In this episode we meet Preston Vargas, the director of the Center for Black and Indigenous Praxis, and Deanna Jimenez, Assistant Professor in the Somatic Psychology Department and head of the Emerging Black Clinician Fellowship. We discuss strategies of navigating white academic space as a black scholar, the notion of bodies of culture, the importance of Afrocentric Healing modalities, scholar-activism, the importance of arts, as well some fundamental ideas in the emerging field of Black Psychology. Preston Varvas earned an M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness as well as ..read more

In this episode we speak with EWP adjunct professor Dr. Butterfly, along with students, Tayina Fenelus and Cameron Rice, who both took his class on African Cosmologies last semester. We speak of intergenerational transfer of knowledge in African traditions, and other important ideas in African cosmologies such as consubstantiation, ritual, story and song, and practices of divination. Dr. Butterfly shares his views on how African cosmologies can “help one rediscover ways in which one can be soulfully attached, reconnected, and participating in activities that enrich our lives, give them meaning ..read more

In this episode, we speak to Cindy Shearer, head of the MFA, and Debashish Banerji, chair of East-West Psychology about how their ideas on the vision of interdisciplinary education and creative scholarship lead them to create joint EWP and MFA degrees, as well as creative pathway dissertation track. We speak about transdisciplinary methods of arts-based research from the perspective of a scholar-artist, and the importance of art-making in forming new approaches to academic inquiry, practice, and research. Joint EWP/MFA Degrees and Creative Pathway Dissertation Cindy Shearer, DA, is the foundin ..read more

In this episode, we speak to Cindy Shearer, head of the MFA, and Debashish Banerji, chair of East-West Psychology about how their ideas on the vision of interdisciplinary education and creative scholarship lead them to create joint EWP and MFA degrees, as well as creative pathway dissertation track. We speak about transdisciplinary methods of arts-based research from the perspective of a scholar-artist, and the importance of art-making in forming new approaches to academic inquiry, practice, and research. Joint EWP/MFA Degrees and Creative Pathway Dissertation Cindy Shearer, DA, is the foundin ..read more

This episode is dedicated to introducing the South Asian Studies Association (SASA) and their annual academic conference being co-hosted by the Asian Contemplative and Transcultural Studies Concentration (ACTS) being held at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) on March 1st-3rd, 2024. We are joined by Chris Chapple, the president of SASA, and Debashish Banerji, board member of SASA, as well as the chair of ACTS, who describe this years hybrid, in-person and online, conference, which is called Order and Disorder in South Asia. We also discuss Chris’s new book, Living Landscapes ..read more

This is a special podcast to introduce two upcoming sister conferences at California Institute of Integral Studies this September, to celebrate 150 Years of Sri Aurobindo, the pioneer of Integral Consciousness. The first conference is organized by the East-West Psychology Department (EWP) and the Asian Contemplative and Transcultural Studies concentration (ACTS) called Sustainability and Contemplative Civilization: The Integral Vision of Sri Aurobindo. The second conference is organized by the Jean Gebser Society called, The Emergence of Integral Consciousness: Jean Gebser, Sri Aurobindo, Carl ..read more

In this episode we speak with Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness core faculty, Jack Bagby about his engagement with the philosophy of music, from Socrates, to Schopenhauer, and Bergson. We discuss Jack’s recent PCC class called The Philosophy of Music and the Attunement of the Soul and dive into the complex ideas of these thinkers regarding the transformative powers of music. Jack explains how the ancient Greek’s developed a complex set of tuning systems and alternative temperaments with powerful attributes and psychic properties, in which one can attune themselves to through the developm ..read more

This episode is a continuation of our conversation with ACTS student Devdip Ganguli. We discuss principals and politics of spiritual anarchy and Devdip speaks about Peter Heehs’ controversial book “The Lives of Sri Aurobindo”. Devdip discusses a new book he edited called “Reading Sri Aurobindo”, and also shares his academic projects related to Sri Aurobindo with universities in India, China, and now France. We next explore the life and transcultural work of Chinese scholar-practitioner-artist Hu Hsu, who lived in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram for 27 years, and the conversation ends with Devdip shar ..read more

In this episode, we meet ACTS student Devdip Ganguli and learn about his upbringing in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Devdip discusses his experiences growing up in an intentional yogic community and shares his perspectives on integral education, as both a student growing up in the ashram school, and as a teacher in the school for over a decade . This episode, which is the first part of our conversation, ends discussing the differences and similarities between the Ashram in Pondicherry, and Auroville, a close by experimental spiritual township founded on the principals of spiritual anarchy by the M ..read more

This episode is a continuation from our previous reading of Francesca Ferrando’s new text Existential Posthumanism: A Manifesto. We will take a deep dive into unpacking this text section by section, discussing it’s the main questions: When did existential posthumanism arise? What is existential posthumanism? How to enact existential posthumanism? What is the difference between spirituality and existential posthumanism? We will also address the importance of introducing posthumanist approaches to pedagogy in institutions like CIIS. Dr. Ferrando (pronouns: they/them) teaches Philosophy at&nbs ..read more