“How do we do this human thing with our heads up and our hearts open and not get crushed by the tragedies and absurdities of it all?”

“How can we tune into the wisdom, the transpersonal heights?”

In this riveting, mind opening (and bending) conversation, philosopher and peak performance expert Jamie Wheal takes our existential metacrisis head on, asking and often answering the biggest questions we, the human race, face today. More than inspirational, this conversation is like an infusion of the energetic, coherent, transpersonal potential of human beings. Guaranteed, you won’t see things the same way after listening.

Recorded on September 15, 2021.

Topics & Timestamps – Part 1

• Getting off the grid not to survive but to thrive (01:52)
• Facing the challenges of our time is a cycle: remaining open, learning to fall gracefully, maintaining center (03:25)
• Jamie’s practices, the 4 M’s: Music, Mountains, Mushrooms, Marriage (09:02)
• The beautiful American, antinomian, mystical tradition (10:32)
• Who throughout history really got “into the pudding”? (13:55)
• Jamie’s dark night of the soul (16:52)
• The psychedelic renaissance, reconciling repeat transformations, and the question “How much do we change, really?” (20:20)
• Our mythic lives vs our biographic lives (22:24)
• The universal agenda and Chris Bache’s LSD and the Mind of the Universe (24:06)
• The “information layer” that comes from Source; baffling precision along with evidence of the trickster (27:25)
• Wrestling with the existential situation using the mountaineer’s “risk triangle” (30:30)
• The only question we should be addressing: Can we get onto an S curve of a renewable, sustainable, and equitable economy? (32:05)
• How can we use peak experiences? How can we tune into our highest, best life? Hedonic engineering (36:48)
• How to create a flywheel effect: practice daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually (40:36)
• The Ten Suggestions (vs The Ten Commandments): An update (43:15)
• The false certainty of the newly converted (46:46)
• Recultivating the elements of mystery and the trickster of the divine (47:41)
• The weak link: after opening consistently to mystical states…what do you do Monday morning? (Stabilization of states to traits) (48:19)

Topics & Timestamps – Part 2

• Die before you die and come back open-hearted with a hell, yes! (03:52)
• A plug for good, old-fashioned human love and rootsy wisdom (06:05)
• How do we come together in “healthy” (ethical) cults/communitas? Collective coherence (08:02)
• The Lucifer effect in “culty” cults and the golden shadow (17:12)
• Jerry Garcia channeling quicksilver starlight: what was that? (25:21)
• Peak experience technologies need to be scalable and open source (26:43)
• The Quaker influence (27:47)
• What is group coherence? Something happens when we sync humans together. (30:23)
• What is the non-corporeal information and inspiration layer that people access in their breakthroughs and how do we get there? (31:25)
• What’s next for humanity? A new operating level: a transrational space (33:00)
• Letting the mystery stay the mystery and premature cognitive commitment (41:23)
• Radical hope and the courage of mice (and men) (43:01)
• The future of humanity: soul force or bust (45:01)

Resources & References

• Jamie Wheal, Stealing Fire*
• Jamie Wheal, Recapture the Rapture*
• George Leonard, Mastery, The Way of Aikido*
• Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now*
• Jamie Wheal’s The Flow Genome Project
• Howard Thurman, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman*
• Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, The Merry Pranksters, Tom Wolfe
• Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish theologian, scientist, philosopher & mystic
• William Blake, poet, painter, mystic
• The Book of Enoch, ancient Hebrew text
• The angel Metatron
• Kurt Fisher, author, neuroscience and education researcher at Harvard
• The Constructive Developmental approach, Kegan and Kohlberg
• Chris Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe*
• Ed Viesturs, No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks*
• The Bhagavad Gita
• Rober Anton Wilson, hedonic engineering
• Suzuki Roshi, “Each of you is perfect the way you are…”
• Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy*
• Susanne Cook-Greuter’s ego development stages*
• Ramakrishna, Hindu mystic and spiritual leader
• John Lilly, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer, and inventor
• The Ten Ox Herding Pictures from the Zen tradition
• Hafiz, “A Hole in a Flute,” The Gift*
• JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings*
• Anthropos, Greek word for human. Mystical sense of perfected, integrated, balanced human
• David Foster Wallace, postmodern author and professor
• Zachary Stein, Education in a Time Between Worlds*
• Genpo Roshi and Diane Hamilton, the Big Mind process
• Jerry Garcia and the The Grateful Dead
• Elton Trueblood, Quaker author and theologian
• Hameed Almaas, founder of the Diamond Approach*
• Andrew Huberman & Stanford University School of Medicine colleagues’ study what switches on courage in the brains of mice
• Ramakrishna, Hindu mystic and religious leader

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.
Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

About the Deep Transformation series

We are clearly in a new era, facing world-threatening challenges and graced with barely conceivable opportunities. In this mind-boggling new world, we all face two crucial questions:

• First, the ever-present conundrum of how to best live fully, deeply, wisely, and well.
  Second, the new question unique to our times, how to best understand and heal our endangered world.
• Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear responses to these questions from some of the great consciousness pioneers—the outstanding thinkers, sages, scientists, and activists—of our time? These are the people and conversations that Deep Transformation offers.

Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit draws on diverse ideas from around the world. It goes beyond traditional positions and polarities—beyond left and right, material and spiritual—to seek syntheses of deep wisdom and practical know-how that integrate the best of all positions.

Click here to learn more about Deep Transformation!