As a Gaia Associate, you’re welcome to get the info to view this Output Packet on my Mahara profile [it's invisible to the public].  In this OP I’ve created a framework to support me through the next year.  It will help me maintain integrity and document my learnings efficiently.

And anyone’s welcome to see a series of blog posts that I wrote as preparation for this OP.

Evon Peter founder of Indigenous Leadership Institute

Thrive Now: Gaia U Radio Webcast 

Tuesday, January 17 at 8-9:15 PM EST:

Evon Peter

Founder of Indigenous Leadership Institute and CEO of Gwanzhii, LLC

Call Topic: Be who you are and all can be as it should

Life is a mystery, a blessing, and a challenge. It is exciting and full of adventure, but can also be overwhelming or even tragic. We are reaching several thresholds in our journey as human beings on earth. We need intentional changes to shift us from an unsustainable and oppressive way of life to one that is more sustainable and liberating. Everyday we make choices as to how we live our lives. The further we progress in our individual healing and awareness, the closer we become to fulfilling our role in bringing change. Every role is unique and every role special.

Evon Peter is a former Neetsaii Gwich’in Chief of Arctic Village and founder of the Indigenous Leadership Institute. He has over fifteen years experience working with Indigenous youth, organizations, and tribes implementing culturally based solutions. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of Gwanzhii, LLC which provides program development, meeting facilitation, retreats, and presentations. He resides in Fairbanks, Alaska with his wife and four children, where he is completing a Masters degree in Rural Development.

Thrive Now: Gaia U Radio Webcast Series

Join Gaia University for an engaging and empowering call series with leading edge practitioners in the many fields of Thriving. Call topics and speakers will cover a diverse range of topics around transforming old and emerging new cultures.

You may be tracking THRIVE, the unconventional documentary that lifts the veil from the increasingly visible global consolidation of power. Each of our Thrive Now calls will explore solutions offered in the film, then step boldly forward into applying tools and strategies towards empowered action! Our calls draw on professionals interviewed in the Thrive film, from our own Gaia University Advisory Board and from our extended network. For more information click here.

Registration link click here!

I am appreciating the opportunity for the conversation to develop and for the zones of agreement to emerge as well as the zones of difference and I am also grateful for the evident efforts both authors are displaying at bridging the differences without mutual alienation.

I have asked Charles to come to our webcast with the view that it is his own, a place for him to extend his thinking for us and that, whilst his invitation arises because of his original response to Thrive, he does not need to focus on replying to Foster during the call. His letter below does a nice job of that for the time being.

And I am reminding us all that these webcasts are a series (Foster and Kimberley, co-creators of Thrive visit us on 20th March 2012) and the partner series here is designed to be complementary. Please sign-up to extend the conversation. For more information on GaiaU Radio Webinars related to this post click here.

So – here is Charles’s response to Foster’s post yesterday. ” – Andrew Langford

Charles writes:

I am flattered that Foster Gamble has taken the time to read my work. I would rather not dwell too much on our differences, and have no desire to undermine Thrive, which I think is a valuable film. In advance of tonight’s call, however, I would like to clear up some misconceptions that may have arisen about my views, so that I can focus on my core material.

Evil: The point isn’t about the metaphysical status of evil, but more practically on where to place the ultimate blame for the planet’s predicament. Is it on an elite group of bad people who have created a monstrous system of enslavement, and who consciously perpetuate that system for their own aggrandizement? Or is it on the system itself, that has emerged without conscious human design? Each of these answers implies different strategies and solutions. My view is that the elites are puppets of a system, an ideology – indeed, a mythology – of which they are barely conscious. In my books I name it “Separation”. It emerged over tens of thousands of years, intensified in the last few thousand, and reached its zenith in the scientific era.

Embedded as we are in a sense-of-self that is separate, we enact the various behaviors that are preventing life on earth from thriving. The Ascent of Humanity draws it out in detail, explaining how all of the institutions of civilization – science, medicine, education, money, religion, law, etc. – arise from separation, embody separation, and perpetuate separation. The discrete and separate self, marooned in a universe that is other, of course seeks to maximize its own control and domination over everything else. The film implies that the root of the problem is the people who are in control. But I think the system has created such people. They are symptoms and not causes.

Free energy technology: I think Foster misunderstood my comment that it appears to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That statement was not a “swipe at [his] credibility.” I used the word “appears” on purpose (whereas most debunkers would say simply that it violates the Second Law) because I agree with Foster that these technologies do not in fact violate the Second Law at all, for precisely the reason Foster adduces. That said, I think that the Second Law itself needs further scrutiny. It plays into the mythology that I call “ascent” – that humanity must struggle against nature and is destined to triumph over it – in that it assumes a natural tendency in the universe toward entropy, against which we struggle to maintain order. Order versus chaos. But as I am sure Foster would agree, we live in a universe of self-organizing systems. This is part of the fundamental abundance of being. It is not order versus chaos – it is, as Ilya Prigogine put it, order out of chaos. The universe is not our opponent. It is here where I resonate most strongly with the film, for it too is informed by a deep faith in that fundamental abundance – that the nature of life is to thrive.

A quick word of clarification on the following: “In his book, Charles goes so far as to excuse J.P. Morgan’s suppression of Nikola Tesla’s radiant energy tower by writing ‘Perhaps Morgan was even on some level cognizant that humanity was not ready for Tesla’s gift.’” This sentence was playful speculation on what might have been an unconscious (hence “on some level”) motive in Morgan. The context surrounding the quote makes it clear that I believe Morgan’s conscious motive for canceling Tesla’s project was that he saw no way to profit from it. But given that each new source of greater and greater energy was used first for war (witness the first use of atomic energy!), perhaps it was for the best that Tesla’s discoveries were not unleashed before human consciousness had reached a level where we won’t use the unlimited energy to kill each other.

I will ignore Foster’s criticism of my book that it will lull people into complacency or that it advocates government intervention backed by force to solve our problems. I think the book itself answers those objections.

This paragraph gets to the crux of our disagreement:

Charles: “A nefarious power, inimical to human well-being, manipulates the course of human events from behind the scenes, seeking the total control of every human being. Rather than an evil Illuminati, could that power be money? Could it be that it is rather the money system that controls the global elite?”

Foster: This is like saying the gun was guilty of the murder. Are the banking elite unaware of the unfair advantage the money scam gives them? They have the power to remedy it if it is not their intention. Our corrupt money system did not create itself, nor will it get rid of itself without dedicated effort.

Charles: A gun is different from an ideological system. I would ask the reader, have you ever been in an organization that seems to have a “life of its own” – perhaps even to the extent in which the organization does things that not a single of its members really believes in? I think that in an important sense, our money system did create itself, or to be more precise, that it is what in non-linear dynamics is called an emergent phenomenon. In a complex, non-linear system, sensitive dependence on initial conditions (the “butterfly effect”) ensures that no one can predict the eventual consequences of any choice. For example, as David Graeber describes in his magnificent, scholarly book, Debt: The First 5000 Years, our money system arose in large part from early forms of money that were used exclusively for social purposes such as marriage gifts, blood money, and so forth, and never for commerce. Who could have predicted that the psychodynamics of the social debts of Middle-Eastern herders five thousand years ago would, when married to temple accounting systems from Sumer, result in the kind of debt-based slavery that has taken over the world? Was this all a conscious master plot? Is there really an elite with such superhuman foresight, competence, and such evil intentions?

Does the financial elite really have the power to remedy the sickness built into the money system? My impression is that they see the system as immutable, nearly a law of nature, and they respond with increasing panic to each new, unpredictable symptom of the system’s breakdown. They are thralls of an ideology that, far from being cynically conceived of whole cloth by an all-knowing cabal of controllers, has emerged over time through an interplay of complicated social, ideological, economic, and political forces. Perfectly good-hearted, intelligent people can believe in the basic rightness, or at least the inevitability, of the current money system.

Most of the rest of Foster’s response targets my views in general, and not specifically my review of Thrive. As to charges that I advocate non-action or eschew logic and empirical observation, I will let my writings speak for themselves. These quotes have been taken out of context and given interpretations that are in many cases caricatures of my intended points.

I think they read like some kind of cartoon version of my thesis. But nowhere do I say, as these disembodied quotes imply, that I think injustice needn’t be confronted, or that we can trust centralized authority to solve our problems, or that we can blithely ignore dangerous people. As for Foster’s criticisms of my views of money, fractional reserve banking, fiat currencies, and credit, there is certainly room for informed debate about these issues, but they are not trivially mistaken as these criticisms imply.

Foster Gamble’s Response to Charles Eisenstein’s Critique of THRIVE

Charles Eisenstein, the author of Sacred Economics, has written an article (Synchronicity, Myth and the New World Order) and a critique of THRIVE: What on Earth Will It Take?, that has engendered much discussion. I welcome this opportunity to have a broad and public conversation to look more deeply into some very important issues that he and THRIVE raise.

I took the time to read Charles’ book in depth, and though I disagree with much of what Charles proposes, I think his work has important offerings. My intention is that this on-going conversation further our mutual quest for core ethics, truth and effectiveness in transitioning to a world where all can thrive.

CORRECTING SOME INACCURACIES

Before diving into the philosophical and strategic discussion, I want to clear up some initial inaccuracies in the review of THRIVE. The title of the review (“THRIVE: The Story is Wrong but the Spirit is Right”) immediately casts our discussion into the polarization of right and wrong. I recommend some different distinctions going forward: 1) more or less USEFUL, and 2) ETHICAL or NON-ETHICAL.

Charles’ assumption that I was invoking (p.3) and trying to wage a “war against EVIL” (p. 1) is contrary to the tone and claims in THRIVE. I do not believe there is some separate force in the Universe called EVIL. Perhaps he confused this with his own observation in his conspiracy article, “Evil and its expression as The New World Order…has like all other things its place in the world.” (P. 15) I do observe that some people, in certain mental/emotional conditions and self-justified by certain worldviews and institutions, do intentionally mean and destructive (“sinister”) things to others. I am very interested in protecting life by neutralizing the aggression of those individuals and transforming the systems and obsoleting the agendas of which they are a part.

Next, I want to be clear that THRIVE is not advocating or counting on some sort of “Technological Utopianism.”
Charles claims:

“…the film’s contention that the main reason for the misery of the Third World masses is lack of access to energy, and that unlimited clean energy would be a near-panacea for humanity’s problems and would usher in an era of abundance. The story here – call it “technological utopianism” – is that technology is going to rescue us, create a new and better world, and solve our problems.”

I believe that having cheap, clean and safe access to energy all over the planet for would be a huge boost economically, ecologically and would provide useful evidence for a new paradigm of universal abundance. It supplements, but does not replace shifts in consciousness as well as financial and other systems. Access to energy and means for healthy commerce (i.e. an honest money system) are currently bottlenecks through which people can be impoverished and forced to put all their attention on subsistence instead of thriving. Thrivemovement.com goes into the myriad issues that accompany the liberated global access to energy and economic solvency. We emphasize the core transformation of energy and commerce systems because without that other changes are insufficient.

Though Charles writes in his book that “free energy technologies have been in existence for at least a century,” (SE, p.443), in his THRIVE review he contradicts himself by taking a swipe at our credibility in saying, “I won’t consider here the scientific plausibility of such technology, which appears to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.”

Let me clarify that first, a toroidal technology, like an atom, a human or a galaxy is an open system and the 2^nd Law applies to closed systems. It’s not the motion of the machine which is perpetual, (all matter wears down) it’s the source of energy! Second, what is the explanation for the fact that these inventors are getting raided, shut down, threatened and sometimes killed if they are actually all charlatans? It’s documented that the US Government has denied and confiscated over 3000 patent applications for alternative energy devices. Doesn’t it make sense that they might actually know something about how and which devices actually work?

In his book, Charles goes so far as to excuse J.P. Morgan’s suppression of Nikola Tesla’s radiant energy tower by writing “Perhaps Morgan was even on some level cognizant that humanity was not ready for Tesla’s gift.” (Sacred Economics, p. 443).

Wow. I wonder how all the people suffering from lack of energy and all the species rendered extinct in the course of dirty energy proliferation feel about that.

Eisenstein refers to THRIVE having attracted a “cult following.” This strange and inaccurate term, of course, has been seized upon and often repeated by government trolls and would-be debunkers to try to undermine the credibility of the thrive movement. More accurately, the movie has been seen by over a million people all over the world in its first month with over 95% rave approval and appreciation for providing coherent, fact-based information and grounded solution strategies. I request that intelligent critical thinkers who appreciate THRIVE not be dismissed as cult followers. There is no cult here and the people finding value in this critical information deserve more respect.

Charles has obviously done a lot of research for his book. I especially appreciate his detailed look into the history of money, alternative currencies, localization and his efforts to come up with some out-of-the-box thinking about what approaches might restore healthy lives and ecologies. It’s well worth the $16 he charges for it on Amazon – especially for its value in triggering critical thinking and exploratory interchanges just like this one.

My two biggest concerns about the Eisenstein perspective are that:

a) It can serve to lull people back to sleep and provide the temporary comfort of denial, while distracting from what is really going on…and

b) Many of its proposals, though sounding good at first blush, are ultimately based on government intervention backed by threats of violence – rather than the true protection of the rights of each individual.

CONSPIRACY

Although Eisenstein acknowledges on page 13 of his book that a totalitarian one world government seems to be approaching, he then goes on (pages 3,5,8,9,14,91) to undermine others from taking it any more seriously than to work on our egos and remember our oneness. An example:

“What if our emotions and beliefs actually attract experiential data that fits them…so that it looks like a conspiracy even if there are no conspirators?” (NWO, p.8)

No conspirators? People conspiring to accomplish certain goals is undeniable- the question is at what scale and to what end. Check out http://wikileaksnews.net/33-conspiracy-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-true-infowars.html. I am personally encouraged to know that what we experience as systems-wide failure is not random or just the cruelty and incompetence of all of humanity, but instead the consequence of our unwitting participation in an agenda that we have the power to obsolete through non-violent non-participation.

Belief in conspiracy theories is a …victim state. (NWO, p.5)

If we ignore the agenda for domination, we will end up experiencing a whole new level of meaning to the term “victim state.”

In one of his most unlikely conclusions, Charles states:

“A nefarious power, inimical to human well-being, manipulates the course of human events from behind the scenes, seeking the total control of every human being. Rather than an evil Illuminati, could that power be money? Could it be that it is rather the money system that controls the global elite?”

This is like saying the gun was guilty of the murder. Are the banking elite unaware of the unfair advantage the money scam gives them? They have the power to remedy it if it is not their intention. Our corrupt money system did not create itself, nor will it get rid of itself without dedicated effort.

“ Give me control of a nation’s money system and I care not who creates the laws.”

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

Henry Kissinger, 1973

Charles writes that…”conspiracy theories eventually bring most people to a kind of despair, even paralysis…” (NWO, p.14)

Gratefully, this is not the reaction we are getting to THRIVE. Viewers report that the tone, the coherence, the honoring of nature and the human spirit, and especially the in-depth solutions, provide a sense of motivation, traction and viable things to do with the energy that arises. Many people feel validated in their perception and more hopeful than ever now that we have thrivemovement.com through which to share vital information within a context of hope and activism.

He says: “The conspirators are not others, they are we, you and I and everyone…”

This is an example of where I think it is vital to remember our unification, while simultaneously recognizing our individual distinction. Why do we take care to avoid a dangerous street if we are walking alone at night? Some people are desperate and will harm others. That is true on small and large scales and pretending otherwise is dangerous.

SOLUTIONS

When I search for viable solutions being suggested by Eisenstein’s “sacred” approach, unfortunately a great number of them seem to play directly into the hands of the agenda for global control and undermine the individual’s rights and ability to take action.

Non-Action

Charles writes that:

“The dark energies have nearly run their course… Though some might try to hold onto it a little longer, sooner or later they will accept that their time is over, and they will bow out of service…” (NWO, p.15)

What is the evidence for this? I do not see any indication that they are going to go away on their own. In my experience, it always comes down to individuals waking up, speaking up and taking action if we are going to expose and transcend tyranny.

Choose a Belief that Feels Good

“I suggest we choose a belief, and the corresponding psychological state accompanying it…consider how each belief-state feels, what it implies about the world, about human

beings, and about oneself.” (NWO, p. 12)

How about logic and observation? How about going through the uncomfortable feelings that may come up around facts we wish weren’t true? Shall we pretend no one is starving because it doesn’t feel good to acknowledge it? I believe we can be empowered by feeling the discomfort – as anyone who has successfully navigated grief or rage can attest to. On the other side we feel the strength of knowing we are not victims and that we have the right to control our own lives, as long as we do no harm to others.

No Principles

“I, however, don’t live by principles, nor do I recommend it.”(NWO, p. 398)

I believe that in order for people to live without rulers dominating their actions, we need clear rules instead – based on the core principle of non-violation – that no one has the right to violate another person or their property except in true self-defense.

Just for the record, there are numerous principles Eisenstein recommends. Some of them follow.

“To charge a fee for service, or even for material good, violates the spirit of the Gift.” (SE, p. 401)

Impracticality

“The key to right livelihood is to live off gifts.” (SE, p. 397)

“Musicians, artists, prostitutes, healers, counselors, and teachers all offer gifts that are debased when we assign them a price…the only honorable way to offer it is as a gift.” (SE – 412)

Theft

“Most corporations and business owners are not ready to step into a gift-based business mode. That’s OK – you can give then a little push! Simply implement it unilaterally by “stealing” their products, for example by illegally downloading or copying digital content like songs, movies, software, and so on.” (SE, p. 411)

To imagine that people’s lives are going to be restored by others stealing from them is dangerously incomplete and self-serving in its logic. If you want to gift your goods then gift them. But to impose your choice not to on the creator of them is violation, and exactly what gives you the right to impose that violation?

Though Charles has written, “When we convert ‘have to’ into ‘want to’ we are free,” (SE, p. 358), many of his proposals seem to be ultimately based on force.

The state could determine by fiat who gets credit…” (SE, p. 456)

And we have confidence in this why? Every State in history has grown to violate its people. I believe people have the right to determine their own systems of exchange and that those that serve the real needs will prevail without State imposition or subsidy.

Fractional Reserve

Charles states: In a fractional reserve system, one way to view what happens is that banks are not creating new money at all, but simply allowing existing money to be in two places at once. (SE, p. 454)

This notion has reached its ludicrous exposure in so-called “naked short sales” where up to 300 people have been documented to be claiming to own the same shares of stock. It has been used by investment banks to manipulate markets to the disastrous destruction of many individual’s financial well-being.

He then says: “Is the money in your savings account “really there” or not? That is the question that bothers “real money” advocates, but ultimately it is not a useful question.” (SE, p.455)

”In a credit system, most of the credit should go to those who will put it to good use.”

(Who decides what “good” is? To prevent abortion? To support it?)

He goes on to say, “The “social function” I describe doesn’t dictate to whom it goes; it merely sets the conditions so that it will be most likely to go to a certain area that represents the social consensus of good use. This function can be adjusted.”(SE, p.456)

By whom? – The enlightened? Property is based fundamentally on our right to own ourselves, our bodies…and then the fruits of our labor. As soon as you eliminate property and give authority to a state, much less control over a fiat credit system, you have all the key historical ingredients for tyranny. I assert that the fundamental unit of wholeness at the human level is each individual, not the “social consensus.” It is of grave concern to me that Charles writes that the Marxist solution “does not reach deeply enough.” (SE, p. 185) If there is no valid property, do you endorse violating a person’s body? How about their home, their bank account, their income? Where exactly would you draw the line? What rights do you think an individual should be free to defend?

“We are using money to destroy money…

The time for the mindset of wealth preservation is over. Wealth preservation brings to mind a swarm of rats, each clamoring over the others to reach the top of the mast of a ship that is sinking.”

The desire to “kill” money, I believe, is better channeled into having an honest money system with no lending of money one doesn’t have, no printing of money that doesn’t correspond to value. It is about sound, honest and accurate money (medium of exchange) rather than, in effect, raiding someone’s investments, grain silo, or rainy day savings to re-distribute it against their will. This coercive approach is, I believe, based on the very notions of scarcity and fear that Charles is trying to overcome and ignores the creative capacity of humans to innovate how to do more with less (lighter building materials, more capable shrinking computers, zero-point energy devices, robotics, virtual communication, electric cars…) In agrarian societies of old, women managed banks based on honest interest repayable with the fruits of the harvest – fruits, grains, and offspring – tapping the creativity of nature. The Sumerian word for interest meant “calf.” (Web of Debt, Ellen Brown, p. 58)

PRESERVATION OF EXISTING FINANCIAL STRUCTURE

Charles says: “Perhaps most importantly, a credit-based system can accommodate all of the proposals of this book without the revolutionary destruction of the existing financial infrastructure and rebuilding of a new one.” (SE p. 457)

I suggest the key word is voluntary. It is not what kind of monetary system is the best for some to impose, but how do we preserve the freedom to have people be able to try different currencies, different kind of banks, different kinds of insurance and dispute resolution organizations so that the ones that are most trustworthy rise to the surface, and without state subsidies or bailouts, the less sound ones disappear. Is a “sacred economy” one where a few individuals who consider themselves wiser than the rest centralize control and try to manage markets, prices and money supplies, or is it the on-going flow of free individuals exchanging by reciprocal and mutual agreement?

NON-AGGRESSION PRINCIPLE

On page 78 of Sacred Economics is a dangerously misunderstood interpretation of liberty. It implies that the liberty perspective is somehow “dependent on impersonal and coercive institutions that govern from afar.” My research leads to exactly the opposite conclusion. I recommend to Eisenstein that he read more carefully the one person in his bibliography, Hans Hoppe, who does not write in favor of state controlled economics, and also to explore Stefan Molyneux, who will show countless viable alternatives to government that foster just and thriving community.

Charles has written, “Ultimately, I envision decentralized, self-organizing, emergent, peer-to-peer, ecologically integrated expressions of political will.” (SE, p. 187)

Here is an ethical level on which I believe we can all meet. I look forward to potential future collaboration in such an endeavor.

Conclusion

Consciousness growth is not a substitute for activism. I think that for us to be free and thrive, they need to be able to proceed hand in hand. If you want to focus on the meta-psychology, that is important. There is no reason for that to impede or distract those who are waking up and standing up to take highly-leveraged, non-violent action.

For more information on GaiaU Radio Webinars related to this post click here.

On November 21, Charles Eisenstein, author of Ascent of Humanity, wrote the following movie critique on the Thrive film, after being invited to speak on the Gaia University Thrive Now Webcast series.

“What is keeping us from thriving?” asks the new movie, Thrive. The answer it gives is “the global elite,” the people who control the financial system that in turn controls everything else. Operating through the power institutions of our society, this elite pursues a conscious agenda of total world dominance, purposely suppressing anything that would disrupt their power: from clean energy to alternative cancer cures.

This answer might serve to give expression to feelings of rage, hate, grief, and indignation that otherwise, in a world where the wrongness is so ubiquitous as to seem woven into the fabric of reality itself, would turn inward. Ultimately, though, this answer feeds the mentality of control that is a much deeper culprit in humanity’s failure to thrive.

To put primary blame on the global elite says that the primary problem is not the system; it is the masters of the system. If only they were not such awful, greedy – in a word, evil – people, they would relent and create a new system. Certainly that’s what you and I would do if we were in a position of power – right? Because we, unlike they, are decent people. In other words, the culprit for the planet’s woes is evil, which implies that the solution is to somehow defeat or eliminate evil (though to its credit, Thrive advocates non-violent means to accomplish this.)

The quest to create a better world through conquering evil lies at the heart of civilization as we know it. Originating in the earliest agricultural civilizations, the concept of evil first applied to weeds, wolves, locusts, hail storms, and other natural phenomena that were, before agriculture, merely parts of an interdependent whole, and not the enemies of mankind.

In the ensuing millennia, the War Against Evil developed in tandem with technology and religion. The conquest of nature extended into the internal realms and became a struggle for self-mastery, self-control, and the transcendence of the flesh. It extended into the social realm as programs of social engineering that sought to eliminate evil on a mass scale. Taken to its extreme, it took the form of purges, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism. In other words, the elimination of evil lends itself to the very same dominator mindset that is part of the problem.

Thrive advocates peaceful non-compliance with the institutions of domination, except in cases of “self-defense”. But when you see an enemy implacably bound to enslave you or murder you, the line between defense and offense blurs. What war of aggression in the last hundred years has not been justified as a kind of self-defense? The Indians are scalping innocent settlers! The North Vietnamese communists attacked our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin! Remember the Lusitania! The terrorist regime is producing weapons of mass destruction!

To read the full article click here.

For more information on GaiaU Radio Webinars related to this post click here.

written by Andrew Langford

The hot debate arising on the internet after the release of the Thrive movie has been enlightening. Charles Eisenstein has posted a particularly insightful response piece “The story is wrong but the spirit is right”  that offers a fresh take on the cause of the heavily skewed power and money distribution in our current culture that is a main focus of the film.

In his analysis Charles remonstrates (politely) with the authors proposing to them that their propounded view, that the world is run by a small financial elite who own the banks and who we must unseat through withdrawing our support of their institutions, is just another chapter of the ancient ‘War against Evil’ script that has been misdirecting human culture ever since the emergence of agriculture and technology 15000 or more years ago. And that the cure, the cure of the righteous (hateful) war, he notes, has consistently and repeatedly been worse than the disease itself mainly because of a substantial mis-diagnosis.

In the Thrive case the diagnosis is that it is the imperial masters are at fault. Charles proposes instead that it is the beliefs that underpin our culture and give rise to such irrational designs as the current money system (for example) that are at fault. He says “the money system and its underlying mythology necessitate the roles that the power elite fill. Remove those people without changing the underlying beliefs, and new tyrants will rise to take their place”.

This discussion – is it underlying beliefs or the resultant systems (such as the class system for example) – seems to me to be very much the crux of the matter.

For example much of the energy that has fueled the Occupy movement has coalesced around the idea that 99% of us are dominated by the 1% of them. In effect then, The Occupy 99+1% slogan is invoking the same conclusion as the Thrive film and would need substantial adjustment to align with the view proposed by Charles Eisenstein.

It is a hard, hard adjustment to make, I think, partly because blaming others for our woes, pointing the finger at someone else and crying ‘it’s your fault’ is deeply embedded in the meme stack of our current culture. Finding fault with others and avoiding looking at our own contributions to the situation is a common pattern – just look at politics!

However, it may be an essential stage. When I am drafted in as a grief counselor from time to time I use my own 4 phase version of a model first described by Elizabeth Kubler Ross  – first comes the denial or pretense phase in which the client is unable to even bring themselves to accept that (in this case) death is likely or inevitable in the circumstances. Then, when that phase has been worked through, the client steps into an anger and rage phase when they look for someone else to blame for letting the situation come to this awful place. It is at this point the counselor offers to take the blame and draw out the rage. Beyond the anger comes despair, a deep sadness that often brings copious weeping and frequent riffs on early experiences of overwhelm before the final stage, constructive action or acceptance comes into view.

The key point is that the desirable constructive action phase is not even visible at the beginning of the process and, it generally can’t be invoked intellectually. A person needs the space to do the raging, the weeping and to express the despair fully before they can access their creative intelligence with ease.

Joanna Macy has a similar model – her potent ‘Despair and Empowerment’ work is constructed around the need for people to truly allow themselves an immersion in those forbidden/hidden feelings of rage and despair in order to clear the psyche, to liberate the emotional blocks to our full intelligences so we can go forward to find routes to deconstruct the myriad awfulnesses of our current culture, to hospice the old and midwife the new as she says.

So, that’s my take – the anger, the rage and the despair need to be felt, needs to be expressed as fully as possible, by all of us, ready to allow the emergence of our fresh and flexible intelligences, liberated from the rigidities of our current culture, to get to work on designing the next evolution of humanity.

Maybe that’s a prime function for Occupy right now, to find ways help each other to safely express the anger and rage?  I am up for helping with that.

I’ll be asking Charles what he thinks of this approach when he comes to talk to us, online at Gaia University on 13th December, 8 to 9.30 EST. Care to join us? All welcome. Tickets $15 USD.

by:

Andrew Langford
Joint Founder and President of Gaia University

Charles Eisenstein, author of "The Ascent of Humanity" and "Sacred Economics".

Thrive Now: Gaia U Radio Webcast 

December 13 at 8-9:30 PM EST

Ron McCorkle of the Urbiculture Foundation interviews author and speaker Charles Eisenstein and opens the space for our participation and questioning.

Charles Eisenstein is a noted, upcoming thinker who has written a much appreciated and widely referenced criticism in response to the Thrive movie. You can read that essay “Thrive – The story is wrong but the spirit is right” here.

Charles advocates constructive action towards ecosocial regeneration through establishing regenerative enterprises, complementary currencies, gift circles and more. The key is, according to Charles, to contradict the separation that seems to have been the driving force in creating the current, destructive culture with it’s strong addiction to technical fixes that serve only to deepen the alienation of humans for nature and each other. Organic systems such as community based currencies that lose value when they are hoarded are a high priority in his scheme to bring about re-connection on a massive scale.

To enter the argument fully Charles has written a new book, “Sacred Economics”, which traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme-and in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

We look forward to a lively debate.

angel Kyodo williams, is a spiritual teacher, activist, and artist. She is the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace.

Thrive Now: Gaia U Radio Webcast 

November 29 at 8-9:30 PM EST:

Angel Kyodo Williams

of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley CA

Who’s Driving Change?
We’re at a crossroads in society and could go either way: more imbalance and divisiveness or more fairness and connection. We can choose to thrive. Learn about the critical element that will determine the direction of our future.

Rev. angel Kyodo williams | Founder Emeritus and Senior Vision Fellow
Center for Transformative Change (CXC), Berkeley, CA

http://transformativechange.org

Thrive Now: Gaia U Radio Webcast Series

Join Gaia University for an engaging and empowering call series with leading edge practitioners in the many fields of Thriving. Call topics and speakers will cover a diverse range of topics around transforming old and emerging new cultures.

You may be tracking THRIVE, the unconventional documentary that lifts the veil from the increasingly visible global consolidation of power. Each of our Thrive Now calls will explore solutions offered in the film, then step boldly forward into applying tools and strategies towards empowered action! Our calls draw on professionals interviewed in the Thrive film, from our own Gaia University Advisory Board and from our extended network. For more information click here.

Registration link click here!

Monthly Call Threads -

Each month Gaia University will spotlight a call thread (theme). We’ll start the thread in our All Gaia Community Calls, then follow with a guest speaker in our Thrive Now: Gaia Radio Webcast Series, and complete the thread during our Thrive Now: Community Conversation Series. Participants do not need to attend all calls to benefit from the information provided or the opportunity to share. Each thread will have an ongoing community forum on our interactive online e-learning site.

December: Regenerative Economics: Creating Ecosocial Livelihoods with Financial Permaculture

January: Cultural Wisdom: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Generational Sharing

February: Internal Transformation: Tools for Dismantling Internal Oppression, Self-Sabotage and Dysfunctional Social Norms

March: Community Engagement: Participatory Community Design and Group Processes

April: Earth Care: Nature Connection and Permaculture

May: Empowered Action: Tools for Transformation and Leadership

June: Quality Growth: Technology for Healthy Communities 

For further information and to enroll contact jennifer@gaiauniversity.org! The registration link will also be posted soon!

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SERIES 1…

Thrive Now: Gaia U Radio Webcast Series, Third Tuesday of each month from 8-9:30 PM EST, unless otherwise noted

Join Gaia University for an engaging and empowering call series with leading edge practitioners in the many fields of Thriving. Call topics and speakers will cover a diverse range of topics around transforming old and emerging new cultures.

You may be tracking THRIVE, the unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on the increasingly visible global consolidation of power. Each of our Thrive Now calls will explore solutions offered in the film, then step boldly forward into applying tools and strategies towards empowered action! Our calls draw on professionals interviewed in the Thrive film, from our own Gaia University Advisory Board and from our extended network.

November 29 (5th Tuesday): Angel Kyodo Williams, of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley CA

December 13 (2nd Tuesday): Charles Eisenstein, Author of Ascent of Humanity

January 17: Evon Peters, of Neetsaii Gwich’in (Alaskan Native and Jewish heritage), and CEO of Gwanzhii, LLC for intelligent adaptation.

February 21: Aqueela Sherrilis, Gang Intervention Consultant with Urban Leadership Institute

April 17 (12-1:30 PM EST):  Elisabet Sahtouris, PhD, Evolution Biologist and Futurist

This call series will continue March thru June, 2012.  Further dates and speakers to be announced.

$15 per call or $75 for the full series (6 calls)

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SERIES 2…

Thrive Now: Gaia U Community Conversation Series, Last Wednesday of each month from 8-9:30 PM EST, unless otherwise noted

Join Gaia University for “the conversation worth having”. Each month engaging material from webcasts, articles, news clippings and other sources serve as ingredients for stimulating, thoughtful community conversations.  The series follows important threads related to the unconventional documentary THRIVE.

Material will be made available on our website for you to look at ahead of the scheduled calls facilitated by Gaia University. This call series provides a significant opportunity for community conversation,  harvesting of best practices and cross-pollination of ideas. Expand both your social network and your repertoire of tools for Thriving.

December 7, (1st Wednesday) : Regenerative Economics: Creating Eco-Social Livelihoods and Financial Permaculture, with Gregory Landua

January 25: Cultural Wisdom: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Generational Sharing

February 29: Internal Transformation: Tools for Dismantling Internal Oppression, Self-Sabotage, and Dysfunctional Social Norms

March 28: Community Engagement: Participatory Community Design and Group Processes

April 25: Earth Care: Nature Connection and Permaculture

May 30: Empowered Action: Tools for Transformation and Leadership

June 27: Quality Growth: Technology for Healthy Communities

$15 per call or $75 for the full series (6 calls)

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SERIES 3…

All Gaia U Community Calls – Second Wednesday of each month from 12-1:30 PM EST

Join the Gaia University Community in an exploration of personal and ecosocial transformation. Each month Gaia University associates facilitate lively conversations on topics important to these emerging leaders of our community. The calls create an opportunity for associates to share their life experiences, to interview Gaia University core team and to develop skills practicing facilitation.  During each call participants receive updates on what is new and exciting in Gaia University with opportunity for discussions related to relevant world change content.

December 14: Regenerative Economics: Creating Eco-Social Livelihoods and Financial Permaculture, with GU Associates Ron McCorkle and Will Szal

January 11: Cultural Wisdom: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Generational Sharing

February 8: Internal Transformation: Tools for Dismantling Internalized Oppression, Self-Sabotage and Dysfunctional Social Norms

March 14: Community Engagement: Participatory Community Design and Group Processes

April 11: Earth Care: Nature Connection and Permaculture

May 9: Empowered Action: Tools for Transformation and Leadership

June 13: Quality Growth: Technology for Healthy Communities

Calls free to anyone enrolled in a Gaia U certificate, diploma or degree program or Friends of Gaia U!

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SERIES 4…

Gaia U Tutorial Calls – First Thursday of each month from 12-1:30 PM EST

Join our Gaia University tutorial calls and receive training in technology important to today’s leaders, activists and ecosocial entrepreneurs. Tutorials will cover such topics as using social media, developing a comprehensive ePortfolio on our open source platform, using popular software programs and facilitating webinars.

January 5: Creating an ePortfolio

February 2: Webinar Facilitation Essentials

March 1: Creating an ePortfolio

April 5: Excel: Beyond Basics

May 3: Creating an ePortfolio

June 7: Managing Social Media

$15 per call or $75 for the full series (6 calls).

I haven’t been posting all of my OPs up here recently.  During this year, both my professional and personal development took place primarily through the medium of interpersonal relationships.  As many of the examples I used during this year include things that are personal for others, I’ve opted to share only within the Gaia community rather than posting on the web.  I will aim to package my learnings this year in a way that’s conducive to wider circulation.

In the mean time, check out Wagn, the platform I’ve recently been using to host my OPs.