Jeffry J. Kripal is a bit of an iconoclast when it comes to the study of religion.

He's more interested in anomalist phenomena -- the mystic, the psychic, the paranormal -- than he is in things like religious history or the philosophy of religion.

A professor and Associate Dean of Humanities at Rice University, Kripal began his publishing career in controversy. Some Hindu scholars took exception to his 1995 book, Kali's Child: in which he characterized Hindu saint Ramakrishna's mystical experiences as homoerotic.

The response to the book wasn't all negative. Michael Murphy, the cofounder of now iconic Esalen Institute, loved it. Thus began an immersion into the intellectual epicenter of that Big Sur epicenter of the human potential movement, and Kripal's 2007 book, Esalen: America's Religion of No Religion.

As Kripal relates in this podcast, his Esalen exploration marked the beginning of the second phase of his work, which he describes on his website as a "history and analysis of the relationship of mind and matter, particularly as this relationship is made manifest in 'paranormal' events and experiences, such as mystical experiences, parapsychological phenomena, near-death experiences, abduction events, ufological encounters, and psychedelic states."

Kripal's quest is to expand scholarly inquiry into the study of phenomena that can't be easily explained within the constraints of the scientific method.

"What's happened in our public culture is we have conflated science and materialism, which is just an interpretation of the science. It's a good interpretation, but it's an incomplete interpretation. And it rigorously blocks out all of this stuff I want to talk about, because this is the stuff that drives religion," he says.

Links:

• Kripal's personal site
• His Rice University site
• His Amazon page
• Sacred Inclusion Network
• Sacred Inclusion Network's Facebook Group
• Sacred Inclusion Network's YouTube Channel
• Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon! 

Author Paul Corson had two out-of-body experiences that have shaped his view of the world.

Now 86, he's now on a mission to share what he's leaned.

His principal vehicle is his new book, Regaining Paradise: Forming a New Worldview, Knowing God and Journeying into Eternity,  "a guided journey into self-knowledge, identity, empowerment, and sublime understanding that will open the mind's eye."

But this podcast isn't really a review of the book

Instead it's a conversation with two individuals who share a mystical way of being in the world.

The two discuss the nature of miracles, the relationship between spiritual substance and the material world, and Corson's born-again experience.

"The human experience... is a flat out veritable,  literal miracle. , Once you realize that you're a miracle, that you're never going to die, it's kind of changes things. You're not running to buy that new car because you have all this time in the world. You know that you're going to be living in eternity," Corson said.

Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Corson is a former pharmacist who established a protocol for the treatment of HIV/AIDs. He received the 2000 Philadelphia Hero Award for his contributions in support of AIDs survivors.

Links: 

• Paul's website
• Sacred Inclusion Network
• Sacred Inclusion Network's Facebook Group
• Sacred Inclusion Network's YouTube Channel
• Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon! 

Don't think of Sara Minkara as a blind person. Think of her as a person who is blind. 

Social activist, speaker, and a winner of multiple awards, the founder of the advocacy organization Empowerment for Integration (ETI) has never let used her absence of vision of an excuse or crutch. The slew of honors she's achieved are evidence of her accomplishments. Her awards and fellowships include the Clinton Global Initiative Outstanding Commitment Award, Forbes "30 Under 30" and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology IDEAS Global Challenge Award.

When Sara lost her sight at age seven, her mother had two options. "She has one option of wallowing in our misery and really feeling bad for herself and her kids...But she took the other path and the path of,believing in God's will and saying there is a purpose behind this. "She said 'I'm not going to listen to the outside world of what the world thinks about disability... I'm going to just focus on home and make sure our kids go to school and live a very much -- I'm not gonna say 'normal life' -- but a full life, an integrated life and mainstream life."

As she relates in this podcast, Minkara never set out to become a full-time advocate. "I was a math and econ major. I'm an introvert. So I had a plan of doing a PhD." But as a sophomore at Wesleyan College, she applied for a grant from the Clinton Foundation to run an inclusive summer camp in Tripoli, Lebanon, the home of her parents. "It turned out to be impactful not only for the kids, not only for the parents in the community, but for myself, she said.

In this podcast, Minkara describes the set of circumstances that caused her to found ETI, , how people stigmatize blind people, and how anyone can be an advocate for people with disabilities.

Links: 

• Empowerment through Integration
• ETI's Ambassadors of Inclusion program
• Sara Minkara's site
• Sacred Inclusion Network
• Sacred Inclusion Network's Facebook Group
• Sacred Inclusion Network's YouTube Channel
• Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon! 

Author, activist and renegade economist John Perkins traces his journey from Peace Corps volunteer to co-founding the Pachamama Alliance, a non-profit devoted to establishing a world future generations will want to inherit. 

Best known for his best-selling book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Perkins describes how his life was irrevocably changed when a Shuar shaman in the Amazon jungle healed his life-threatening fever. "He healed me by helping me change my perception...and he demanded as payment for having healed me that I become his apprentice."

Having graduated from business school before joining the Peace Corps, Perkins didn't see a future in becoming a shaman. So instead, he became an economist and, eventually, chief economist of a major consulting company.

His job was to "identify countries that had resources our corporations coveted... and then convince that country that it should accept huge loans from the World Bank or other organizations" to pay for costly infrastructure projects.  

It took him awhile, but eventually it dawned on him that the game was rigged.

The result of the countries taking out loans was not "increasing the prosperity of the people...(but) increasing the prosperity of the rich families in the country, as well as our corporations. But in fact, the people were suffering because money was diverted from health education and other social services to pay the interest on the loans."

In this podcast, Perkins describes the common denominator of what he learned from his first shaman teacher and his work as an economist: that perceptions shape reality. Where once a shaman helped shift his view of the conditions he found threatening as a young Peace Corps volunteer, he later was also able to use data to persuade heads of countries to borrow large sums of money to pay for infrastructure projects. 

The shaman he worked with taught him about the process he calls "touching the Jaguar," the key to shifting perceptions and the title of his new book.

"'Touching the Jaguar' means that we identify the things that are holding us back:  our barriers, our fears...When we touch that Jaguar, we receive energy from the Jaguar or wisdom or creativity that allows us to change our perception. And when we change our perception, we then can take new actions that change reality."

That desire to positively shift perceptions is part of the origin story of the Pachamama Alliance, which Perkins, Bill and Lynn Twist founded in 1995.

The three and a team of others had traveled to the rain forest at the invitation of the Achuar, an indigenous Amazonian community. 

"They came to me and asked me, 'will you help us touch the Jaguar? Help us reach out and join forces with the people we most fear -- you and your people. Help us create a partnership and alliance with the people we most fear so that we can help you  change your dream, and we can all work together to change the this terribly destructive dream of the modern world that's creating a death economy."

In this podcast, Perkins explains what he means by "the death economy." He also gives a simple five-part series of questions that anyone can ask themselves to help them more easily get in touch with and actualize their purpose.

Perkins' latest book is Touching the Jaguar: Transforming Fear Into Action To Change Your Life And The World.

Links: 

• John Perkin's site
• Pachamama Alliance 
• Pachamama Alliance Global Commons (open community site)
• Sacred Inclusion Network
• Sacred Inclusion Network's Facebook Group
• Sacred Inclusion Network's YouTube Channel
• Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon! 

Digital culture is transforming religious practice in multiple ways, says Texas A&M Professor of Communication Heidi A. Campbell.

"Scholars of religion are finding that people practice 'lived religion.' They may say, 'I'm Jewish' or 'I'm Christian," but they draw on multiple sources to define what they mean. Religion is more personalized in a digital age," Campbell says.

How people define religious authority is also changing. Although pastors, imams and rabbis hold authority in their traditions because of of their theological knowledge, a new type of  "algorithmic authority" has emerged, Campbell says.

"Involvement online builds this kind of authority... It's the number of 'likes' you have on your posts, it's the number of followers you have or how many people link to your content. All of this gives a sense of authority and validity...that's gained not from religious knowledge, but technological fluency," she says.

The internet, Campbell says, "allows people to create their own tribe." 

Although people may have roots in a traditional congregation, they can explore their particular interests in an online global community. "There can find online global connections that kind of feed their souls, whereas they couldn't do this before" in pre-internet days. 

A major contributor to the study of digital religion, Campbell is the author of Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in Digital Culture. She is the Founding Director of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies. She is currently studying the phenomena of internet memes and how these memes shape religions perceptions. 

Links:

• Campbell's Wikipedia page
• The Internet challenges and empowers religious institutions (article)
• Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies
• Sacred Inclusion Network
• Sacred Inclusion Network's Facebook Group
• Sacred Inclusion Network's YouTube Channel
• Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon!  

Most of us progressive-minded folks are members of multiple communities, be they religious, spiritual, environmental or political. What unites us are our values, the foremost of which is an innate sense of our sacred interdependence, or reverence for both the entirety of the interconnected web and all of its connected parts.

In this excerpt from the Sacred Inclusion Network's monthly Online Community Exploration, Angelo John Lewis and David Wetton explore the possibility of harnessing our individual, and group energies for the full expression of the higher values that unite us, a project that assumes greater urgency in moments of crisis, such as this pandemic moment. They also explore how to inspire and galvanize a deeper sense of these higher values in both ourselves and our multiple communities. And how attuning to these higher values activates the power of the Network of Light.

David Wetton helps Conscious Leaders grow themselves and develop Purpose-Led High Performing Leadership Teams through 1:1 Coaching & Tailored Leadership Programmes. He runs a Leadership Legacy Programme™ to help senior executives and their leadership teams define and deliver their legacy to the world. He’s an ordained UK interfaith minister and spiritual counselor; which means that he’s committed to holding a safe, heartfelt compassionate space for all those he coaches.

Angelo John Lewis is the Director of the Sacred Inclusion Network and the originator of Sacred Conversations and the Dialogue Circle Method.  He is also the author of Notes for a New Age, and a coach and consultant who has designed, developed and conducted group problem solving, team and community building interventions for clients that include AT&T, Verizon, ACNielsen, and a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

Links: 

• About David Wetton
• Richard D. Barlett's Microsolidarity Proposal
• World Summit Movement  
• Sacred Inclusion Network

Ryan Hurd's first experiences with lucid dreaming -- the experience of being awake while dreaming -- were the nightmares he experienced as a child. After watching the 1982 film Poltergeist, he'd have these repetitive dreams of tentacled monsters escaping from his television set and coming after him. 

Eventually, he learned to confront these monsters and tell them they weren't real, causing them to sink back into the television set and go away.

These early nightmares were a precursor to Hurd's lifelong fascination with dreams. He's since studied and written about the phenomena of nightmares, how to experience lucid dreams, and how dreams can be portals to the expansion of consciousness.

In this podcast, Hurd describes his early training as a field archaeologist and his ventures into dream archaeology; how he's used dream incubation to gain insight into issues affecting his waking life, and his experience with dream mentors.

"Part of this (the study of dreams) is realizing that in waking life we're not always as lucid as we think we are. It's waking up to the dream of waking life as well, and just appreciating the ups and downs of consciousness throughout our day," Hurd says.

In addition to describing his own experience, Hurd explains how anyone can begin the process of working with their dreams, his studies on the impact of galantamine paired with meditation and dream reliving on subsequent dreams, and how dreams can be portals for expanding consciousness.

Hurd is the editor of DreamStudies.org, and the author or co-author of several books on dreams. He's an adjunct lecturer at John F. Kennedy University. is currently serving as Director of Spiritual Development at Unitarian Society of Germantown in Philadelphia, PA.

Links: 

• More Info  RYAN HURD
• Ryan Hurd's Books: The Committee of Sleep and Holistic Blueprint For Lucid Dreaming
• More Info visit Sacred Inclusion Network
• Provoked by this episode? Record voice Message!
• Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon!  
• Facebook Page Sacred Inclusion Network
• Facebook Group Sacred Inclusion Network
• YouTube Sacred Inclusion Network
• Twitter Sacred Talk
• LinkedIn Sacred Inclusion Network
• Instagram Sacred Inclusion Network

Men who exhibit toxic "Me Two" behavior are not just predators, but victims, says leadership coach and spiritual teacher Wendy C. Williams.

• Watch the interview on YouTube.com
• More info about Wendy C. William's Wendy C. Williams 
• More info about Sacred Inclusion Network
• Provoked by this episode? Record Voice Message!
• Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon!  
• Twitter Sacred Talk
• Facebook page Sacred Inclusion Network
• Facebook Group Sacred Inclusion Network
• YouTube Subscribe  Sacred Inclusion Network
• LinkedIn Sacred Inclusion Network
• Instagram Sacred Inclusion Network