041 Jim Garrison – Stories, Collective Madness, and Radical Collaboration

State of Emergence

Lifetime social and political activist Jim Garrison joins Terry to reflect on both the extreme state of our world and the subtle forces driving the collective consciousness. They reinterpret our collective madness in light of the wisdom of the natural world, and the archetypes of apocalyptic stories. Ultimately, they imagine what it means to proactively and radically collaborate with one another — at a level we’ve never needed to before.

Here are some of the questions we discuss:

• Which archetypes and mythic stories can help us come to grips with the mass hallucinations and collective madness that are intensifying across whole societies?
• How might we listen in new ways to the natural world and to the human and more-than-human collective — and how might that shift our relations with one another?
• How might the extremity of our situation require and inspire radical collaboration and generosity?
• In times of chaos, how do we find coherence? How can we practice coherence from the heart — in ourselves and all our relations?

Jim Garrison has had a lifetime of social and political activism beginning in the 1960s with the anti-war, anti-nuclear, citizen diplomacy and environmental movements. He received his BA in History from the University of Santa Clara, an MA in History of Religion from Harvard, and a PhD in Philosophical Theology from the University of Cambridge. Jim then spent his professional life in executive leadership, including as co-founder and president of the Gorbachev Foundation and State of the World Forum with Mikhail Gorbachev serving as convening chairman. Later, Jim founded Ubiquity University having served as President of Wisdom University from 2005 – 2012 which was acquired by Ubiquity in 2013. Since the beginning of the pandemic, he has been convening conversations that matter called “Humanity Rising.” Jim has also written numerous books, including Citizen Diplomats, Civilization and The Transformation of Power, and America as Empire.

For more information on Jim Garrison and Terry Patten, check out the following resources:

• Ubiquity University
• Humanity Rising
• Terry Patten's website
• A New Republic of the Heart website

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