Tag: Axial Age

Imagination at Midnight

· 4 Comments ·

Recently I gave a talk to the Theosophical Society here in London about my book Lost Knowledge of the Imagination. Here’s a link to the video of the talk. I’m always happy to speak at the TS. The audience is always intelligent and friendly and open to new ideas.

In other news, I’m being interviewed on the late Art Bell’s radio program, Midnight in the Desert, this Wednesday evening, December 12, at 11:00 Pacific Time. I’m getting up at 6:00 AM on Thursday morning in order to do it, compliments of the time difference between London and the west coast. Dave Schrader is at the helm these days. I did wonder if they knew that Midnight on the Desert is the title of an autobiographical book by J. B. Priestley? They do now because I told them. In any case, it looks like it will be a broad conversation about my work in general. They take questions, so if you are up and listening, please check in.

Transcendent Functions, Peak Experiences, and a Different Way of Knowing

· 2 Comments ·

Here are links to two lectures I’ve given recently. One, on “Jung’s Search for Meaning,” was given for the Weekend University here in London last summer. The other, “A Different Way of Knowing,” is the first part of the three part seminar on Lost Knowledge of the Imagination I’ve been giving through Nura Learning. I imagine a lecture should speak for itself, but here’s the general idea: In the first I try to bring together Jung’s notion of the “transcendent function” - the “lift” the psyche gets when the conscious and unconscious minds reach an agreement - with Maslow’s “peak experiences” and Colin Wilson’s Faculty X. In the second, I take the class through the first chapter in Lost Knowledge, trying to bring out exactly what a “different way of knowing” might be like. You should be able to take it from there.