

And the book develops new frameworks of meaning and value informed by cosmology and physics, essentially binding spiritual renaissance to systemic reformation, which I argue is necessary for collective transcendence.

And the motivation is kind of deeply intertwined with my personal history. So I have spent a significant portion of my time and my efforts, both productively and personally, in the nonprofit, social impact, kind of organizing activism world. I've, for quite some time, been kind of trying to create change

Through the legal available vehicles. So essentially the available vehicles for change, like government, you know, law, et cetera. I've run for political office. I've done a lot of local organizing. And essentially what I had learned through that journey was that all of the available vehicles for change resisted by design.

So when we think of the larger kind of crisis, right? And I say age of crisis that refers to what's commonly referred to as the meta crisis. I evaluate it from kind of six distinct verticals. But ultimately I realized that I was really envisioning and working towards broad systemic change, right? Changes in the core institutions governing our relationships. But I was trying to do that within a framework that,

And within a system that resisted it at all fronts. So that was ultimately the book was kind of an attempt to create an alternative because I would argue that

that our problem is not that we're here, right? In this moment of, it's like this paradox of being alive now, right? It's like the best time ever to be alive. But at the same time, we're surrounded by crises, any one of which would be bad enough, but collectively are fairly existential. And I think the problem is not, again, not that we're here, but that we've lacked alternatives.

So in many ways, self-actualization in the age of crisis develops a framework of an alternative, alternative spirituality framework, which in turn kind of informs the approach to kind of how we envision the future, our frameworks of meaning and value, how we interact with each other, which kind of inform the larger kind of individual and systemic project.

Yeah, I noticed that you title it self-actualization. I know this word has been used in so many spirituality communities. It's kind of a misunderstanding now. I wonder what's your definition for that? Because so many people just say we just need to keep improving, keep improving, like to perfection. But what's your understanding and definition for this word?

Yeah, Camila, that's a great insight. I totally agree with you. So I think that we actually redefine. So let me provide a little bit of context. Many people, I think, when they think of self-actualization,

they primarily focus on the psychology and science behind what I would argue is individual actualization. So the development of ourselves, right. In many ways, drawing from Abraham Maslow's theories, you know, quick fun fact, you know, there's a lot of people talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but Maslow never suggested a hierarchy of needs. His books don't reveal that, right. It's this overlapping bell curve. So in the book,

So we redefine in alignment with what cosmology and physics tells us. So there's kind of some core foundational principles that we are rooting our spiritual authority in. We're kind of returning it to nature based on what modern cosmology and physics is telling us is the nature of reality. And to that end, we redefine the self to more accurately represent the relationship between an individual and their circumstances within a given moment.

So it recognizes that while each of us obviously possesses the power to kind of redirect ourselves and we kind of need a certain foundation to be able to do that at the same time, so much of who we are, what we think, what available options to us, the way we perceive the world and others is in direct relationship to the circumstances we are surrounded ourselves by. Right. And in many ways that kind of extends deeply into like birth lottery, right? The event chains in our life, um,

for the most part, are far out of our control. Now, we do have opportunities to kind of direct that flow. But ultimately, that's how I would define. So when we talk about self-actualization in the book, we break it down to more accurately represent individual actualization at the development of I.

and systemic actualization, which is the development of we. Yeah, that makes sense. So in your opinion, how does the pursuit of self-actualization differ in times of crisis compared to more stable time periods? Are there any unique challenges or opportunities that arise during the times of crisis that you mentioned in the book?

That's a really good question. I would probably argue that in many ways, when we're in, let's say, peacetime, when there's no crisis, or at least have a this, we could argue that the crisis itself, let's say, for example, in the book, I talk about the crisis of extinction, which is the combination of the climate crisis and the mass animal die-off that we're presently experiencing.

There was never really a peacetime, right? Because these things were happening, right? The aspects, the industrialization of the world, the, you know, overfishing, overforesting, over, you know, the mass production of animal meat products, right? All of these things were happening that have kind of led us to the immediate present where, oh my gosh, we're passing this climate threshold, like Earth's ecosystem is permanently going to change now. So I don't know that there was ever really a time of kind of peacetime

peace or non-crisis, but I would argue that in many ways we convince ourselves that there is, right? When things are okay, it's easy to kind of turn the other, you know, turn the eye away and kind of fall prey and kind of relinquish our power, give our power to the systems we've created. And I think in many ways, when we talk about the crisis, right?

At the center of the crisis is that we have established, we've surrounded ourselves with systems. When I say system, I mean anything that can be law, economics, politics, spirituality, and religion. They're creations that govern our relationships. So they dictate the way you and I perceive each other, the way we act towards each other, the way we think about each other. That's when I say system. And humanity's greatest struggle in the immediate present

is that we have long been conditioned to give our creations power over us. And I would argue that they don't deserve that power, that they are of us, but not more than us. We are more than our creations. And in many ways, when we think about reimagining spirituality and we think about kind of overcoming the crisis, it has to be about taking power away from these institutions

that we've created, right? There are creations, but we've given them, we revere them. I think about like our dogmatic approach to, you know, let's say markets is probably one of the most common examples, especially in the United States. There's people who deeply associate their personal identity with a frame of economic arrangements. I'm a capitalist, I'm a socialist, right? And it's like saying I'm a hammer. You know, it's just, we're just getting excited about tools that, you know, in many ways,

that kind of attaching our ego toward them, to them,

gives them a power they don't deserve and gives them a, I would say a naturality, right. Or a necessity that they do not have or deserve. So it's ultimately about, you know, re kind of aligning ourselves with our own power to kind of overcome. I'm obviously getting excited. I've got a little off track of your question. So I want to make sure I'm staying on. But that's kind of my initial context around like the self, you know, how we define self and why we genuinely, if we're serious about transcending the crisis and,

need to most fully recognize our relationships with the world and how they are directly in relation to us. And we can kind of take a little caveat, but I think it helps inform the conversation. So this is, you know, the underlying theme of the book, the chapter zero is called Time and the Divinity of the Moment. And it reviews like the cosmology and physics behind the reimagined spirituality project.

There's a growing consensus now in the physics community, in the cosmology community certainly, and to some extent the mathematics community, where the reason we have specific laws governing the universe is not because there's no alternative. It's because they are the way they are because we are the way they are.

So what's essentially happening is there's a growing consensus to kind of really deeply embrace the quantum state as like the kind of fundamental nature of reality. And we know that that state is a field of probability, a possibility. So it only ever exists, it only ever commits itself to history when we give it a direction, when we observe it in a specific way. And in that way, it kind of takes a shape.

So in many ways, the laws of physics are very much our laws of physics. So when we conceptualize that and we kind of extend it throughout, then we kind of more deeply embrace the

what I would argue is oneness with the relational universe, which that to be candid, this, that's not a new philosophy, right? That's Vedic, Buddhist, Hindu philosophy, in many ways, the Tao as well. So there's a lot of, you know, the, I don't want to say Eastern, but like the, the Asian kind of Pacific religions really did a phenomenal job of truly understanding the core nature. I think what is different now is that our collective knowledge,

is, is proving it to be accurate. And that's a profound kind of transformation in the human condition, because when we think about the crisis, the salvation narratives, when I say salvation, I mean, the idea that you die and go to heaven, which the Judaism, Islam and Christianity are deeply hierarchical philosophies of spirituality.

So the very notion that you would ascend to heaven is a hierarchical idea. So spiritual hierarchies have long paved the way for mortal hierarchies, the persecution of one group for the benefit of another. And the problem, in the book, I kind of pick on those spiritualities a little bit more than the others, not because...

I claim that they're, I don't really care too much about the pass of the good or bad they've done. That's not super relevant. What's relevant is do they meet the needs of the moment? And in that sense, the hierarchical religions have had an outsized influence on the systemic organization of the world.

So they have been the primary influence of how we've organized ourselves around law and property. So it's not surprising that in most of the world today, many industrial societies have a rigid kind of hierarchical organization, right? There's essentially class and caste. And I would argue that we will never be free in a society of class and caste.

Yeah, exactly. So the concept of system-like actualization kind of a central theme in your book.

So could you explain what the term means? Because you briefly covered that, but I haven't fully understand that. And how individuals can contribute to the larger process of a societal transformation? Yeah, I appreciate this kind of direction. So systemic actualization, if we consider that the individual is at the same time

wholly embodied, right? A total fraction. So you and I are at the same time individuals totally in our own world, in our own bodies, experiencing the world from our own perspective, absolutely independent of each other, while at the same time being a single happening.

We are a single happening kind of experiencing ourselves from two different perspectives. Now, we're limited, right? So in the book, I make the argument that we each possess an embodied infinity. And while that sounds like very exciting and very like woo-woo, it really is the material nature of the universe. So like the material things in the universe exist in a perpetual state of infinite change.

So infinity is the actual physical material nature of the universe. So we are both of it and within it, right? So the within is our fractional, the of it is we're the same thing. So when we genuinely embrace, like when an I as an individual genuinely embrace you as equally divine,

equally whole as myself, just embodied in a different kind of orientation, in a different conscious coordinates, right? Each of us possess a space that none other can really occupy. That kind of creates a restlessness in me. That creates a restlessness because I would argue that there's a tremendous amount of imagination in the world that's trapped.

trapped in the systems that we have created, trapped in global exploitation. I think about, in many ways, the entire book is a framework about how do we free ourselves from the impact of birth lotteries?

Because I would argue that today, birth lottery is the most, I think it's statistically accurate to say this, that it's the most important event in our lives, right? If we were born in a specific place, the trajectory, our access and agencies is completely dependent on that because all children share in this extreme vulnerability, right? And I speak this as someone, so again, coming from like the nonprofit space, the social impact space, I speak this as someone who recognizes that

you know, as far as birth lottery goes, there's few tickets that were like more lucky than mine, right? White, male, United States, Northeast, you know, tons of privilege, tons of opportunity. And, and it's not about like, I think there's like a growing counterculture of like anti-wokeness, but all, you know, it's not about being woke. It's about recognizing the nature of reality. At the end of the day, like I've had opportunities, I've had, you know,

I've had opportunities and I've even escaped maybe problems that would have been very different if I embodied a different form. Okay. So, you know, when I recognize that, um, ultimately when we think about like the, the greatest possible degree of success for the individual, um,

We cannot possibly have that until we free that imagination. Because right now, only a relatively small percentage of us, collective humanity, when I say us, gets to participate in this kind of most advanced work, gets to do podcasts, gets to think, gets to read, get to travel, right? We're very, so deeply fortunate. So the question is, well, what kind of world could it be if everyone had the opportunity to imagine, right? If it weren't the limitations. I think about

If I was born in Syria 20 years ago, my entire life would have been missiles, bombs, war. I would know nothing else. So how could I possibly conceptualize the world as someone like myself who was born in a peacetime, luxury, et cetera, et cetera? So anyway, a little off track, but I think it's a good kind of precursor to say that when I wholly recognize your divinity and I wholly recognize that you're

I am most free when the collective humanity is free. Then I say, okay, then we must kind of bind our spirituality to a systemic project to elevate the collective. Because when I say a systemic project, I propose in the book, a suite of systemic rights that I titled the eight dignities and the eight dignities represent, um,

Essentially, just collective rights. So they're granted to the individual upon birth for no other reason than being born in the most advanced time in human history ever. And they're unbound. This is important. They're unbound to a nation or state.

So they have to be public goods. They have to be like public works. I imagine and envision like DAOs being the ideal structure for them, decentralized autonomous organizations. Because ultimately, like I'll give you a great example. I presently reside in the state of Florida. I live in a little beach house. And if the state of Florida in the United States, for viewers who may not be aware, is very actively persecuting the LGBTQ community.

and trans community with like laws. So like they're, they're creating a suite of laws that strip rights from a group. And the group is always a minority group, right? We've seen fascism before. It's always targeting a small minority and making them the center of the problem. Instead of, for example, extreme inequity you know, the extreme unequal distribution of advantage. So we have to kind of develop a suite of rights where you're born into the world,

And, you know, some rogue governor or some rogue monarch or dictator cannot take them away from you. And by doing that, I would argue, and I'll pause up to this because I know I'm getting excited about it, but I would argue by doing that, we dramatically reduce the impact of birth lottery on an individual's life.

We dramatically empower them. We raise the floor they stand on and allow them to most fully take advantage of being in the moment instead of our present deeply unequal and inequitable kind of arrangements. Yeah. So you mentioned the eight dignities. I wonder how did you develop the eight dignities that...

encompass various aspects of human life. Could you share some more insights and what are each of them? How did you develop this definition of this age? Yeah, no, it's a great question. So in many ways, the first kind of component is, okay, if we recognize that

So one of the theories they put forth in the book is there's two observable infinities. There's the universe itself and human imagination. And the alignment of these two things within a moment represents divinity. It's the greatest expression of creativity, the greatest, the most God-like we can become. So then the argument becomes, okay, who, who is the person who thrives most in that environment?

Right today, if we ask ourselves the question, who does well in the present arrangements? The answer is a very specific kind of person. A very specific kind of person is going to succeed within the single kind of maximalist organization we have of laws. And I'll give the United States as an example. Obviously, there's countries around the world who are doing it differently. But in the United States,

we apply a single version of property and contract to all verticals of society, right? So to that end, only a very specific kind of person could succeed. The alternative is then, you know, how do we create a system where an increasing variety of people are able to kind of maximize their access to an agency in the moment? So part of the kind of origination of the eight dignities, and I'll just share what they are at first. The eight dignities are food and water,

housing, healthcare, education, communication, information, transportation, and energy. And I can dive deeper into them in a bit, but those suite of systemic rights, essentially, if we kind of apply these kind of public works globally, they allow for an individual to thrive regardless of where they're born. They allow for an individual to thrive in any direction they want. What we ultimately want to do is create a society where

as many people as possible can challenge and change the existing institutions. And we don't want to like today, there's a lot of existing legal structures in place that prevent transformation. Right. So we intentionally stifle ourselves. And there's like this guise that like that's ideal to protect us. But ultimately what it's really about is retaining the status quo.

When you have an extremely inequitable society, making change slow only serves to empower entrenched interests. It does nothing for the people who are trying to transform their circumstance. So how I came to do it, there's a lot of ways. A, it was...

the science of individual actualization, just understanding Maslow's original framework of needs and how you... Basically, food and water, housing, healthcare are pretty straightforward. Without those things, you and I are always in perpetual risk of destitution.

And the United States is the most egregious example when it comes to healthcare, right? We're the only advanced nation with a fully private system where at the end of the day, if I don't have insurance and I break my leg, it's $30,000.

For the vast majority of Americans, that's bankruptcy. No money after that. It's their entire savings. So the question is, again, we can't thrive in a system where random acts can totally destroy your life and totally destroy what you've built in an instant. You could break your leg accidentally, you get hit by a car or whatever.

The other kind of, like, housing example, like, I look to other nations to kind of see what they were doing. I think one thing I want to really kind of emphasize is, and I'd love your perspective on this, because I know you and I have kind of grown up in different cultures and communities, is that essentially, you know, the blueprints for the eight dignities already exist. And I think that's like a common critique is, a common critique you kind of often hear when you're talking about

the crisis is that if the solutions are too small, they're not worth doing. But if they're too bold, they're utopian, right? And they can never be done. So it's like, you know, the critics are always the same. They just want to maintain the status quo. But I would argue that the eight dignies, the blueprints already exist. It's not about, can we do it? We can absolutely do it today. What it is about is the direction of our focus.

And today, presently, the vast majority of our focus is directed on maintaining the status quo. So I'll pause. Of those eight days I mentioned, do you have any experiences or do you... I'd love your insights on public institutions, how you feel like they've impacted communities you've been a part of. I know you travel a lot, so I'd love to kind of hear your experiences on that lens. Yeah, I'm not sure...

Agree. Yeah, I agree the blueprint is already there, but how you make it into reality is pretty hard, in my opinion. Take China as an example. So China, back to 1949, when they established the new People's Republic of China, I think at least 85% people living in poverty

But now if you look at the number, like the Communist Party saved the people from the poverty. But there are so many judgments from everywhere, especially in the Western world, like how Communist Party mistreated people. But in reality, people are already being saved. So I always have this dilemma thinking like how you do it on the one side

is really good for the people, but on the other side, other countries can also take this as a practical example to implement to their own situation. But for China's case, I don't think every country want to be like a communist party to government China, although we save the people from the poverty, but the dictatorship there, yeah, a lot of...

democracy countries, they won't want to take this step. So I kind of want to hear your opinion, how we can really achieve that. Are there already any examples? Because back to the China's case, when Communist Party share their visions, it sounds like a utopia for sure. Communists, everybody share whatever we have.

equally. It doesn't work. And then China in nowadays world is more like a capitalist in my opinion. Even more capitalist than America. I kind of want to listen to your opinion on that as well.

Well, that's a lot to pick out. I really appreciate your insights. So the first thing I would say is you mentioned equality. I want to just kind of give the context of my perspective on that. I do not believe that we should be seeking equality of outcomes. And I don't even believe, let's be candid, I don't believe China's communist system even does that, right? At the end of the day, you'll never close the gap between the novice and the master, right?

So, people who dedicate their focus and energy towards a specific direction over a prolonged period of time are going to develop a unique expertise. And we want to reward that. So, it's not about equality of outcomes. I think what it is about is equality of opportunity or equity in the opportunity, right? It's not an exclusionary practice. Now, you mentioned China. I think China's history is so fascinating. You have this immense population spread over a huge landmass.

And in many ways, there's a, like many countries, pre-developed, there's a lot of kind of warring states, tribes, regions, whatever you want to say, reunited. So China's philosophy is also, I think, why communism took root there, right? Let's say compared to the United States. China in general, right, you have the development of the Dao Deqi, right? You have this universality. So you had a spiritual context there.

a spiritual commonality that bound people together. So I think the idea of, and even like prehistory, right? Confucianism. Confucianism is very much about like you overcome the world through service to the other. It's much less reliance on death and like ascending to heaven and this kind of make believe, but it's more about we develop paradise on earth through our service to the other. So I think China really had a foundation, a moral, a,

a meaning and value foundation to support collective elevation. And, you know, U.S. propaganda aside, because, you know, from my perspective as a U.S. citizen, it's all propaganda. Like, you cannot believe a word they say. The anger, why are they angry? How about this? The U.S. has been on a 20-year upward trend of economic inequity, right? You have more than half of our population is living paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, to your point, China is,

closed a poverty gap that was insane. Absolutely astronomical in a period of under 100 years. It's a phenomenal accomplishment. Borders and nations are lines on a map. They're make-believe. The Chinese baby is equally divine as the American baby, as the Palestinian baby. They're all tongue-tied prophets. I reject the hypocrisy. Of course, though, it's difficult in the U.S.,

Because A, the U.S. is, you know, let's compare like, you know, I mentioned China's kind of spiritual grounding for why collectivism took root. What's America's spiritual grounding? Deeply hierarchical religions, right? Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the most literal sense. The books. So mythology aside, the books are manuals of war. They're about retaking Holy Land. They're about the conversion of outsiders to make them insiders, or if they're not going to convert, like the coercion of them, the suppression of them.

So when you think about hierarchical spiritualities, they spiritually justify a staunch individualism, a staunch favoring of the insider at the expense of the outsider. Right? So I think it's... When we talk about...

when we consider our immediate present, which is the only place we can ever consider these systems, is how they operate now. I think that's a lot of defenders of the salvation narratives will say, no, it's this, and no, it's that. But in reality, it can only ever be what it is in the immediate present. Does that make sense? So if it's being justified for oppressive... I mean, in the US, a lot of the oppressive bills against minority groups are being led by hyper-religious organizations. There's a direct correlation. So...

that's what they are. It doesn't matter what you think they are or what they're supposed to be. They are what they are in that sense. So I think that that's part of, when we think about like the nature of being as an infinite ever present now, all of us inherit a history. We inherit a history that we had no say in choosing. No one alive today is wholly responsible for the trajectory of the crisis. This was in motion before everyone was born, right? In our immediate present. So to that end, you know,

I like China is a great example of like how the systems can be done. Now, the only, in full fairness, I'll give a critique, right? China is similar to the U S in that. I think they're a bit dogmatic about their approach. It has to be our one way. I think the future is pluralism, right? There's no, there's nothing in the history, at least in the United States. I don't know China's legal history, but in the United States, there's nothing in the history of law or like court case judgments that say that we cannot have a

have multiple frameworks of property and contract operating side by side. So I'll give you an example. This kind of ties into the eight dignities. We can talk about housing, we can talk about medicine, we talk about energy, even like the transport of goods. They're all the same thing where these are things that we all need. Every person needs food and water. Every person needs energy, right? That's not going away.

The question is then, why should we put these social verticals in a framework of law and property that add extractive layers? Why must it be purely extractive? If we all need energy, why is energy not this global cooperative? We possess the capacity today, if we could imagine a world with total global cooperation, to develop energy.

We put a satellite network in space, solar panels, beam it back with microwave radiation, network all the major countries to do it, and all of a sudden you have free energy on the planet. Why does it happen? Because the U.S., as an example, needs a wartime narrative. The U.S.'s biggest export is war. They have missiles. It's a for-profit industry. So it's like we want to, this is how we kind of destabilize the world to maintain our own hegemony, our own empire, evil empire, if you will.

So to that end, like when we think about the eight dings, you're asking about how we do it. Oh, let me just go back real, real quick with China. So like China suffers from the U S and that, like, I think they're a little rigid on like, it must be done this way. And if you oppose it, we will silence you. Right. And you will like, you know, disappear to say thing in the United States, right? Like cops will shoot you in public in the United States, especially if you're a black around person, forget it. You know, like your risk of dying to a cop encounter is, is immense.

And that's not to say, again, I'm not trying to be generalizing and saying all cops will do this or et cetera. But the point is, well, each nation has kind of done their own things. The ideal is obviously a plurality where some verticals of society are absolutely socialized, right? And they're publicly owned. And I think housing is an ideal one, medicine, food and water, right? But others are not.

There's no reason that a video game company needs to be a public enterprise if you're creating entertainment. And to your point, I think you've mentioned this and I don't know if you would agree, but in many ways, China's already kind of taken the steps towards this more hybrid model. China is in many ways a capitalist economy. You have private enterprise there, but the difference is that obviously the state can come at any point in time and take it.

And in the U.S., you have a greater degree of protection for that. So I think that's one challenge that I think many people are concerned about when they critique China's system is that the state does have an immense amount of power just to stop you like that. And again, that is very similar to the U.S., although a very different approach, but it's very similar in the way they diminish challenge and change.

right? They diminish alternatives. And I think that is not ideal. I think we want to have a society that's kind of as frequently as possible redefining itself because that is the nature of the universe, right? Changes the single truth in an infinite material reality. The only thing that's a constant is change. And, and we can even say all of our knowledge is bound to it, right? Cause we live in a universe of sequential universes. So, um, after this universe, there'll be another one and all of our information will be lost. Um, so, um,

I've kind of got obviously very excited about your kind of points, but I'll kind of bring it full circle. The way we do it, how do we do it? I think it has, that's why I mentioned the DAOs. I think it has to start from like public works. It can't be bound to a state. So like we can't count on China to do it or we can't count on the U.S. to do it. You could imagine a future, probably not in the next decade, but maybe in 50 years where the U.S. and China like

bury the hatch, we say, hey, we're all human, we have these things that we have to overcome, two superpowers unite, and Earth becomes this Star Trek proto-utopian society where we just collectively work together.

But I'm not sure that the US is going to be willing to do that. I think the military is very deeply integrated into our kind of approach. So that's why I argue that we kind of have to build these outside. That's why DAOs are like the ideal example. You have this collective stakeholdership, anyone who participates as an owner, whether they're participating from receiving the services or being a part of them. Obviously, to our question earlier about equality and equity, it's not about equality.

the let's say the hospital, I would trust the neurosurgeon in the hospital

they should have a greater vote on the direction of medical services than I should as a patient, because I don't know anything about neurosurgery, right? So we're not trying to diminish talent, but we are trying to give a greater stakeholdership. So I believe that the eight dignies are a public suite of works and SpiritDAO, which is the community in the DAO forming around the text, that's part of our core mission is to help support these public work initiatives through financial support and cross-pollination. But I'll pause. Cool.

yeah since you mentioned the spiritual Tao would you mind elaborate how you created it and what's the mission and how does that run on a daily basis yeah I appreciate that so spirit Tao is um spirit Tao was actually initially thought of it's a chapter in the book it's the last chapter um and I should share you know um

The book, when I launched it, I gave it away for free. You can download it in every format that's digital, but also 100% of the book revenues support the SpiritDAO community. So I took six years to write a book, three years of research, three years of writing, and I immediately gave it away because I think it's super central to our mission. SpiritDAO has three core purposes. The first is to spread the message. So again...

The eight dignities are rooted in a framework of personal spirituality, of personal belief. And I think that's ultimately like the core element, right? Science and physics, cosmology, we're continuously leaning more into the fact that the universe is A, highly manipulatable, like deeply able to be manipulated, and B, directly in correlation to who we are. That's a core component of it.

So we have to kind of embrace new frameworks of meaning and value if we're going to overcome this. So a part of it is just getting the message out. The second purpose of the DAO is to provide utility. So it could be physical utility, like we're going to be building physical spaces, virtual utility, like software, et cetera. And the third is to support the eight dignities. Now, the DAO is presently in pre-launch. So my goal is to launch probably publicly soon.

in a month or two. We have about 50 people in our community already and a handful of like co-founders who are like actively contributing.

But as you might imagine, it's a book based out, the book's 500 pages, which is a barrier to entry to begin with. So we just, a lot of what we're doing right now is like ideating around how do we get the message out easier? So I'll give you an example. We were fortunate enough to be part of a Gitcoin grant round and we were able to fundraise to translate the book into a 50 page graphic novel.

So, you know, reducing the content by an eighth, right? So the idea is like to make it much easier to digest and kind of get the core points across. So we're really still in our infancy. And one of the key components that like, it's difficult for me to share too much about like our plans in the future. Although there's a lot of documentation out there because ultimately the DAO is not about me, right? Like the whole reason I created DAO, the whole reason I gave the book away, I haven't made, you know, I've made $0 from the book is because I'm

It's much more about the message. And whereas all other spiritual philosophies, they reinforce the influence of the past onto the present. And what I mean by that is they have a static view of the world. Spiritual philosophies are in many ways unchanging, right? Here's the thing you need to embrace and here's what it is. The philosophy contained in self-actualization in the age of crisis is designed to change. It's designed to evolve alongside the needs of its communities.

So I'm always a little hesitant to talk about the nitty gritty of how we're going to do it. There are many things in motion already, but we're still really in our infancy. So I would say probably over the next two years, it's going to be a lot of spreading the message, bringing people to the community. We already do like community meetups twice a week. It's going to be expanding those kinds of things, providing value. But long-term, like mid and long-term, it is a very structural vision. And I think what's different

And Camilia, I would love your perspective on this because I know you're deep in the space. What I find a lot of the conversations around the meta crisis and kind of transcending the crisis fall is they fall into a very philosophical, big brains talking over one another. It's a lot of talk. Spirit DAO is very action oriented.

My background is like an organizer in the nonprofit space. That's just the way I think of the world. I understand that you have to build local power. Power doesn't come from talking about it and overanalyzing. It comes from boots on the ground, doing the work, and connecting with people. So I think the people who are attracted to SpiritDow right now are people who very much not only does the philosophy and practices resonate with them, but they're willing to do the work.

And I think that's a really kind of critical aspect of where we are in our journey is like, and that's who we're attracting because, you know, my fear is that we're going to analyze the meta crisis for the next five years and

Meanwhile, we're just furthering ourselves into oblivion. We're further kind of falling down the hole. Spirit DAO is, again, a framework of an alternative. Going full circle back to my original statement when we started, the problem is not that we're here. It's that we haven't had an alternative to organize ourselves around. Here, we present an alternative that is both spiritual, the root meaning and value that guides our relationships with the world,

Well, it's also systemic, right? The systems we surround ourselves to most fully embrace our access and agency and our capacity to act within the observable infinities. Yeah. So based on my experience with a lot of Web3 and DAO

I feel like there's a lot of talking and we all say we need to create a community of sense of belonging but I just feel like probably just still very commercial driven like a lot of doubts they launch a token then a lot of people come through then mint the token then make some money then gone I think you probably read Balaji's The Network State so he mentioned the one commandment

for each community, each DAO, you just need one mission that everybody stick with that. That would be easier to take the action because you won't confuse the people and that one commitment shouldn't be very commercially driven one. So it's more like a value driven. So I think your DAO, yeah, as you mentioned, is all people read your book and join the DAO or they want to support your idea. So I think that would be

Probably in the beginning, it's hard to gather large amount of people to join, but eventually you probably have a strong foundation than those like token driven DAO. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. I agree completely. And so to your point, first thing I want to mention is you're spot on with like the vision. That's exactly how, you know, it's not my DAO. Let's make that correction. It's Spirit DAO's DAO. Like I, you know, I own and have no more power than anyone else. But, but to your point,

I,

Our vision is a slow, intentional start, right? It's more about the quality of alignment with our mission and values than it is the quantity of members. And to your point about most DAOs and their kind of token approach, we're not leveraging an ERC-20, right? Which is traditional, like it's essentially, if the audience is unfamiliar, ERC-20 is you buy a token, but you can buy as many as you can afford to buy. So it supports the organization of whales, whales being like high token holders, right?

SpiritDAO leverages non-transferable or soulbound NFTs as membership.

And then we have a separate, so like you get your membership MRT and then we're leveraging HATS protocol, which essentially allows for like, it was like key cards. So it's like merit based. So it's purely like, you know, okay, you've invested X hours, you have these kinds of privileges. So it's, it very much rewards participation. And then in combination with that, the two of those allow an individual to earn what we call time bound tokens.

So you can imagine that it's a token purely based on the amount of time you're investing. It's got no financial value. We're not giving a liquidity protocol for it, but it's exchangeable for DAO resources, right? Merch, event tickets, and stuff like that. So we're creating a way to kind of reward our community, but it's an inter-community currency. So it's just for exchange with our members and it's purely based on the time you're investing. So you could be a billionaire

If you're not willing to invest the time, you'll get zero time-bound tokens. We're just doing it right from the start. You made a great point, and I think it's really fascinating. I love your perspective because I think you and I have similar circles, but I think to some extent a little different. What I have found that is really fascinating about this space to me around the Metacrisis

is something that I've seen in a variety of industries. So like in past lives before my nonprofit work, I've been a Web2 founder with an exit. You know, I've done a lot of kind of like traditional things. And what I have found is that it's very easy for in-groups clicks to form. And all of a sudden, everyone wants to like value the opinions of the in-group and they want to really

They feel like that's the only way to do it. If I'm not part of that group, if I'm unwilling, if I challenge that group, it might put me on the outside. And that's not to say that the group doesn't deserve reverence, right? Maybe they dedicate a lot of their life to this.

But at the same time, that philosophy of this, you know, a small group of insiders who are really leading this. And if and if and if we do something outside of their permission or if we do something outside their philosophy, we're going to be looked down upon. It really stifles innovation and imagination. Right. And I think in many ways it's a very ego bound thing. I think, you know, a lot of big brains get surrounded by each other and all of a sudden they're like the big brain crew. And it starts to kind of create a layer of insulation around them that others cannot kind of access. Right.

The challenge again is, of course, when you have someone or groups of people who have different life experiences, have been working on the same problems but from different approaches,

They can easily be put aside because ultimately they're not with the in-group, so to speak. I think one of the challenges we have to break down these barriers with transcendence, especially in the book, I developed new core values in alignment with the relational universe and single truth. One of our core values is equity, the idea of fairness in our personal and systemic relationships. If we're not providing pathways for the underserved and unheard to be a part of the transformation,

We're just going to get more of the same. And I'll give you an example. If the biggest minds in the space are a bunch of white males who are over 30, you're just going to get, you know, a vision of the world that supports the white male over 30. I mean, that's no different than the U.S. Constitution, right? Which was exclusionary by design. So I really appreciate your perspective on that. And I'm curious if you have any thoughts on just that statement, because I see it, you know, coming from, you know, I'm a relative outsider in that I've been doing this work

but not in the spaces that are most popular today. I've been doing it on more of a grassroots, on the boots kind of thing. And the book was very much a personal project

So yeah, I'll just pause, but I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. It's just something I observe. Yeah, it reminds me about back to the 1920s in France, a lot of artists from all over the world, they gather in Paris to create something they love, like writers, artists, or poets.

So I feel like we need to create something like that. The environment attracts diverse people. Why I choose Lisbon as my base at the moment, because there are so many international people gathered here with all the creative ideas and very young and ambitious energy here.

So every time I deal with them, I feel like, okay, we can actually do something together. I think we kind of lack of this ability to create either physical or online environment like that to attract people with diverse backgrounds.

Because, you know, a lot of private clubs, like what you mentioned, only white guys over 30s, like founders. So, yeah, that's my initial thought after listening to your talk. I never believed that one person can be a hero and change the whole world, like the superhero story. No, I do believe in collective thinking and we do need...

more diverse brands to work together like what they did in Renaissance and what they did in Paris in the 20th century. So yeah, I think there is a term to describe that. Genius or something. Yeah, I can't remember the term. But yeah, I think also Dow would have this ability.

Because online you can track people even from Nigeria or China or New Zealand. They all gather together. If they all have this vision and you have this environment to encourage them, feel safe to share their ideas.

They could do something remotely and in the end, they will gather in real life, do something, make the change. Yeah, totally aligned with your vision. Two points of interest. You mentioned the narrative of the genius coming to save everyone. I think that's the monomyth that's Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey. I think that's a very...

part of our culture. But in reality, that's never been accurate, right? The most profound changes in human history have always been around cooperation and collaboration. There's never been a hero who single-handedly saves, you know, it's never been that ever, but that's the fantasy, right? That's the fantasy. And I think especially in America, which is the most propagandized, in my argument, the most propagandized country in the planet, right?

You're constantly fed those narratives from when you're a little kid to you grow up. So it's no surprise that like hyper individualism is like central to our culture because we're fed this narrative where like it's always the megastar who fixes everything and everyone else is just an NPC, right? They're not part of the game, which is not accurate. And to your point about DAOs and

Just like an interesting kind of caveat, agree 100%. DAOs, just by the nature of code is law and smart contracts and decentralization, provide a profound platform to reimagine spirituality, to reimagine transcendence around the metacrisis. But I would also make the argument, and this is part of Spirit DAO's vision,

is the importance of physical community. So I think what's interesting that you see with many DAOs, and I think there's kind of like a movement in general towards it, at least in the U.S., is you see this kind of trend towards moving to the country and homesteading, right? Get five people, build a few houses, do a farm. I love it. I think it's great. But I do think there's some slight elements of escapism in that

A, you're kind of running away from the problems. You're like, all right, I got mine. I'll take care of myself, my family. And look, as someone who has a partner and a young child, I understand that philosophy completely. I can deeply empathize with like, I got to protect mine. I get that. But there's two problems. A, it doesn't solve anything. It kind of puts you in a retreat. And B, especially, I'll say this from the context of the United States,

As the climate crisis worsens and water becomes a commodity that is not accessible by everyone, there is going to be violence. There is a large portion of our population here in the United States that is heavily armed.

views the other as a true enemy, really believes the other is someone that they hate, right? Like there's a huge kind of ideological divide in the United States. So I don't think for a second that they're going to hesitate to take up arms and take resources when it's necessary. And to that end, I would argue that the commune has no protection against the horde.

The horde will come and overrun the farm. So I think with SpiritDAO, I'll share, our vision is to create physical community. I think that's very important when we think about transcendence and kind of building the infrastructure we need for a global kind of realization, a global cooperative. But the way we're doing it is a little different, where we want to target a municipality, buy a large property, build a community center, and then provide relocation grants to

So if you want to come live with us, we have our center. It's our, you know, it's where we work. It's where we gather. It's where we, you know, do events and all that. But we want to encourage people to move to that community because ultimately, you know, so again, from my background, I believe in local power. I think you need municipal power to like municipal power in the United States, which is like local laws to develop. Like you can imagine the eight datings is a great vision, but if you don't create a prototype at a local level, no one's going to believe it.

Right. So like, but we can certainly within the immediate present, we can certainly build a town or, you know, encourage a town to have collective energy purchasing for green energy, have a collective like community farm or, you know, a large infrastructure like that, have public housing that belongs to the community. Right. No one owns it. It's you can kind of be a part of it. So.

I should say no one owns it, but everyone owns it. It's kind of like the theme. So I do strongly believe in DAOs provide us to your point, the ability to kind of globalize our work and efforts. But I think ideally the most successful communities are going to be the ones that do encourage local commune. I think one other quick point is that it's a challenge is that, and I think we're seeing this today. There's an upcropping of like these communal living spaces, but the problem is

There's no shared philosophies around meaning and value.

So you have a lot of conflicting people with conflicting ideals. So it kind of runs into the same problem as renting an apartment. You know, you may not like your neighbor. Your neighbor may not believe the same things you do. And I think if we're not aligning on meaning and value, which is ultimately, I would argue, is the heart of the meta crisis, is we have specific frameworks of meaning and value that influence our thoughts and our actions in a very specific direction. And until we can redirect that,

that kind of trajectory, we're trapped in the same. So I think when we start, and this is to your point about Balaji, when you have a value credo, when you have a suite of values that the individuals embrace, and to be candid, embracing them is part of entry into the community. If you're not embodying these philosophies, this is not a space for you because ultimately, if you're valuing contradicting visions...

I mean, good luck and we love you, but we're building something in a very specific orientation. So I think that's why I'm extremely optimistic about SpiritDAO in the long term. But SpiritDAO is a long-term vision. It's not, to your point, not a get-rich-quick DAO, not a sell a bunch of tokens and disappear DAO. It can't be like that. And it's not organized like that in the immediate present.

Yeah. I kind of wonder what's your self-actualization path look like? Can you share your journey from working in a corporate world, like the normal path we normally take, to the point to today? Do you have any...

or suggestion for individuals who have that authentic imposter you mentioned in the book, how they can, maybe they're struggling to find their true authentic self while navigating the societal challenges

expectations and norms. So can you share your path and then maybe inspire others to explore there as well? Wow. I appreciate that. I don't know if I can, I want to be authentic in my imposter. I don't know if I can inspire others, but I'll be sure to share some insights. So, you know, my journey, you know, even though, so I've obviously had,

I think our journey towards individual actualization is a long history of event chains, right? So, you know, without getting too into details, had some childhood trauma, right? I think a pivotal moment in my life was in my very early 20s. I overnight contracted bacterial meningitis. So I was like,

The doctor told my parents to plan a funeral. Miraculously, I had a full recovery. It was like a six-month recovery. But kind of being that close to death at young was, as you might imagine, radically shifted my perception of the world. I was a very different person before and after those experiences. And ultimately, I genuinely believe that

in shared divinity and kind of shared bigness. And I believe that we are most free as individuals when collectively we are greatest in power, right? Like when I can take advantage of the imagination creation of others. In terms of inspiring others and like how do you find, if you find yourself in a place that is not desirable or not aligned with your ideal, how do you redirect? So the first I think is critically important to emphasize is that in a relational universe governed by the single truth,

Physics and cosmology tell us that the nature of reality isn't ever present now. So you always, you think of it less of like less of the past influencing your present, like being concerned with the past. My argument is let that go completely. The past is irrelevant. Okay. The only thing that matters is the direction of the immediate present. And I think one thing that we kind of get caught up in often is that by nature of being human beings, change is incremental.

So what I mean by that is we have limited moments within a day. We have limited focus and energy within a day, and we can only accomplish so much per day in that kind of space, right? So change can seem excruciatingly slow, but I would argue two things. A, incremental growth does not apply to our creations. Okay. And we see it with like AI, right? Like that's, it's a huge, like exponential curve of productivity that can occur. But also more importantly than that,

It doesn't apply to our directions. So the first thing when we think about reorienting our position of life is to choose a direction because choice in the moment is the greatest expression of divinity we can have. It's the alignment of imagination, the infinity that we embody and the universe itself.

And in many ways, choosing a direction creates an anchor point that we pull into the future, into the present, excuse me. So, you know, when you think of the nature of time and the human experience of being time, it's not about going to a future. It's about pulling a future into the present. Okay. So that's the first kind of conceptualization is embrace your power.

of A, letting go of what does not serve you and the past and B, reorienting your direction because your direction can be exponential. It could be a right angle, right? Like that's what matters most is where are you directing your focus and energy? Because in a relational universe governed by the single truth, the very act of directing focus and energy towards something is an act of becoming. We become these things that we direct our focus and energy towards. And in many ways they become us, right? Our influence on them points them in a specific direction.

This could be a whole other, to be candid, lecture. So I'll just say, if you're looking for an alternative, be sure to check out the book because ultimately choice...

Our available options, our available directions for choice are always going to be limited to our conceptualization, to our knowledge. And all of us, if we're being authentic in our imposter, all of us are dealing with incomplete information, right? The vast majority of happenings in the world are out of our control. We as individuals control a very small fraction of it, but it's a very powerful fraction when developed over time, right? So what's important is that like,

We choose directions that help us develop mastery, that help us cultivate ourselves and our own powers, and in turn, project those values out into the world. So self-actualization in the age of crisis provides a kind of plug-and-play framework. It's a new orientation of values. And what I want to emphasize, and this is, you know, all religions are spiritual technologies. But what they all share in common is people choosing to believe them.

choosing to embrace the values. And it's no different with self-actualization in alignment with the single truth and relational universe. It is about a choice. It is about recognizing where we are in relation to where we want to be and then identifying which path most ideally brings that future into the present, right? Makes it a known future. And to that end, it's like, you know, we embrace these core values. We embrace community. I think there's a lot of ways to do that. But ultimately, I would challenge people in that position

A, take a breath, right? Let that out because that no matter how horrible it's been, your power to redirect yourself is still infinite. You possess it. Even if you don't believe it, you do. But there is a kind of a core element of will involved. Now, I also wanted to share briefly in this context, so I'm not being insensitive. Some people inhabit circumstances where they don't possess the access and agency to most fully realize

embody what I'm explaining, right? If you're trapped in a perpetual cycle of work three jobs to just pay the rent and eat, it's very difficult to think about reorienting your spiritual priorities, right? Because you're stuck in this survival mode. So I think for many of us, I feel this very deeply in a personal level. There is a deep responsibility I bear for the other. Even the others, I don't know. Even the people outside of my circle, because they're being trapped in those circumstances is not a product of

of grace. It is not a product of divine will. It's a product of systems. It's a product of organization. It's a product of human choice to organize ourselves in a specific way. So I think that's the central argument. We have to recognize how deeply

responsible we are for these systems and more importantly, if we possess the capacity to act outside of them, as I would argue you and I likely do, then we bear a responsibility to elevate the other.

Because without them, the crisis is just going to further. If we're not going to free the latent imagination, then we've lost sight of the project. And I think that's kind of the core thing is not falling prey to more base values, materialism, nonsense, having more than the other. It's not a competition.

It's a single happening in the most literal sense. So why you, you just recognizing that not, if you're hearing this and you find yourself in a position where like you truly are just like tooth and nail survival, you know, there's help out, join our community, come visit us. You know, we'll do what we can to kind of support you and provide an alternative because that's, that's deeply resonant with our mission. So I'll, I'll pause there.

Yeah, you explore that visualization and psychedelic experience. I think it's, yeah, sometimes people probably need some external force, like use a psychedelic to help them get out of this stalking situation. So do you have any personal experience about that? And how those...

like elements can impact personal growth and self-extralization? Yeah, yeah. The answer is yes. I have a lot of experience with psychedelics. So I wrote a chapter called Modern Shamanism. So I went through a few years of my life where...

So let me kind of give some context for the uninitiated. If you've never done the psychedelic experience. And when I say psychedelic, I don't mean like micro dosing and going to a club. I mean, you know, I, I, I prefer it. And I write about it in a very ritualistic sense, which means like two weeks before you're meditating daily, you're fasting. Right. And you're doing a very high dose in bed with a blindfold, the ego dissolving experience. And if you haven't had that experience before,

It is very difficult to describe accurately, right? And I think it's like, if you're initiated, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, it's impossible because it is otherworldly, right? And it is in many ways communicative. So,

The psychedelic experience in my life has had profound impacts in several directions. I'll also share, I'm not a frequent user. I often feel called to it. It's usually every three or four years, all of a sudden, it's in my mind and it gets progressively stronger. I usually have pretty profound experiences after the fact. I also spent a few years of my life

deeply practicing meditation, but also like leveraging cannabis. So getting Frank really high and then meditating for an hour, which can be hallucinogenic on its own and deeply contemplative. And I think in many ways,

The, the use of, so in spirit Tao and in the philosophy, we believe these plants are sacred in the most literal statement. And it's part of our spiritual philosophy to allow more people to have access to these. Um, so like when we talk about building physical community, it's going to be in a space that the, the, the legislators support our vision and allow us to do it. Um, totally, you know, uh, if you're uninitiated, I strongly recommend you find a way to do it. Uh, you know, and

although they're illegal, they are mushrooms and they grow. It's not super difficult. I had an ayahuasca before. Oh, did you? See, I've never done ayahuasca. I totally understand what you describe. And that's, to your point, that's like that shared residence that for someone who hasn't done it, they're not going to deeply know where you and I are coming from right now because it is otherworldly. And I just want to emphasize that ultimately,

Self-actualization in alignment with the single truth in the relational universe is a return to nature. So when we think about human spirituality, let's not forget anatomically modern humans. So people who look like you and I and have the same body as you and I have been around for approximately 300,000 years. For 280,000 plus years, we worshiped nature, deeply integrated with nature, right? That's all we knew.

With the advent of agriculture and the relative surplus that came to be, we developed hierarchical visions of spirituality and humanity. And we did that because those with the means to do it, those possessing the surplus, wanted to secure their power. So we've kind of created these systems of hierarchical religion and spirituality, and we've given them power over us. We worship our creations. They don't deserve that power.

in many ways, self-actualization, by grounding our, in alignment with the single truth of relational universe, grounds our spiritual philosophy in cosmology and physics. It is a return to nature, right? So the use of psychedelic plants, of hallucinogenic plants, is very much aligned with that philosophy. And it's, you know, I think of, I don't know if you're familiar with Terence McKenna, but he makes the stoned ape argument, which I think is a very strong argument that

Part of the reason, like there was a period in human, humanoid, not human, but humanoid evolution where like our brain size has doubled in a very rapid period. And he argues that it's from the prolonged use of psychedelics over time that eventually kind of coalesced into a higher order consciousness. And for me, as someone who's, you know,

deeply embraces these plants and these fungi, that makes sense. Because I can understand why doing them frequently would do that to a person or a being who maybe didn't possess the kind of lower order, you know? And it probably inspired our art, our communication, the things that make us human, right? Ultimately probably came from these plants. So yeah, you know, deeply embrace them. It's not...

I don't, you know, spirit Tao is not, I don't want to say we're like a drug cult, but it is a core part of our spirituality, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's cute. I don't know how much time you still have because I know you have another arrangement. I have about 20 minutes. Okay. Have you encountered any supernatural phenomenon or

numerous spiritual experience that does not make sense to your rational mind. Oh my gosh, yeah. I'm so excited to know you're the first person to ask me about this. So yeah, there's a... Because I encountered several times. So before I was like, oh my God, that's scary. What's going on? I couldn't find any explanation. But after my psychedelic experience, it's kind of opened the door to me. I know, oh, there's a...

the different dimension of the word. So everything makes sense. But I want to listen to your experience and very curious. Well, I deeply appreciate that. So there's a chapter in the book called Synchronicity and Premonition. So ultimately, what's really fascinating about that question is over the past, now at this point, it's been seven years because the book's about nine months out, but it's been about a six year journey of exploring this. And what's really fascinating to me

is that my observations of synchronous moments and premonition, which I'll define in a sec, have increased through my exploration of time and the nature of being, which I think is a really fascinating correlation. I don't want to say it's causation. It's just a fascinating kind of, you know, and it's, let me be candid.

I did my first psychedelic experience almost 18 years ago at this point. So it's not like I did psychedelics for one time and I'm like, oh my gosh, this happened. There was a prolonged period of time where I was doing them and life was normal, but recently. So the answer is yes. There's been several kind of occasions. And I'll give some examples and I'll talk about how I experienced them. So there was one time that stands out that's really, really profound.

I was not on any drugs at the time. And I was walking my dog and it was like all of the sudden the world changed. I don't know how to describe it. It was like I was on a psychedelic experience, but I was not at all. But like there was a synesthesia where like the patterns were evident and they were immense and they were everywhere. And it's like the leaves were blowing, the birds were chirping, the water was moving, the wind was blowing.

but with intention. It was all a thing. What was really fascinating is it lasted for two weeks. It progressively decreased in its intensity, but that's just one example of a premonition aspect. Premonition is the idea that we possess the capacity to create known futures from the quantum state before they exist. I would argue that a known future is the past.

So the idea like it's already passed if we know it to be accurate, right? Because the future is always unknown. The moment it becomes known, it becomes an object. So our ability to kind of pull objects into place, um,

It's never ideal. So what I mean by that is like we do not possess the power as fractional individuals to completely create the future as an object because our very active visualization creates interference with it. Right. And at the quantum state, that matters. Like our our observations matter in the trajectory of how the present takes shape. Synchronicity is like when.

When we draw meaning from the connections of patterns that would otherwise have no meaning, and I'll give you a great example. I have two things that have been occurring. So one is the spider. And I write about the book in the spider, I write about the spider in the book. I started probably about six or seven years ago. I had, I was talking to my partner about this huge spider that I saw in our kitchen wall. And I went to like, I don't kill bugs. I'm a very much like take them outside kind of person with the exception of cockroaches. We have cockroaches here in Florida.

And my partner hates them, so I kind of have to do it. But for the most part, let's go outside. And long story short, we were talking about it. And then I realized what I was talking about couldn't possibly have happened. So I had this, and it wasn't a dream. This is the weird part. It wasn't like I dreamt it and woke up. It was like I had a memory that had never occurred. Now, over the next four or five years, I would perpetually see the spider.

And when I say see, it's really important. When we think about a relational universe governed by the single truth and like an ever-present infinite now,

There's the aspects of like the world that are kind of just going through the motions, but then there's the aspect of like taking a breath and recognizing the totality of your experiencing, recognizing that the fact that we see that bird, that bird can be in no other place, but the immediate present. It has some, the fact that the bird is being organized in this immediate moment in our sight of vision that the bird and I are experiencing each other from two different perspectives. It matters. I don't know how it matters, but the fact that it exists is relevant.

So I would see the spider in a bunch of random but deeply meaningful things. I'll give you one example. In 2018, I was introducing New Jersey Governor Murphy for a... I was involved in... I was instrumental in getting the $15 minimum wage passed in the state in 2018. Okay.

So I was introducing him for like a speaking event and I had a folded up piece of paper in my pocket, right? So it's in my inside jacket pocket. I'm wearing a suit, pull it out. I'm in the back room. It's like 10 minutes before I go on to like give the introduction. So I'm like, oh, let me review my talk. I pull out this folded piece of paper. I unfold it. Now granted, this has been folded in my pocket for about an hour and it's like tight. I unfold it. So it's like two pieces of paper. And all of a sudden I see the paper moving.

I'm like, what is that? I open it up and there's a spider on the paper. Yeah. So of course I put it down and let it go. But like when that hit me, that was a moment of deep synchronicity with the totality. I'm like, oh, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. Like I should feel, you know, it was a real deep sense of calm. I don't know how to describe it. It was like a very felt sense of belonging. Like, oh, I understand now. I couldn't pinpoint the understanding, but I did. Another example that I'll pause because I'd love to hear any you might have is this

is, um, I have a phrase with my partner that I've been here a thousand times, and this is a really interesting critique. I don't know if it's like early onset psychosis, but I am, I am finding myself increasingly having recalled memories of an alternative trajectory. And this started about two and a half years ago. It was the first time it happened is when we first, uh, we rent like a beach house. So we, we first moved in here about two, two years ago. And, um,

I remember being here the first night and having this weird, like it came to me. It was like this whole vision of trajectory of things that like went wrong when we did this the first time. So like I was intentionally able to act in a different direction. And to this date,

It continues to happen. And it's always kind of weird. I always share my, my, my partner. It's like, Oh wow, we've been here. And again, it's not a dream state. It's like I enter a moment and then all of a sudden I recall an alternative trajectory. So it kind of, and I mentioned when we first started talking about this, it,

It's only increased in frequency as I dive more into the nature of time in relation to being. So I don't know if there's a correlation. Again, it's mystical. And I do think there's an element of mystique with the nature of being, especially in a quantum world. To your question about how I deal with it, it's always from the immediate present. Here I am. I try my best to deep what I find myself in those moments, just like allow myself to be. Let's not overthink this. Here I am. Like I get it. Once it triggers like, oh,

I get it, here I am. And then you allow it to be in the most natural sense and allow it to unfold because you don't want to, it's my personal opinion,

that you don't want to interfere with synchronicity. You want to allow it to be. So I'll pause. Please do share more about your experiences. Yeah, I do resonate a lot. I had a lot of deja vu. Like, oh, every time I have something replayed in reality, I feel, oh, I've already thought this in my dream or in my brand. Yeah, so that happens a lot. And I'll share with you a very interesting

interesting story when I was a 10 my mom had a huge car crash there was like 14 cars together yeah in my hometown oh my gosh so on that morning it's very interesting because normally my mom went to work then

I will say, oh, bye-bye, mom. But on that day, I said, not bye, mom. That was the first time. I had no idea. I was 10. I had no idea why I say that. And she was the only survivor from that car crash accident. So, yeah, that's why I start to...

very being interested in this spiritual exploration because I want to know what had going on on that day, why I said that. So it's kind of like a coincidence. If I said goodbye, does that mean my mom will also die in that car crash? These kind of things, like I do something abnormal or say something abnormal, it happens very frequently in my world. And every time I have some relatives or friends

beloved friends died, I had that dream, all my teeth fall out. So I kind of know when they will die.

So yeah, it's very hard to explain to people and especially in China's context, people will say, "Oh, you're crazy," or "You're like a witch," or something like that. So before I was kind of hiding this, but I always being... Now I feel like, as you mentioned, yeah, I'm just being here, experience this. Although this already probably happened or I know what's going to happen, but

but I won't be afraid or have a fear. I'm just being here experiencing. Yeah. Well said. A, thank you for sharing that with me. That's a really intense story and I really appreciate it. But to your point, and I'm glad that you have found that because I completely agree and what you say really resonates with me about when we conceptualize ourselves as the observer,

that this is just one form of inhabiting an experience, right? Like we're an observer, but so is the dog. The dog experiences reality from a very different set of context and structure, as do we. But I think to your point, what's fascinating about the immediate present, where in the past has not been accurate, today is accurate to say that an increasing amount of our most advanced science and knowledge

is illuminating the fact that we are deeply interconnected with the whole. And it is not this separate experience, right? Your point about people critiquing you, it's because they say, oh, no way that can happen, right? It's this ultra-rationalist, ultra-reductionist vision of being human.

But I think what's beautiful about, again, where we find ourselves today is our most advanced knowledge of saying, no, that's not accurate. What is accurate is the deep interconnectivity, the inseparability from the observer and the context of information they observe. I make the argument in the book that the root of the universe is information. And information requires an observer to be relevant. Otherwise, you have a void. If you have one without the other, there's nothing.

So your story totally resonates with me. I'm so happy we went down this path. It's really fascinating. Okay, last question. So what do you hope your readers will take away from your book? And how do you believe it can inspire positive change in individuals and society?

Yeah, great question. So ultimately, we've spoken about the single truth. So I'll give a spoiler alert to everyone who reads the book. In the last chapter, I talk about this. The single truth requires no believers. The infinite material nature of reality and sequential universes will be whether or not we choose to embrace it. So my objective here and with the book is not to convince you that it's real.

My objective is to say, this is what it is. And I believe it is ideal to align ourselves with it because the present systems, again, reinforce a static vision of the world onto the present. But nothing about the history of the universe has ever not been changing. So it's about becoming more a shared bigness in recognizing a more accurate depiction of who we are. So my hope with the book is to provide people

an imagination of an alternative, something that I will argue personally, if embraced will change the trajectory of your life towards a much different vision of reality and a much different kind of manifestation of, of what is possible. Um,

And it's, again, grounded in our collective knowledge. It's not just something I made up. It's not a creation. It's not, there's nothing to worship. You know, you don't have to worship your, you know, the single truth. That doesn't even make any sense. It's, it just is, but it is a context. Ultimately, my deepest hope is that if the text resonates, if the podcast resonates, if what we're, this conversation resonates with other people is that they come check out spirit.com, connect with our community, because ultimately it's,

All of us possess a responsibility, right? The path of least resistance, the path of just the same is the crisis. It is only getting worse, right? Everything about what we're doing, you know, we have record-breaking heat waves. We have the ice caps are not forming this year. And at the same time, we're drilling new oil permits.

If we do not develop an alternative framework of meaning and value, the present domination philosophies that kind of rule the world will continue to drive us towards the crisis. So you have a choice, right? We all have a choice as individuals, as fractional observers, as the unique conscious coordinates. We can let it happen and unravel, or we can make an active effort to redirect ourselves.

I don't promise anything. I'm not a guru. I'm not here to make false promises. All I'm here to say is that if you're willing to work, I'm going to do that alongside you. And I believe collectively we can transform the world. I believe collectively we can redirect ourselves. We can reorient ourselves with nature as it is. And I believe genuinely that when we accomplish that vision, it will unlock an aspect of our humanity that

that is profoundly powerful, much more than anything we presently recognize. But it's going to take work, right? It requires effort. There's no escaping that. Choice is divinity in the moment. And we have to exercise that. And the final thing I'll conclude on when it comes to participating, let go of the false ideal of neutrality. There is no such thing as being neutral. Every decision pushes us towards a specific direction and in doing so leaves other directions behind.

Your choices matter. They're extremely relevant. So to that end, I'd ask you to choose wisely. Great. Great ending. Thank you so much for being my guest on my show. Oh, it's a real pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on. I deeply appreciate it. And I look forward to the next time. Thanks so much. Yeah, for sure. I'll invite you next time.