https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=y8NwQQwJzNc
Welcome everyone to another episode of Voices with Raveki. I’m really pleased to be here with Iris Stamberger. Iris reached out to me by email and said, John, I’m making use of a lot of your work in what I’m doing called the wisdom project. I said that sounds really interesting. Then we met, not recorded, and we had a conversation. I was really impressed with Iris. I think it was only halfway in. I said, I really want you to come on with Voices with Raveki and talk about the wisdom project and talk about how you’re making use of my work and your work and what your work is doing and how it builds on work you used to be doing and all that sort of thing. So, Iris, welcome. Okay. Thank you, John. Again, thank you, thank you, thank you for your work. It’s helping me. You know, Greg Hernandez said, you’re giving me the concepts to understand why I think what I think. So, I would ascribe to that comment by Greg. It’s really wonderful. In my case, I have been looking since I was a teenager for tools for transformation, for metanoia, because I used to be very Catholic and I was trained by the Jesuits in Venezuela. With the work of Teilarte Chardin, who was a Jesuit priest who got defrocked because his ideas about evolution and improvement and the nose fear. So that kernel of knowledge has guided me throughout my life. And I became an engineer and I modeled systems. And, you know, the systems always change. So that change in the human, the change in the mechanical systems that we modeled as engineers also led me to think of how to change work systems, communities of practice, communities of work. And so I have been creating systems and the last one was the product of me going back to school and getting a PhD with Daniel Dennett at Tufts University nearby, live in the Boston area. And David Feldman, who is a cognitive developmental psychologist whose specialty is transitions. And I have been always interested in what is that happens when you take, you know, one person from here to here and psychology has the concept of the zone of proximal development and the internalization of the coach or the teacher or the knowledge. is like, how do I take this person, you know, it’s more than just a zone of proximal development. So I found this philosopher, I love her work, Ruth Milliken, who has this idea of push me, pull you representations. It’s like the Janus face in the Rome, Antion of Gods that has two faces that takes you from, you know, like to a transitional stage. That’s kind of my life quest. I have done it in different modalities and the pragmatic framework that I created by going back to school led me to go to many universities in Latin America and some in Europe because I was lucky to sign with a group in Harvard who helps universities. So the method, I managed to teach teachers how to use it to change the way they work and then train others. I train facilitators. So many people go train to that. And I’ve been doing that for about 12 years here in the Boston area with different companies. But I could never do it the way I did it when I started with Harvard because I don’t have that type of leverage. So people buy pieces and here and there of the framework. And so I found your work. And I thought initially, but I failed that your four levels of knowledge, the participatory, perspectival, procedural and propositional were related to the way I approach a system, a complex system in systems engineering. There is this tool called cognitive work analysis. Right. And you take a complex system where people interact with each other and with objects and their cognitive processes and you do certain type of analysis. The first one is you analyze the domain. And because it’s complex, you layer the domain. Right. I was trying to map the way I layer a domain and with your four levels of knowledge. It really was difficult. I didn’t succeed. I still try every day. So, but even though I couldn’t use that yet, I have not been able to benefit from that which I hope I understand. I was able to then finally find a way to do my work for the general public. Usually I go to an organization and people have a project and I help them with a bunch of tools from systems engineering, from organizational change, from quality management, a bunch of tools to get them from here to here. Right. And the specialty of the consultant is to really capture the zone of professional development of a particular group to be able to sometimes in three months, sometimes during a weekend to take them from here to here. And that’s what I have been doing. It’s very focused work. You need to know the problem they have, not necessarily a domain. The domain is management. It’s management of organizations. But it’s not something I could take to a general public. But when you said that it was a mistake to think of wisdom as expertise, wow. Wow. So I have been looking about the development of expertise, the domain expertise. You know that in psychology, after Piaget, assimilation and accommodation, people fought against domain specific development. And Professor Feldman from Tufts, he was a domain specific person looking for the transition. So anyway, I was in that nine dot frame until I heard your video series. Wow. And listening to your video series, I felt, oh, I can do the same thing that I do, my analysis of a project and bring that to anybody, to my neighbor, to the teacher in the high school, not only to people in corporations that pay consultants to do this type of transformation at work. Right, right, right. So Ergo, the wisdom project is one project at a time to bring wise reason to your life, your family and your community. That’s kind of the aim. That’s so cool. That’s so cool. Let me let me just make sure people understand the topic you’ve mentioned. The zone of proximal development comes from Bogotsky. Just very simply, here’s what a child could learn on their own. Here’s what a child can learn with a teacher. And above that line, even with the teacher, the child can’t learn in between those. That’s the zone of proximal development. Bogotsky argued that’s where you do the best learning because you’re not just solving the problem, you’re internalizing the higher order perspective of the teacher. And that helps develop your metacognition and your ability to self correct and self transcend. That’s why there’s a zone of proximal development. But what I hear you saying, Iris, is that there’s a sense in which you want to understand that, but not in a domain specific way, but in a much more generalizable way. Well, because wisdom is a. It’s a transferable skill, it’s a transferable virtue. It applies to everything you reason about. Yes, exactly. It’s a foolishness and wisdom are not domain specific. They’re domain general phenomena. So so this opened you up and you have been putting together like a program, the wisdom project. Take us through it, walk us through it. What what are its components? So people do, et cetera. I chose. From your definition as wisdom, as an ecology of practices, sludge, committed styles. Right. And then you least aspiration, transformation, intuition, internalization, et cetera, no sees understanding. I chose seven. I chose aspiration and transformation, aspiration in the developmental sense that Agnes Callard does it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Transformation in the revelatory sense that Laurie Paul does it. L.A. Paul’s amazing book. So good. I just call her book aspiration blew my mind. I get to I got to meet Laurie. I went down to she invited me down to Yale to give a guest lecture there. Her book is amazing, transformative experience. Keep going. Keep going. Well, in the way that they both can agree to disagree without fighting each other. Yes, it is a lecture they gave at the American Philosophical Association, where they got a prize. It’s difficult to see what the differences are, you know, but they are. One is that elementary is not, you know, so I took those two because I have tools in my toolkit where I can invite people to visit those skills, right, to try to attain those skills in the case of aspiration for this particular program that I’m running right now. I chose a few mindful communication tools. So people center in the being here and now instead of there and then. So mindful communication in the sense that is only in the past. In excuse me, mindfulness meditation in the sense that is doing authentic relating some mindfulness techniques. OK, right, right, right. And combine that the mindfulness with. What I call the Solomon paradox exercise, I transformed Igor Grossman. Yes, yes. So you try really going. Are you doing that? So just so people know, recently was one among many people co-authored a paper by Igor Grossman, the Wisdom Consensus paper. But Igor did work. For example, the Solomon effect is if you ask people to describe a problem they’re having, they’ll describe it almost inevitably from the first person perspective and they’ll be stuck. And then you ask them to re-describe it from a third person perspective and they’ll often get an insight into their problem. And that’s why the way what I mean when I say why the meta perspectival abilities, the perspectival knowing is so central to wisdom. So are you getting people to move in a perspectival manner? Yeah, OK. And to offer their own, because it’s a project based learning approach pedagogy, it’s also an experiential pedagogy in the sense that they have to have experiences, but it’s also peer teaching. Right. Right. So offering the opportunity to people to contribute their wisdom. And so people do the Solomon paradox, which is that Solomon used to be very wise in the history books and he was really a wonderful king, but in his personal life he was a mess. And apparently many people are like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So people are being able to offer to others their own way of experience, experience, experience in different perspectives. Right. Right. Right. Right. So so that was really powerful. During the first session, the wisdom project introduction is done in seven weeks, two hours online every week. And I cover the seven skills of wisdom, aspiration, transformation, mindfulness, open mindedness, intuition, understanding and self-regulation in the first six weeks. Yeah. Yes. And the last week is about preparing them to close and to implement the project. Right. To implement the project, which some of them already know what direction to go. Some of them already feel that they have made progress. Some of them feel that they have to review the project. So is this project like is it is it typically a personal project they’re engaging in? They’re they’re they’re engaging in a project of sort of a personal change. Is that the type of project you’re talking about? To to register in the program, I asked for people to have a project and the project has to be personal, like self-care. Right. I need to develop this type of attitude towards my personal life or my personal fitness or whatever could be relational, could be I need to improve my relational with this or that person or could be an EAT project related to the world. Like I want to transform my teaching practice that my students love into assets, digital assets, assets that other students throughout the world can benefit from. You know, I have the three types of projects in that in the class that I’m teaching right now. So in each one, they’re learning a virtue and then you have like a set of practices or exercise they go through for mindfulness, for transformation, for aspiration, for active open mindedness, et cetera. So and I go ahead. Did you like did you find that there was a particular order of doing them that worked at the best, like starting? This is this is the first time I’m running it. I think I have changed my questions to you while I tried to meet you, but we couldn’t. So now I’m about to teach the last session this Friday, the seventh class. But I used to think of that as the seven steps towards something, but that doesn’t work like that. It’s like a dynamic. Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s how it goes. That’s ecology and ecology of practice. It’s an ecology. So I would like to have done the staircase, the ladder thing, but it doesn’t work like that. No. And I chose aspiration because I love the model of development. That you mean you chose to start with aspiration? Yes. And to finish with transformation, I start with Agnes and finish with Laurie. I wonder what Agnes and Laurie would say about that. And in the presence, I call you I call you the intellectual father of the wisdom project. And I called Lisa Feldman Barrett, the intellectual mother. Lisa is the woman from How Emotions Are Made. Right. And the idea that the brain is a prisoner in the school trying to make sense of what’s going on outside and trying to predict. And because the type of people that I know and I attract and I think will come and have come to my different programs are highly self-regulated people with PhDs and papers and dual careers, MDs and PhDs, people like that. I think that self-regulation of the emotional aspect is vital. And Lisa Feldman Barrett has a powerful way of describing the emotional landscape. Right. Right. Right. Right. In terms of, you know, two axes where you have high arousal or low arousal and aversion, creating an aversion, you know, like the Buddhist model. So and then from that, she says that everything else is cultural and it’s really nice for people to see that they can sculpt somehow their emotional lives. Right. Right. Right. Fascinating. Because I only have two hours every time. I cannot talk, you know, and I need time for them to experience, times to share, etc. I cannot talk about snippets, but I try every every session to to include the vision of emotions that Lisa Feldman brings to the forefront. I’ve been arguing for quite a while that we should add to the four E’s, like a fifth E, which is cognition is inherently emotional and deeply convinced that that’s the case. And I’d add a sixth E that cognition is exactive. We take processes from sensory motor and we exact them into more abstract cognition. Yeah, the shaman. Michelle. Very much. So, I mean, this is the first time running it. And, you know, you and I will I already promised you before that I would we would meet and I would help you, you know, redesign it, reconfigure it in any ways I could help. Yeah, because I left things untouched, like I didn’t present the four E, the four E cognition model. But, you know, I think I should speak about how minds are distributed. Yes, yes, I believe that the sacredness. The gnosis that is emerging from the sessions. Cannot be the wisdom that is emerging, cannot be explained, but by some type of social scientific. Yeah, it’s the collective intelligence of distributed cognition. This is the whole dialectic into the logos project. Yeah, I think you should definitely you might be you need an eighth week where there’s a dialogical aspect to the wisdom practice. So, first of all, just some feedback. How has it been going? Like, how’s the how’s the program been going? What kind of things are you seeing in the participants? What kind of things are they saying to you? You opened a window. In my life that I didn’t have before. I never imagined that there was another way of interacting. People are using the mindful conversation techniques, which is basically active meditation. Yes, yes, yes, yes. They are using it because there is a homework between each session and the homework is to practice mindful conversation around a question related to the skill of the week. Oh, my gosh, that’s fantastic. I rest. Wonderful. That’s why they come back to class with so much knowledge to share with the rest. So so you’re getting it. So I’ve heard similar things where people say, you know, I didn’t know I was always looking for this or I didn’t realize I could this kind of connection or intimacy or way of seeing was possible very, very much. And it’s. It speaks to the fact that our culture at large has a wisdom famine that is so pronounced that many people don’t even realize how much they’re starving for it until they get the first taste of it and then they get the first taste of it. It’s like, right. Very, very, very much. That’s all right. I it seems so much commitment at the beginning, because besides having a project, I ask people to commit to the seven classes because we are teaching each other. Therefore, they’re going to be missed if they don’t come because they are teachers. So this person said, you know, she’s in Europe, very busy, high, higher open up biotech company. And then she came to a class number six and said, this is too short. I have to make it longer. Yeah. Yeah. So another thing is that I was scared at the beginning. Yes, I was scared. No, but concerned that some of the people are in a very different spiritual space or theological space. Some of them are two ministers, two healers. Right. And then like five people who are completely secular. Right. Right. People who are completely, you know, that they pray the rosary almost every day. Yeah. And then I even had a meeting with Rick Repetti. Right. Because that was my concern. I’m a secular person, the person, because I have the center nearby and I’m a person, a meditator and the person, a meditation, because Daniel Bennett made me a naturalist. Right. Right. Of course. And and I was like, oh, my gosh, what’s going to happen? And so Rick said to internalize you. But if I internalized, nothing bad would happen. And I said to him, OK, I’m just going to call you as soon as I have the first session, because I didn’t want people fighting for the different stories or the different propositional knowledge they have about. Right. Right. And the problem did not exist. Right. Right. Wow. Yeah. How come? Well, I think because. I think I think people, I think all of us who are trapped in propositional tyranny, once we get outside of it, we are so awakened to the non propositional and the cultivation of wisdom and meaning that all those propositional differences pale by comparison in the fact that we are all jointly going, I’m starving for this, I’m starving for this, I’m starving for this. Wonderful. I’m so grateful, Joe. I didn’t know you talked to Rick. That’s so cool. I love Rick. I’ve reached out to him. I’m going to try and get get another conversation with him going soon. He’s I always call him the amazing Rick Rapetti, because that’s what he is. He’s just like the breadth and depth of his mind without any sense of arrogance or and just an honest desire to communicate deeply with people. I just so admire that. He’s so he’s so virtuous in that way. And I just I really admire him. I’m glad you got to speak with him. So I mean, so you’re finishing up, you’re getting this amazing feedback from people. Right. So are you are you going to are you I assume you’re going to run this again. Are you are you also planning to. Like, this is the introductory one. It would be like an intermediate and an advanced or is that in the works? Is that kind of what you’re planning or at the end of June? I have one class in English. And one class in Spanish, and I already have people register for both classes. Right. And then during the fall, I have a class in English. And I have a class in Spanish. Right. And then during the fall, I want to do an advanced class, which is why I asked for your advice. What I have done in the past is the following. When I was working with Harvard in this model that I created a task that I call the management of learning, how to because learning is goes across domains. Yes. And I wanted to I use my cognitive work analysis to understand the work of a teacher. I was teaching at four different universities when I was a student at Tufts. And so different students, different technologies, everything. So I tried to use the cognitive work analysis in my work and that generated the framework that I created that I was able to to sell across many universities. And. The model that I use for that was an intensive introduction, and then I trained facilitators that they could replicate what I taught them. And I want to do the wisdom project, creative commons licenses, so people are free to use it. Oh, because it’s really it’s really something really valuable that you can teach any friend of yours how to reason wisely. That’s it. Yes, yes. With those seven skills and the tools that I am delivering. So my idea then is to do a few more interest tools so I get the flavor of how to manage noses who is pouring through the room. Yeah, it’s just it’s a little overwhelming for a naturalist. Yes, I know. I don’t like to have a sky hook. Yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about, Iris. I felt that too with the logo shows up and everything is being swept up and you’re like and reality seems to be speaking to you. Yes, I know what that’s like. I’ve had that multiple times when I’ve done philosophical fellowship or dialectic and the logos or circling practices, authentic relating. Yes, yes, I know what you’re talking about very much. And then what do you do when that happens when the logo? I don’t know if I’m doing it. I talk about the logo as the found the logos as the foundation and on top of it, I feel like I have like a temple of the wisdom project. The foundation is the logos on top of it, the floor is noses and then there are columns and the skills are inside and the columns are science, story, symbols and mind tools. Like Daniel Dennett uses that term. I use that term too. But I am like. I am in need perhaps of sky of a sky hook. Yeah, sky hook is that Daniel Dennett, the philosopher of mind says that, you know, we only have cranes, which is what we have in the world. But some of us need sky hooks that basically are supported by nothing. So it’s difficult to be a naturalist when the logos it drops. Yes, as a life of its own. Just so people know, Daniel Dennett is somebody I teach about at the University of Toronto. He’s one of the founding is a philosopher, but he’s definitely one of the founding figures of cognitive science. The explanation I give of the frame problem, for those of you who have seen it, is directly from Daniel Dennett’s work. He was one of the people that really made clear the problem, the frame problem, the relevance problem within it. Daniel Dennett, as I said, does a lot of work on things like he calls intuition pumps. He’s a very staunch naturalist. He was he was one of the four horsemen of the new atheism. Very important influential thinker. And but I totally get why. You know, if you’ve been Dennett’s student, you’re deeply immersed in a naturalistic framework. Yeah, and then try reckoning with what shows up when you’re doing these practices in a naturalistic framework is a challenge. That’s a challenge I have been trying to take up. And I’ve been trying my best to bridge between a naturalistic cognitive science, non-reductive naturalistic cognitive science and spirituality. That’s my project. So I deeply appreciate exactly what you’re talking about, Iris. I encounter it frequently and I am. I’m glad that many people such as you and I are willing to encounter it honestly and try to hold on simultaneously both to the science and to the spirituality. I’ve it is first of all, I’m just grateful to meet somebody. There’s a fellow, a fellow, you know, worker in this area. You and I are trying to do the same thing. And we’re also trying to turn the theory into actual practice, not just leave it as theory. I mean, that’s why I just I just I really I don’t know. It’s like it’s like, oh, I did turns out that you and I are cousins or something like that. It’s one of those connections that you start to realize that’s so so powerful. To answer your question, I mean, I’ve been trying to create the conceptual vocabulary, the theoretical grammar and the enacted gymnastics that will actually allow us to appropriately honor the. You know, the advent of the logos while remaining within a scientific framework that is responsible to the richness and the depth of that reality. And to me, the two easy outs are just to write it off and say there’s nothing going on there. Or just to say, here’s my mythological explanation. And that’s all I need. And it’s like for me and for many people in the world today, they they don’t they they don’t find either one of those satisfactory. And part of the meeting crisis is our culture says, well, those are the only two choices. It’s either it’s not really important. That’s all just superficial. Woo woo fluff fluff or no, it’s actually angels and etc. And stuff like that. I’m sorry. I don’t mean any denigration of people who talk about angels, but the point I’m trying to make is. I am convinced that for most people who are wrestling with the meeting crisis, a third way has to be offered and you’re clearly trying to do it. And it’s more than trying. It clearly sounds like you’re succeeding and you’re touching people’s life. And the fact that you are touching people who come like like ministers who come from a traditional religious framework healers who come from an alternative religious framework and then a bunch of secular people. And the fact that it’s working for all of them is maybe one of the most important pieces of evidence that you could bring about this. Pouring through the floor, you know, because I have this temple is know thyself is in the room like a Greek temple and then the column science stories, mind tools and symbols and then the floor is nauseous and the foundation is logos. And I feel the logos pouring and my little mind in there is just with little buckets trying to capture the words. It doesn’t work. So I’m using words like sacred. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it’s like race. Yes. Yes. Inviting the participants to modify the wheel of emotions that you can find on the internet for the Center for Nonviolent Communication where the emotion of wonder or grace all these expensive things that happen when you connect with that many times don’t appear. So people are finishing up. I’m interested in the last session because I understand if I misunderstood you, please correct me. But what you’re doing in the last session is like, how do you tell you take this out of the course out of the project and transfer it into your life? Am I understanding that? So what are you doing there? Or what are you going to be doing in order to try and do that? I am all the time I struggle because I call myself the too lady because I have so many tools after so many years of doing this type of consulting work. So I put in, you know, until I have a perfect session like a two hour perfect like going to a theater, you know, it’s like a fear every it’s a performance. Basically. Yes. We are all, you know, but so far, my idea is the following. We have been talking about the imaginal self that you talk about in your number 50 video or something like that about Tillich and Corbyn. Yeah. We have been talking about the imaginal self and I have been doing little pieces of introduction to experiencing wonder, experience and power. Right. And when they do the mindful conversations, the question is, what is the gap it low for you when they get three? Yeah. So I’m cultivating that for the final session that so far is it’s not a perfect session. It’s a perfect session. So I’m cultivating that for the final session. That’s so far is it’s called in psychology is called transitional state where you are the current self. And you see the second sacred, the second sacred self. But I’m not calling it like that. I’m calling it the imaginal self. And then you journey, you journey. Yeah. Like, you know, imagine the god Janus is a contemplation exercise. Janus the Roman god that one face will show something in the other face shows another thing. This face, the one that seen the imaginal self shows wonder which we have cultivated in our encounters. And this one shows a gapic law, unconditional law that we also have cultivated. Right. And that’s what I was thinking of doing until we talked last week and you suggested we do a dialogue around wisdom. And I’m now thinking, yes or no. Yeah, I like the idea of the imaginal future self. All the work of Hirschfield and others that when people enter into an imaginal relationship, especially when it’s made vivid for the future self, they will actually pursue long-term goals. They will overcome hyperbolic discounting. I talked about that when I gave my lecture at Cambridge. Did I send you the link to that? I already saw it before we talked last week. Right, right. Yeah. You have a really good follower on me. That’s good to know Iris and I really appreciate that. Yeah. It’s so helpful. And now that I see it working with the frameworks that I’m familiar with, it’s just amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So imagine you said the imaginal self because I’m using what you said about Thielish and I have a book called Imaginal Love by… Yeah, by, oh, Chetham, Thomas Chetham. Yes. She’s, okay, I have that one. Imaginal Love is a great book and Chetham’s work and I prefer his work on Corban rather than directly reading Corban. Corban is very, very, very hard to read because his style is very, very imaginal. Like it’s hard to, it’s often like you’ll read it and you’re trying to figure out what’s going on where I find But the world turned inside out Imaginal Love and All the World is God’s Icon, which is very close to Sebastian Durello’s book on Aquinas. So I might be confusing the two titles. That trilogy, I think is like that is the way of really understanding Corban really, really well. I think Corban. I bought the book by Chetham. I don’t know how to pronounce his name. And then I’m using that that symbol of the imaginal self. Yes. And the imaginal project, the imaginal self, and I was planning to close with that and then you made a suggestion. But also I want to have a very concrete tool that I have used many times called Sprint where you run a project in X number of weeks and then you have goals. It’s a little thing that is done in software engineering and change management to make sure that when you set yourself to do something you have the mind post to do it. Yeah, so I was going to combine the imaginal self transition and exercise with that and now I’m considering your suggestion. Well, maybe we could bring them all together. Here’s a suggestion. And this is based on an idea of practice that Jordan Peterson used that he got from well, he might have invented it on his own, but it overlaps with practices from stoicism. So you get people to enter into an emotionally affective relationship with their imaginal future self. So it’s an imaginal state, not just imaginary. They’re engaged. They’re committed. And then you get them to write the reverse narrative. So work write a story backwards from the imaginal to right now. And then you do the opposite. Here’s everything has fallen apart and write your life’s in disaster. Enter into and then write the narrative backwards and then here and now what’s what can you do to improve your ability to discern the difference between these two pathways? That’s the kind of thing because the reverse right writing the reverse narrative actually helps give people these narrative signposts, which would line up with the implementation plans you’re talking about. But if you do the two and you bring them together, the path of foolishness and the path of wisdom and then you bring it’s like it’s almost like the third perspective of perspective painting. I think you’re bringing it back to them and saying, okay, what do I need to do here right now in order to deepen the skills, the sensibilities, the states of mind, so I could discern the difference between these two pathways and keep disturbing the difference so that I can follow this story rather than falling into that story. Wow, you have brought spirituality into Springs, which is the technique. Yes. Like I said, I want to give credit where credit was due. I mean, that’s that’s Jordan’s one of his practices. He’s done. And like I said, it doesn’t originate with him. Although I think it might be original to him. He might have thought of it up on him. I mean, there’s various versions of this explicitly argued for like stoicism. You don’t remember the name just to of the practice. What he calls it. I don’t remember. It might be something. I’m fine. It might be something like self-authoring. I’m not sure. I’m not sure what it calls it. But it’s like I said, if you combine it with the imaginal stuff from full band and all of the good cogs, I and then you can bring in like you said, the like the thing where you give people like you chunk it into appreciable signposts, guide marks, milestones, whatever metaphor you want to use. Yeah, yeah. It’s perfect. Yes. Okay. I’ll do they I’ll do the wisdom dialogs for the second level. Yes, I think that’s another thing is that I have not talked. About the negative side because the logos can you brought? You know. I have not talked about what could emerge that could be scary. Yeah. That people are. Yes. And so I am working on the on the premise. I would say that by holding the space by doing a lot of mindfulness, I can guide the process. Yes. My container. I don’t think I pushed. Oh, that’s the reason why I use a very mild mindfulness technique. Yes. Yes. Daniel Singer. Yeah. Daniel Singer from the Max Plan Institute. She does is called intersubjective mindfulness. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild. It’s very mild and but it’s powerful. Yes. So that’s my my. Because I’m so surprised by the logos emerging so much force. I am considering. Well, I mean, you’re also giving them all of these are tools of raising awareness of self-deception and enhancing self-correction that has to be practiced very very deeply. And that’s your those are the primary virtues that people need in order to deal with the emergence of any darkness. I mean, and then I mean there’s things you can work on in the second level stuff, you know. I’m working on, you know with other people, you know, there’s some practices around shadow work or doing dealing with projection. And then there’s also things you can do in order to help people improve their internal dialogue something, you know, variations on internal family systems theory that also can help people process pain in various ways. And so there’s some really excellent work being done by Steve March on Alethea coaching where he has this entire program for taking people into the depths of the psyche and processing a lot of this stuff very very powerfully. So there’s a lot there’s a lot there’s a lot we could talk about that could potentially go into the more advanced course course to. At the same time, I have to say that. Being a person who has practiced many many different. Psychotechnologists. Yes. And having found to be passed on now 20 years ago. I don’t. I don’t see why people have to do all that shadow projection work with the brain at the end is just a lucidating reality. So there is if I do John again psychotherapy or psychodynamic therapy is just with it will never end. I don’t want to dismiss any reaction calling it going to need the shadow or calling it a projection 98% of what I call the minus. On conscience so. Right go ahead go ahead go ahead. Can the light of awareness. Burn those defilements and impurities. I mean, for some people, but my experience is. These practice because i’ve taught the past for 15 years. I’ve taught. Right and meta and I agree for most of for most of the time. I agree for most of for most people what you said is the case. However, I got training in like psychotherapy because every now and then there would be somebody that bumped against some very powerful trauma. And they need a much more. They need a practice that is much more specific. To their own idiosyncratic, idiosyncratic history. Okay, I get it. Yes, it’s an illusion is an idea to think that by just feeding the dynamical system of all in creativity and aspiration and transformation i’m going to relegate to basically to extinguish the parasitic processes so that’s not. yeah that’s naive. I think it’s a little naive I don’t want I wouldn’t I would I want to qualify the night if that’s what i’m attributed to. I think what you’re doing will help a lot of people, a lot of the time I don’t think like I don’t think. For example, I would strongly reject or resist any attempt to attack to take the sapiential. Project I would do with right that you’re doing and trying to reduce it to therapy to therapeutic models, I would I reject that totally. So I do not think you can I do not think therapy does any or most of what we’re talking about so i’m not saying that, but I am saying that you can bump into some. bump into things that in which people have been very seriously hurt in a way in which they have to. process it to a point where then these techniques can actually apply to them. Right. That I completely yes. Yes, yes, yes, and so. But I treat it this way, for example, I don’t necessarily mean projection in that heavy sense what I mean is this is a slogan I use. What distraction is to meditation projection is to do logos so one of the things that happens. In the logos is people get like equivalently to like you know what you in the past, you get distracted from your breath. Right, what happens is people get distracted from the logos but it’s right, but the distraction usually takes the form of a projection. They often start talking about themselves in the dialectical practice, rather than entering into Jen they fall into monologue and then they start projecting their identity on. on either positively or negatively like oh yeah yeah that’s exactly me or no no no that’s exactly the opposite of me. And we try to get people like aware of when they’re making those two moves of radical identification or disidentification. And treat them like distractions no no no you’re you’re you’re leaving the practice and you’re you’re right and so note if you’re over identifying. or over disidentifying and try to come back to the Center between those that’s what I meant by trying to train people also about things like projection, because. it’s amazing iris like when when when when guys sense talking Christopher master Pietro and I are doing. The dialectic into the logos workshop we teach them what you did it, you know you attended. And. And so, some of the times I not the time you attended, I think the time before I went through some of the individual rooms just to help people out. And you remember how often we emphasize when you are the when you are the mindful mirror when you’re they try to draw the person out don’t talk about yourself. To be able to talk about yourself when it’s your turn don’t talk and I go into the room and they’re talking about themselves. No, no, no, no, you are you are playing the role of Socrates you are asking the questions to draw them out stop talking about yourself that’s what I mean when people and they and they don’t even realize they’re doing it they don’t even realize they’re doing it that’s what I mean things like that. And so, I think it’s important to think about trying to get people a little bit more aware of. As you said, the dark side of this and how it can show up in these practices in ways you’re not even aware of so part of what I was referring to was. This stuff that people like, especially in in in in dialogical practices, they need more like more guidance for how they will fall into these just like right initially when you’re doing the pasta label. The distraction return to your breath, you have to do that for a long time before you then can meditate on the distraction right and same thing that’s what i’m talking about. Okay, I see. Okay, but because i’m not doing therapy. I don’t know. No, and I and that’s a very important thing to say right that. Right you’re not doing therapy and everything we’re talking about here is not therapy therapy has its place and sometimes you like i’ve had to point people to therapy is like let’s say you’re not ready, you need to go do therapy before you can. Do this practice right and i’ve done that with people who have entered into meditation because they’ll touch something in meditation and they will touch they have PTSD it turns out, and they touch the trauma. And there’s no, no, no, you need to go and you have to deal with that because you won’t be able to do this. But there’s definitely that but we’re not doing therapy we’re also not just doing exercise like the other metaphor people fall into is. Oh i’m just getting i’m you’re just making me stronger you’re you’re building my mental muscles, so that I can go out no no that’s not what we’re doing either we’re doing we’re doing we’re doing aspiration like you said we’re seeking transformation and getting people to commit to that is very important. I want also to mention that I didn’t include insight per se. As a skill to be developed by the secret. Yes, is them will reasoning because the whole performance the whole session is built around creating flow. Yes, I agree, I don’t think there is a specific skill of insight I think mindfulness and other things. insight has to self organize if you try to make it happen, there are things practices of attention and mindfulness and interaction that are conducive to flow but flow has to flow or it’s not exactly. So we create seven sessions of flow. Where people have you know they, as you said, the. Yes, yes, yes, yes. One insight after the other. Yes, trajectory of training as you. Oh yes, yes. You know, are you close, you know, and then were you close to relevance and then open to moreness. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. That’s what we have been doing and that’s why he’s like is not listed there. It doesn’t. It’s everywhere. It’s exactly it that’s exactly right I think that’s exactly right. Iris this is, I mean we are obviously going to talk again, so I really wanted to help you with with building the next course. So exciting. I think this is one of the gifts of the series is I’ve been meeting people setting up communities of practices creating these programs or already having existing programs and trying to integrate it. It’s it’s it’s I was talking to somebody today and I’m much more hopeful than I used to be because there’s like people like you, right, taking this up and like turning it into an ecology of practice that is meeting people who come from very different perspectives. And nevertheless, getting them to commune together in a shared commitment to the cultivation of wisdom. I just want to congratulate. Yeah, and before we close. How people end up managing the emergence of religion in their lives. Yes, yes. How people react. Like I leave my driveway goes to a church and every Sunday I have to go out. I feel this bang of this morning of what I was used to when I was growing up. You miss it. You’re grieving. Even thought of becoming a nun when I was a teenager. Yes, yes. Being trained by the Jesuits. So that that emergence of reverence, revelation, grace that I think you all you call all of that religion. Can you say a little more about that and how people manage it? Yes. So for me, I mean, I mean, religio. When when religio is about religion, so we’re always doing religion. We’re always doing relevance realization. We’re always doing this fundamental connectedness, right? That’s that’s the whole model of, you know, the dynamic coupling to the world. But when when the religio is done for its own sake, when it’s the religio is about the what when a religio is about religion, when it’s done for the sake, that’s what think about. What is John talking about? Look, salience landscaping. That’s one way in which I am an intelligent agent in the world. You know what I can do? I can do salience landscaping for its own sake. And you call that music and you love music for its own sake. You don’t do it to do anything else. You can. You can use music instrumentally, but ultimately you tune it into music instead of music. But when you play it serious play for its own sake, that’s when it starts to become sacred. Same thing. You know, I’m making sense with words all day long. But I can take that out and do it for its own sake. And that’s called poetry. And then I’m celebrating. Right. I’m doing religio for the sake of religio. And I’m starting to get the sense of how the there’s an inexhaustible miss that the the intelligibility that is constantly available. So for me, that’s why I’ve been trying to get people to think about the sacred as something that is possible, rational, intellectually respectable, shareable with other people, and that there is an appropriate virtue that we need to cultivate about being in right relationship with the sacred. And that’s the virtue of reverence. I think Woodward’s book on reverence is exactly the place to go. It’s like, so you can develop a reverential relationship to celebrations of sacredness, because that’s what the serious play is that you can do both individually and collectively. And that is, I would argue, a proper way of homing the emergence of spirituality and religion for you. That’s exactly what I’m proposing. Indwelling it. Yes. Right. And internalizing it. You indwell it and you internalize it. Right. The depths of the world call to the depths of the psyche, which call to the depths of the world, which call to the depths of the psyche. And so, yeah, the reciprocal opening that is happening within the experience of sacredness when we enter into it by prioritizing being in right relationship to the sacred, which is reverence. And so that’s my answer to people. Well, get your ecology of practices going, get your community going, and make sure that you have this meta practice of dialectic ideologos, and make sure you have this meta virtue of reverence in which you are cultivating. I’m going to celebrate sacredness for its own sake, religio for its own sake, and I’m going to cultivate reverence. I would put it to you, by the way, that reverence is the virtue that we cultivate in response and sense of responsibility to the experiences of wonder and awe. Reverence is how to appropriately, right, enter through reverence, through awe and wonder, into a right relationship with that which always makes wonder and awe possible. That’s how I would put it. It’s not a war for me to say that now that, amen. But I mean, for me, I mean, layman Pascal and Bruce Alderman and I are talking about this on the integral stage about sort of grieving the death of God and what that means, and people who have, especially people who have gone through a religious upbringing, but also the culture as a whole, God is receding for the culture as a whole. And so I have spent a large part of my life trying to find a way to satisfy the taste for the transcendence that my mother religion gave me. And it’s only now when all of these things are coming together, the ecology of practices, the community of communities, all of this, the awakening, it’s only now that that taste is now, I’m now content, I’m not hungry like I used to. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop exploring or learning. I hope not, because if that happens, I should shut up. But I hope I always, I aspire to always have the Socratic spirit, but that sort of it’s like this is only meant as an analogy. You really love this person and the relationship ends. It might not have ended in, you know, the person may have died or they may have moved away or it may not have ended in acrimony, it just may have ended. Or maybe it ended amicably or whatever. And for a long time, you sort of shaped yourself and that’s what love is. And you think I’ll never love again because love is bound to that particular person. But if you properly grieve and you can only grieve by growth, you have this hole. The only way you grieve, I would argue, is you just grow around it so the hole is not so big for you. And it becomes something you can look through rather than something that’s just an emptiness. But if you grow, you love again. And you realize that it’s not the same, but that longing for deep love is possible again. I’m with somebody right now and this is an amazing relationship. I’ve had other relationships, but it’s exactly that. It’s like, it’s like you can get to a place where, sorry, I have got to a place and I’m hoping it is the case for other people where that longing that Augustine calls it the God-shaped hole is now capable of loving again, but in a naturalistic framework. And I’m hoping that’s the case for other people and not just idiosyncratic to me. But it seems to be. It seems very much to be. It seems to be. It seems very much to be. Idiosyncratic to you? I hope it’s not. I hope it’s not. No, it’s not. I hope it’s not. It’s not. I have been blessed with a second marriage and it’s possible. It is possible. And so we can be wedded to the depths of reality in a new way again. And that’s what I’m hoping. That’s what I’m. That’s what I’m aspiring to offer people as best I can. And I’m so grateful that people like you are doing the same thing with such authenticity and commitment. I’d like to give people who are guests on my show the opportunity for the last word before I shut things down. So Iris, is there anything you’d like to say now at the end? Well, that I’m really grateful for your work and your life and your passion for transcendence because it’s pouring opportunities for many people, myself among them and the people that I will touch in the future. So thank you, John. Thank you so much for saying that. That’s very kind of you, Iris. And we will, of course, talk again. Thank you so much for being here. Okay, thanks.