God and Goddess Realization: And How to do it (Or: How you can be all you can be)

Everyone knows - unless you've been living under a rock the past 40 years - that we are living in a transitional period of human history and that something new and unprecedented is coming on the scene (cf., the New Age Movement).  However, most of us are not yet aware of the changes and Revolution that is about to take place in knowledge and the sciences, which can alone provide the necessary foundation for this New World and New Race - namely, the Absolute science which will be taught in all the schools and universities of the world.

There are many topics in The Jedi Handbook, but tonight I will talk about the One topic I feel will be the most beneficial for all of us. Since we are collectively in the act of creating and giving birth to a New Race and thus are called upon to transform, as Nietzsche says, from Man to Superman and Superwoman, my chosen topic is, "God and Goddess Realization-And How to do it (Or: How to be all you can be)."

Some of the issues we will discuss are:
(1) The Primary Key to transformation or God or Self-realization. Namely: The Truth, according to Absolute Science, is that Reality or What Is, is ABSOLUTELY ONE (Religion calls this one infinite Reality "God", Science calls it the "Universe"). Hence in truth, right now and eternally, You are and can only be One with this One Reality which eternally is (cf., Shankara's teaching of Advaita & Non-Duality), hence there is no separation between yourself and everybody-everything else, despite what your 5-senses tell you (cf., "Do not follow the call of your senses," The Bhagavat Gita). This means that to be enlightened there is nothing you have to do except realize this One Truth.
(2) The obvious next question is: How do you do it?  As there are thousands of ways to do it, I will just give you a few of the basic points that underlie all of the various ways. Here is a short list:

• The main obstacle to realization is the Other people who surround you who are living in the "Soup" or Plato's Cave of the material senses, who are constantly insisting that you believe what they believe, or their version of reality-viz., separateness and "what's in it for me?"
• The way to break the power they have over you is to 1) make the decision to dedicate your life to healing the world and yourself, etc (discussed in the "Jedi Power Ethics" section of my book); 2) constantly Meditate and do e.g. LOVE/TRUTH-Affirmations: e.g., God is love, so You be love too; if you indulge the emotions of Fear and Hate you separate yourself from God, Love, Reality, & Truth. Open up your Heart Center (Chakra) = LOVE (Agape), because your true essence is Love (practice saying "I love you" all the time, etc). 3) Join a group that knows and wants the Truth and practices it daily, i.e., 24/7/365: there is power in numbers.
• Relationships (Self-Other) are very, very important, if done right (triadically, not dyadically). The main point is that You, in reality and right now, ARE COMPLETE (are divine, a "God," Elohim). Hence the only purpose a relationship can have is to help each other realize their completeness ("two emotional invalids joined at the hip" or "co-dependence" is the worst case scenario). Here Berdyaev's teaching is especially important: "you are not a man or a woman (a "bisected" or "halved" being), you are a Jedi "Androgyn" (a complete being); we will discuss the truth about Sex (latin: secare) and the need to utterly transcend gender, while preserving it in a special way; and also how to transmute eros (your 2nd chakra) into agape (your 4th chakra), the true goal of every romantic relationship, etc, etc.

Producer  :  Ken Foldes

Ken's job description is: "teacher and preacher of the end of history and kingdom come, Now." -A Fulbright Scholar and currently teaching philosophy, absolute science, and spirituality at St. John's University in Queens (since 2006), Ken has presented papers and given talks at the World Congress of Philosophy, the APA, the Hegel Society of America, and the 92nd Street Y, as well as at the New Thought Spiritual Center in Water Mill and other venues in the Hamptons and NYC. He has published many articles and 3 books, most recently The Jedi Handbook of Global Education: A Guide to Healing Your Planet and Bringing Balance to the Force (on Amazon.com); and has appeared on WBAI's City Watch hosted by Bill DeFazio. He also has a popular website, www.HistoryIsOver.com and his articles on www.Academia.edu has readers from 28 countries around the world. This fall semester Ken is teaching the Science of Nature at St. John's and in the Spring the Science of Spirit (or Jedi); and you are welcome to sit-in (just let him know via email). Currently, he is also creating at St. John's a series of video-lectures on Absolute Science (Logic or Metaphysics-Nature-and Spirit) which will soon be posted on and added to his YouTube channel.

Ken loves music and loves to meditate, travel, and cruise, and delights in the beauties of nature (especially the ocean); he also loves to watch and read inspiring books and movies like Wonder Woman, Doctor Strange, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Razor's Edge (1946), and Stranger in a Strange Land. He is above all dedicated to helping and healing people still stuck in Plato's Cave and the Dark Side, and thus to hastening the advent of the incredible world we all want and is our certain destiny. In his younger years he was in various groups and played piano, guitar and sax; his band opened for such acts as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and the Duprees. He also studied with several advanced teachers in India. Contact him at ksrfphil@aol.com .

Dark Age Charter

In 2015, Southampton celebrated its 375th anniversary of its 1640 founding, long known as Founder's Day. My story The Dark Age Charter, which won this year's Dan's Paper literary competition, is an exploration into the real founders of Southampton. The narrative I'll read this month at the salon describes my journey into the uncovering of these real-and until now, hidden-founders of Southampton. 

Beginning in 1634 with the Montaukett-Pequot War, the British gradually took over Long Island through a succession of conflicts with the indigenous native American residents. By 1665, with the Plantation (a.k.a. Dutch) at the Hempstead Protest, the domination was complete.Through the 17th to 19th centuries Britain forcibly established-as did a number of European countries-colonial rule in lands throughout the world, primarily to exploit local resources. This empire building by the Monarchy was justified on the grounds that European culture was superior to those of the indigenous peoples. Thus, the Monarchy had indoctrinated its people into believing that it was "the white man's burden" to bring civilization to these "heathen" lands. In most cases, such control could only be achieved through violence, the spread of infectious disease, and genocide. Anti-imperialist sentiment over religious and political conflict began to grow within the 1600s, culminating in the theological trial ofHonorable Anne Hutchinson. But colonial rule continued in America, until the British ceded home rule to the United States in 1776.

Producer :  Scott Lewis

Author, Adjunct Professor has over twenty years experience in developing industrial-strength services for the Fortune 100. He began his career designing and installing PBXs and voice messaging services, and is now an Adj. Prof. at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He has received awards for his PBX installation at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the United Nations. He and a team of developers made history with the introduction of VoiceDialing at a Regional Bell Operating Company - the first time a dial tone had been replaced with a speaker-dependent voice recognizer and put into production in the fixed telephone network. Another first, with Ericsson, was the introduction of the Unified Inbox, which allows access to voice mail, fax mail, and e-mail by way of the Internet, but also allows one to hear all these media types by way of a wireless phone. Mr. Lewis went on to develop International Standards for Countries to use in protecting their critical infrastructure. Google his name followed by the text -critical infrastructure- to learn more about him.

Psychedelics and Developmental Psychology

The recent renaissance in research on the medical and spiritual applications of psychedelic medicines raises as many questions as it answers:

• Why are post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), end-of-life anxiety, and addiction the primary applications being researched? 
• Why are divinity schools in line to use psychedelics to train students?
• Can psychedelics repair, accelerate, or trigger novel psychospiritual development?
• What can we learn about developmental processes from tribal rites of passage? 
• How are Piaget's stage theory, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Erikson's psychosocial stages, Rank's birth trauma, and Wilber's integral framework all clarified, both theoretically and experientially, by the incorporation of psychedelics? 
• What is "ego death" and why is it central to psychedelic therapy? 
• How is the concept of the soul fundamental to the future of psychology?

We will cover these issues (and more) first, leaving time for Q&A and open discussion.  

Producer :  Neal Goldsmith

Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. is a social psychologist specializing in psychedelic research and therapy, and a licensed psychotherapist with a psychospiritual, developmental orientation. He is author of dozens of popular and scholarly articles and a frequent speaker on psychotherapy and change, adult developmental psychology, psychedelics research and policy, and the integral future of society. Dr. Goldsmith curates and hosts innovative workshops, salons, and conferences, including the annual Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics conference. His book, Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development, describes the influence of psychedelics on the development of his world view, personality theory, and clinical practice. Trained in humanistic, transpersonal, and Eastern traditions, Dr. Goldsmith maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Dumbo, Brooklyn and Sag Harbor, NY.

Gypsies, Jazz, and Django: Creative Grit in 1930's Paris

Raised a "Manouche" or French gypsy, Django Reinhardt was badly burned in a caravan fire at age 18 and lost the use of two fingers of his left hand. His determination to play guitar led him to innovate the unique- and widely imitated- sound we know today as "gypsy jazz". Throughout the Nazi invasion of Paris, Django's musicianship spared his life, and his music became known and loved the world over.

Paul Hamilton and Ashlynn Manning of the Hot Club of Montauk, a gypsy jazz band in tribute to Reinhardt's Quintette du Hot Club de France, will discuss the artistic milieu of France before and during WWII, the hustle of growing up in the gypsy community, and the wild ride of Django's short life. 

This glimpse into a bygone era will be accompanied by musical excerpts, and followed by a live performance by members of the Hot Club of Montauk. As the sun sets behind the trees and the fireflies alight, you may find yourself immersed in a Parisian twilight. 

Threaded into the night will be the sound of our drumming with James Henry and toasts to the marriage of Paul Gansky and Deborah.

Producers:  Ashlynn Manning, Paul Hamilton et al. of the Hot Club; James Henry and the spontaneous love of all who want to drum with us.

Ashlynn Manning is a sound healer, massage therapist, children's yoga teacher, and singer/songwriter. For 5 years she was one half of the Brooklyn-based electro-pop duo Suspicious Package, during which time the duo titled their unique genre of entertainment "Bio-Pop." Their goal was to create captivating pop media that drew the audience closer to the truly awesome details of natural living creatures. Ashlynn graduated Oberlin College with a degree in music, and in the decade since she has traveled the world writing, performing, and exploring music, with the earth and its biodiversity as her muse. 

James Henry is a local artist and drum maker living in the Northwest Woods, East Hampton. Originally from Babylon NY, James spent sixteen years at sea working as a commercial fisherman. His many tales of adventures on the ocean capture the raw beauty of human nature and the presence of divinity when out on the ocean. After a few bumps in James's life path, he discovered the awesome healing power of West African drumming. His stories of heart-opening experiences and connecting with the vibrant drum community on the East End give listeners chills and inspires them with a sense of hope and faith. James has dedicated his creative energy to building his own African drums and is currently building a brand for his drum business.

Stories From the East End

Shelby Raebeck will read from his recently published collection of short stories, LOUSE POINT: STORIES FROM THE EAST END, and talk a bit about the tension in the stories between holding on and letting go.  Each of the stories to be read contain a pair of adult siblings living on or hailing from the East End, all bonded by their shared sense of an ideal past but divided by the inevitable reality that comes between them. 

Relevant to our discussion after the readings will be an exploration of the fiction-writing process and then the existential questions of change as experienced by those of us on the East End.  

"The seaside, working class hamlets of Raebeck's LOUSE POINT are inhabited by half-broken people-the lost and alone, ballplayers and fishermen, the separated and grieving-all who share the modest dream of becoming the heroes of their own lives. Not many succeed, but none of them stop trying. If you didn't know this was fiction you would assume Raebeck was writing about the real-life people he knows and he just painted them faithfully to their natural selves without a trace of sentimentality or likelihood of epiphany.  There's sleight-of-hand here, too: by the book's end the assortment of characters has quietly accumulated to illuminate the unique American landscape they share, the east end of Long Island."

Producer:  Shelby Raebeck

Shelby Raebeck grew up in Amagansett.  He has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Creative Writing and has published fiction in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including Mid-American Review, Calalloo, Hawaii Review, The Southwestern Review, and Sudden Flash Youth.  After teaching university and high school in various locations around the country, he returned in 2000 to the east end to teach, coach, write, and raise his two children. 

A Cavity in Every Kid's Hands: Lessons from the Bizarre Land of Educational Technology

Schools have caught the tech bug. Bad.

Computers, tablets, phones, and assorted "smart solutions" outnumber books and teachers. Blue-chip monoliths (Apple, Microsoft) prey upon educational institutions for over one third of their income. Other juggernauts (Google) create their own glittering "Alt-Schools," quantifying children with high-tech diagnostics and immersing them in "interactive" hallucinations of information. Meanwhile, administrators prescribe technology as a fix-all for enduring institutional problems, while bewildered students and instructors gamely struggle to integrate technology into an increasingly impoverished learning environment.

Surveying the past 30 years, this talk drives a stake in the unholy beast known as "Edtech." Far from recommending a Luddite "run-for-the-hills" solution, however, we'll demonstrate how students, parents, and instructors can recover a holistic, human-scale vision of technology as technique, teaching and learning from technology as it exists within the body.  

Producer:  Paul Gansky and Dan Roe

Paul Gansky, PhD, is Dean of Media Studies and Technology at the Ross School. He received his doctoral degree in Media and Communications Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His research encompasses healthcare, psychotechnics, social persuasion, telecommunications policy, and industrial design. By day, he teaches courses in media history. By night, he dreams of emerald Bakelite.

Dan Roe is Assistant Director of Media at Ross Institute. He is also a cartoonist for The New Yorker and a filmmaker whose most recent work played in the Hamptons International Film Festival. He abhors a vacuum.

The Ecological and Psycho-Spiritual Roots of Civilization's Crises

Population overshoots and ecosystem destruction are not rare in the geological and archeological records. And neither are species diebacks and societal collapses. Both serve as nature's self-correcting mechanisms. Of course, we would rather voluntarily correct our wayward behaviors, as nature's ways are not often kind. Unique to our globalized Civilization is that our ecosystem now encompasses the whole of the Earth.  And we are in the process of destroying it-this it being our very life support system.  While most everyone studying the problem agrees that the destruction wrought by our species is accelerating and that catastrophe looms near, we still beget large families, blithely consume more products, and squander our extraordinary, indeed unprecedented, wealth on outmoded fossil fuel lifestyles, self-serving institutions, and expensive wars. 

Surely, it is often argued, humanity will find a way out of its predicament. It has many times before and it will again. Innovations in technology, the dynamism of capitalism, and the power of cultural evolution will continue to help humanity overcome seemingly impossible challenges. And, indeed, we do have all the solutions we need to live sustainably on this planet. What we have not yet acquired is the collective wisdom-the values, worldview, and behaviors, a planetary compathy, if you will-to choose those options that will regenerate the planet's wounded and deeply integrated biological and psycho-spiritual health and help Civilization live in harmony with the rest of Earth.

In this presentation, we will explore humanity's long history of environmental and psycho-spiritual impact, contextualizing today's symptoms of disharmony-from the global to the East End local, from the annihilation of species to the disgrace of social inequality, to the stresses and strains of a fast-paced life.  This discussion is intended not to paralyze us with fear, but as the Eco-theologian and Earth scholar Thomas Berry put it, "to fix our minds on the magnitude of the task before us."  Our intention is ultimately to inspire with hope and action.  Our assumption is that right action is based on right awareness.

Producer:  Carleton Schade

Carleton's interests include cosmology, consciousness, earth systems, the Civilization project, and meditation. He is currently involved in several futuristic projects - one a book entitled Dieback: the Science and Soul of the Human Predicament; a second entitled The Roots of Global Civilization's Collapse; a third is an illustrated book, The Rise, Fall and Rise of Civilization: A Very Long Title for a Very Short Book about a Very Big Subject, and a website Radicalmindshift.com. He has found passion in traveling, teaching, and writing; comfort and love as a householder and friend; and peace through meditation and yoga.

The 21st Century Farm: Could Food Tech be the New Internet?

Imagine a world in which the total footprint of human civilization is smaller, literally. Where apartment buildings are also vertical farms, and solar walls and roofs harness power enough for the entire city. Our world is changing; cities globally continue to accrue populations as family farms empty out and lie fallow, often to be eventually replaced by development and suburban sprawl. Our nation's biggest farms grow feed for livestock and fuel for automotives and quickly empty soil of its diverse life forms. But because urban wellness culture is evolving, cities are also becoming hotbeds of health-savvy businesses (think SoulCycle and Chop't). People are demanding better food, which means a better food system, and a revolution in food tech. 

Producer:  Sylvia Channing

Sylvia Channing is a gardener/entrepreneur from the East End. With a formal background in geology at Oberlin College and experience with school garden programs, Sylvia has been into farming and eating fresh food since she was a student, and started her first jobs working on farms. Today, she works with a team of entrepreneurs in a new urban farming incubator in Brooklyn backed by Kimball Musk of the Musk brothers.

Illiberal Democracies: What can post-communist Eastern Europe tell us about the age of Trump?

Fareed Zakaria coined the term "illiberal democracy" in a 1997 article in Foreign Affairs to describe the rise of populist democratic states that lacked a culture of constitutional liberalism. The term has gained popularity over the last five years to describe the dismantling of liberal democracy in postcommunist Eastern Europe, especially in Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and more recently Poland. In each of these countries, corrupt oligarchic elites have rooted their legitimacy in authoritarian nationalism while dismantling civil societies and press freedoms. While outside observers initially viewed this move towards authoritarian as "democratic backsliding" within countries that lack a culture of western values, it is now hard to disagree with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who in a recent interview in the Daily Telegraph proclaimed that, with the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, "we have stepped across a threshold...liberal democracy is now over [and] reality has triumphed."

This discussion will offer an introduction to some key characteristics of "illiberal democracy" in Eastern Europe, and consider how these characteristics are reflected (or not) in the American context. 

Producer: Sean Clybor

Dr. Shawn Clybor (Ph.D. Northwestern), is an Eastern European historian and former Fulbright-Hays scholar who spent a total of four years living in the Czech Republic.