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Old Brain, New Brain: developing a compassionate mind

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Old Brain, New Brain: developing a compassionate mind

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10 Components of a Thinking Environment - Nancy Kline

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10 Components of a Thinking Environment - Nancy Kline

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12 Books on Behavioral Health Written By Black People

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12 Books on Behavioral Health Written By Black People

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Monica A. Coleman's great-grandfather asked his two young sons to lift him up and pull out the chair when he hanged himself, and that noose stayed in the family shed for years. The rope was the violent instrument, but it was mental anguish that killed him. Now, in gripping fashion, Coleman examines the ways that the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism mask a family history of mental illness. Those same forces accompanied her into the black religious traditions and Christian ministry. All the while, she wrestled with her own bipolar disorder.

Bipolar Faith is both a spiritual autobiography and a memoir of mental illness. In this powerful book, Monica Coleman shares her life-long dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death. Citing serendipitous encounters with black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems, Coleman offers a rare account of how the modulated highs of bipolar II can lead to professional success, while hiding a depression that even her doctors rarely believed. Only as she was able to face her illness was she able to live faithfully with bipolar. And in the process, she discovered a new and liberating vision of God.
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This moving memoir of an African-American woman's lifelong fight to identify and overcome depression offers an inspirational story of healing and emergence. Wrapped within Danquah's engaging account of this universal affliction is rare and insightful testimony about what it means to be black, female, and battling depression in a society that often idealizes black women as strong, nurturing caregivers. A startlingly honest, elegantly rendered depiction of depression, Willow Weep for Me calls out to all women who suffer in silence with a life-affirming message of recovery. Meri Danquah rises from the pages, a true survivor, departing a world of darkness and reclaiming her life.
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From her early childhood in Nigeria through her adolescence in Oklahoma, Bassey Ikpi lived with a tumult of emotions, cycling between extreme euphoria and deep depression-sometimes within the course of a single day. By the time she was in her early twenties, Bassey was a spoken word artist and traveling with HBO's Def Poetry Jam, channeling her life into art. But beneath the façade of the confident performer, Bassey's mental health was in a precipitous decline, culminating in a breakdown that resulted in hospitalization and a diagnosis of Bipolar II.

In I'm Telling the Truth, But I'm Lying, Bassey Ikpi breaks open our understanding of mental health by giving us intimate access to her own. Exploring shame, confusion, medication, and family in the process, Bassey looks at how mental health impacts every aspect of our lives-how we appear to others, and more importantly to ourselves-and challenges our preconception about what it means to be "normal." Viscerally raw and honest, the result is an exploration of the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of who we are-and the ways, as honest as we try to be, each of these stories can also be a lie.
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Heavy by Kiese Laymon

In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a "gorgeous, gutting...generous" (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon's experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
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From her more than three hundred appearances for film and television, stage and cabaret, performing comedy or drama, as an unforgettable lead or a scene stealing supporting character, Jenifer Lewis has established herself as one of the most respected, admired, talented, and versatile entertainers working today.

This "Mega Diva" and costar of the hit sitcom black-ish bares her soul in this touching and poignant-and at times side-splittingly hilarious-memoir of a Midwestern girl with a dream, whose journey took her from poverty to the big screen, and along the way earned her many accolades.

With candor and warmth, Jenifer Lewis reveals the heart of a woman who lives life to the fullest. This multitalented "force of nature" landed her first Broadway role within eleven days of her graduation from college and later earned the title "Reigning Queen of High-Camp Cabaret."

In the audaciously honest voice that her fans adore, Jenifer describes her transition to Hollywood, with guest roles on hits like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Friends. Her movie Jackie's Back! became a cult favorite, and as the "Mama" to characters portrayed by Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur, Taraji P. Henson, and many more, Jenifer cemented her status as the "Mother of Black Hollywood."

When an undiagnosed menatl illness stymies Jenifer's career, culminating in a breakdown while filming The Temptations, her quest for wholeness becomes a harrowing and inspiring tale, including revelations of bipolar disorder and sex addiction.

Written with no-holds-barred honesty and illustrated with more than forty color photographs, this gripping memoir is filled with insights gained through a unique life that offers a universal message: "Love yourself so that love will not be a stranger when it comes."
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The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. In this groundbreaking work, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of body-centered psychology. He argues this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white supremacy, which is deeply embedded in all our bodies. Our collective agony doesn't just affect African Americans. White Americans suffer their own secondary trauma as well. So do blue Americans-our police.

My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

Paves the way for a new, body-centered understanding of white supremacy-how it is literally in our blood and our nervous system.

Offers a step-by-step solution-a healing process-in addition to incisive social commentary.

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Do you or someone you love suffer from "bad nerves"?

Denise is constantly on edge. She's convinced something bad is going to happen.

Ruth will drive an hour out of her way to avoid driving over a bridge. When she has to do it, her chest thumps, her heart starts racing, and she breaks out in a sweat. She's beginning to think she shouldn't leave her house.

Bernice hasn't slept in two months for fear that the witch is going to ride her again.

What do these women have in common? They are struggling with crippling anxiety disorders.

Thousands of Black women suffer from anxiety. What's worse is that many of us have been raised to believe we are Strong Black Women and that seeking help shows weakness. So we often turn to dangerous quick fixes that only exacerbate the problem - like overeating and drug and alcohol abuse - or we deny that we have problems at all.

In Soothe Your Nerves, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett explains which factors can contribute to anxiety, panic, and fear in Black women and offers a range of healing methods that will help you or a loved one reclaim your life.

Here finally is a blueprint for understanding and overcoming anxiety from a psychological, spiritual, and Black perspective.
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The Color of Hope: People of Color Mental Health Narratives is a project that sheds light on mental health in communities of color by sharing stories by those affected by mental illness. By sharing our stories, we open up discussion around the topic and break through stigma and shame.

The contributors represent those living with or affected by loved ones with depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and other conditions.

They are men and women, children and adults, political prisoners, college students, politicians, musicians, business people, artists, fathers, mothers, daughters...all of African, Latino, and Asian descent. Their narratives add to the tapestry of the human experience and without them, our history is incomplete.
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How do you learn to be a black man in America? For young black men today, it means coming of age during the presidency of Barack Obama. It means witnessing the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and too many more. It means celebrating powerful moments of black self-determination for LeBron James, Dave Chappelle, and Frank Ocean.

In Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, Mychal Denzel Smith chronicles his own personal and political education during these tumultuous years, describing his efforts to come into his own in a world that denied his humanity. Smith unapologetically upends reigning assumptions about black masculinity, rewriting the script for black manhood so that depression and anxiety aren't considered taboo, and feminism and LGBTQ rights become part of the fight. The questions Smith asks in this book are urgent-for him, for the martyrs and the tokens, and for the Trayvons that could have been and are still waiting.
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If you buy just one book on bipolar disorder, let this be it.

There's an old saying: "Prevention is better than cure." If you have bipolar disorder, this is especially true. For you, it's incredibly important to read the warning signs of a possible episode. For instance, you may find you are not sleeping as well as usual, or you might be sleeping too much. You may stop doing things that you normally enjoy, or you may start acting out your impulses in ways that alienate those around you or get you into trouble.

While the path to wellness for those with bipolar may involve psychiatric visits and medication adjustments, preventing manic and depressive episodes is the true key to staying healthy and happy. So how do you do it? And most importantly, how can you keep yourself motivated?

In this powerful, breakthrough book, bipolar expert Ruth C. White shares her own personal approach to relapse prevention using the innovative program SNAP (Sleep, Nutrition, Activity, and People). White also offers practical tips and tracking tools you can use anytime, anywhere. By making necessary lifestyle adjustments, you can maintain balanced moods, recognize the warning signs of an oncoming episode, and make the necessary changes to reduce or prevent it.

This is the first and only book on bipolar disorder that focuses exclusively on prevention. To help you stay well, White includes links to helpful online tracking tools so that you can manage your symptoms, anytime, anywhere. If you are ready to stop living in fear of your next episode, this life-changing book can help you take charge of your diagnosis-and your life.

Reduce your stress in 10 minutes or less with the practical exercises and quick strategies in The Stress Management Workbook.

Learning how to manage your stress shouldn't be stressful. With The Stress Management Workbook you'll get the relief you need in a time frame that works for you. With concrete exercises that require no more than 10 minutes each, The Stress Management Workbook will help you build sustainable stress management skills for significantly reducing stress-now and for the future.

In The Stress Management Workbook, leading stress management and mental wellness expert Dr. Ruth White teaches you how to keep your brain sharp, improve your mind's response to stress, and develop strategies for minimizing stress. This fresh set of stress management skills will empower you to perform better at work, increase your energy, foster better relationships, and be healthier in both mind and body.

Effective and easy-to-follow, The Stress Management Workbook will teach you to:

Identify sources of stress through checklists, quizzes, and other informative activities

Set personal stress management goals that will prepare you for the work you're about to do

Learn to handle stress in the moment with interactive exercises that require no more than one, five, or ten minutes

Build long-term strategies that support your personal goals and foster positive lifestyle changes for a more fulfilling life

A happier, stress-free life is within reach. Learn how to change the way you respond to stress in your daily life with the practical guidance in The Stress Management

Terrie Williams knows that Black people are hurting. She knows because she's one of them.

Terrie had made it: she had launched her own public relations company with such clients as Eddie Murphy and Johnnie Cochran. Yet she was in constant pain, waking up in terror, overeating in search of relief. For thirty years she kept on her game face of success, exhausting herself daily to satisfy her clients' needs while neglecting her own.

Terrie finally collapsed, staying in bed for days. She had no clue what was wrong or if there was a way out. She had hit rock bottom and she needed and got help.

She learned her problem had a name - depression - and that many suffered from it, limping through their days, hiding their hurt. As she healed, her mission became clear: break the silence of this crippling taboo and help those who suffer.

Black Pain identifies emotional pain - which uniquely and profoundly affects the Black experience - as the root of lashing out through desperate acts of crime, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, workaholism, and addiction to shopping, gambling, and sex. Few realize these destructive acts are symptoms of our inner sorrow.

Black people are dying. Everywhere we turn, in the faces we see and the headlines we read, we feel in our gut that something is wrong, but we don't know what it is. It's time to recognize it and work through our trauma.

In Black Pain, Terrie has inspired the famous and the ordinary to speak out and mental health professionals to offer solutions. The book is a mirror turned on you. Do you see yourself and your loved ones here? Do the descriptions of how the pain looks, feels, and sounds seem far too familiar? Now you can do something about it.

Stop suffering. The help the community needs is here: a clear explanation of our troubles and a guide to finding relief through faith, therapy, diet, and exercise, as well as through building a supportive network (and eliminating toxic people).

Black Pain encourages us to face the truth about the issue that plunges our spirits into darkness, so that we can step into the healing light.

You are not on the ledge alone.

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12 Books on Behavioral Health Written By Black People|Black Mental Health Alliance

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Monica A. Coleman's great-grandfather asked his two young sons to lift him up and pull out the chair when he hanged himself, and that noose stayed in the family shed for years. The rope was the violent instrument, but it was mental anguish that killed him.

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Our aim is to promote dialogue and discussion, to discover what we can learn from each other and, in particular, to explore the limitations that may be inherent in one particular knowledge system-that known as Western Science. It is an exploration of two different ways of knowing, two different worlds of consciousness, and a discovery of the ways that peoples can begin to have dialogues with each other, enter into relationships, and offer each other respect and courtesy that is the hallmark of humanity.
But how is such a dialogue to commence? Many of the world's spiritual traditions speak of the impossibility of the rational mind ever approaching a deep understanding of another way of being. The same thing applies, I believe, to cultures that lie outside our own. One can no more understand them from the outside than one can describe the taste of an orange to someone who had never eaten such a fruit, nor a sunset to a blind person. How then can we grasp the flavour the odour, the spirit of a profoundly different worldview, one that cannot be approached by reason, analysis, description, and accumulation of facts alone?
The answer I believe is that we can come to some form of knowing, albeit in a strictly limited way, through an actual change in consciousness. It is my belief that, at its deepest level, the dialogue between Western and Indigenous science will engender an increasing flexibility in human consciousness, an ability to leave the boundaries of our own egos and worldview and temporarily enter those of another. And, in so doing we will engage in a new relationship; we will both give and receive; we will create alliances and become one with a much greater spectrum of consciousness, one that involves not only humans but other beings, forces, and powers of the natural world.

F. David Peat

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Indigenous Ways of Knowing - The Pari Center

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Our aim is to promote dialogue and discussion, to discover what we can learn from each other and, in particular, to explore the limitations that may be inherent in one particular knowledge system-that known as Western Science.

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Support our work

We couldn't do the work we do without support. Thank you to our current funders and individual donors.

Over the last twelve months supporters of our work have included: Cambridgeshire Community Foundation (including the Harry Cureton Charitable Trust), Friends of Michaelhouse, Peterborough Council for Voluntary Service, The Pye Foundation, South Cambridgeshire District Council.

We're delighted to be working with AKA Fine Art an online and event gallery who are donating 10% of each sale to us.

To donate online, please click the icon above.

To donate by cheque, please send a cheque made payable to Arts and Minds to Arts and Minds, Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, CB1 7GX.

To donate by bank transfer, please send an email to our administrator and ask for our bank details and a gift aid form.

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We couldn't do the work we do without support. Thank you to our current funders and individual donors. Over the last twelve months supporters of our work have included: Cambridgeshire Community Foundation (including the Harry Cureton Charitable Trust), Friends of Michaelhouse, Peterborough Council for Voluntary Service, The Pye Foundation, South Cambridgeshire District Council.

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One of the fundamental views in Buddhism is the principle of "dependent origination." This states that all phenomena, both subjective experiences and external objects, come into existence in dependence upon causes and conditions; nothing comes into existence uncaused. Given this principle, it becomes crucial to understand what causality is and what types of cause there are. In Buddhist literature, two main categories of causation are mentioned: (i) external causes in the form of physical objects and events, and (ii) internal causes such as cognitive and mental events.

The reason for an understanding of causality being so important in Buddhist thought and practice is that it relates directly to sentient beings' feelings of pain and pleasure and the other experiences that dominate their lives, which arise not only from internal mechanisms but also from external causes and conditions. Therefore it is crucial to understand not only the internal workings of mental and cognitive causation but also their relationship to the external material world.

The fact that our inner experiences of pleasure and pain are in the nature of subjective mental and cognitive states is very obvious to us. But how those inner subjective events relate to external circumstances and the material world poses a critical problem. The question of whether there is an external physical reality independent of sentient beings' consciousness and mind has been extensively discussed by Buddhist thinkers. Naturally, there are divergent views on this issue among the various philosophical schools of thought. One such school [Cittamatra] asserts that there is no external reality, not even external objects, and that the material world we perceive is in essence merely a projection of our minds. From many points of view, this conclusion is rather extreme. Philosophically, and for that matter conceptually, it seems more coherent to maintain a position that accepts the reality not only of the subjective world of the mind, but also of the external objects of the physical world.

Now, if we examine the origins of our inner experiences and of external matter, we find that there is a fundamental uniformity in the nature of their existence in that both are governed by the principle of causality. Just as in the inner world of mental and cognitive events, every moment of experience comes from its preceding continuum and so on ad infinitum. Similarly, in the physical world every object and event must have a preceding continuum that serves as its cause, from which the present moment of external matter comes into existence.

In some Buddhist literature, we find that in terms of the origin of its continuum, the macroscopic world of our physical reality can be traced back finally to an original state in which all material particles are condensed into what are known as "space particles." If all the physical matter of our macroscopic universe can be traced to such an original state, the question then arises as to how these particles later interact with each other and evolve into a macroscopic world that can have direct bearing on sentient beings' inner experiences of pleasure and pain. To answer this, Buddhists turn to the doctrine of karma, the invisible workings of actions and their effects, which provides an explanation as to how these inanimate space particles evolve into various manifestations.

The invisible workings of actions, or karmic force ( karma means action), are intimately linked to the motivation in the human mind that gives rise to these actions. Therefore an understanding of the nature of mind and its role is crucial to an understanding of human experience and the relationship between mind and matter. We can see from our own experience that our state of mind plays a major role in our day-to-day experience and physical and mental well-being. If a person has a calm and stable mind, this influences his or her attitude and behavior in relation to others. In other words, if someone remains in a state of mind that is calm, tranquil and peaceful, external surroundings or conditions can cause them only a limited disturbance. But it is extremely difficult for someone whose mental state is restless to be calm or joyful even when they are surrounded by the best facilities and the best of friends. This indicates that our mental attitude is a critical factor in determining our experience of joy and happiness, and thus also our good health.

To sum up, there are two reasons why it is important to understand the nature of mind. One is because there is an intimate connection between mind and karma. The other is that our state of mind plays a crucial role in our experience of happiness and suffering. If understanding the mind is very important, what then is mind, and what is its nature?

Buddhist literature, both sutra and tantra, contains extensive discussions on mind and its nature. Tantra, in particular, discusses the various levels of subtlety of mind and consciousness. The sutras do not talk much about the relationship between the various states of mind and their corresponding physiological states. Tantric literature, on the other hand, is replete with references to the various subtleties of the levels of consciousness and their relationship to such physiological states as the vital energy centers within the body, the energy channels, the energies that flow within these and so on. The tantras also explain how, by manipulating the various physiological factors through specific meditative yogic practices, one can effect various states of consciousness.

According to tantra, the ultimate nature of mind is essentially pure. This pristine nature is technically called "clear light." The various afflictive emotions such as desire, hatred and jealousy are products of conditioning. They are not intrinsic qualities of the mind because the mind can be cleansed of them. When this clear light nature of mind is veiled or inhibited from expressing its true essence by the conditioning of the afflictive emotions and thoughts, the person is said to be caught in the cycle of existence, samsara. But when, by applying appropriate meditative techniques and practices, the individual is able to fully experience this clear light nature of mind free from the influence and conditioning of the afflictive states, he or she is on the way to true liberation and full enlightenment.

Hence, from the Buddhist point of view, both bondage and true freedom depend on the varying states of this clear light mind, and the resultant state that meditators try to attain through the application of various meditative techniques is one in which this ultimate nature of mind fully manifests all its positive potential, enlightenment, or Buddhahood. An understanding of the clear light mind therefore becomes crucial in the context of spiritual endeavor.

In general, the mind can be defined as an entity that has the nature of mere experience, that is, "clarity and knowing." It is the knowing nature, or agency, that is called mind, and this is non-material. But within the category of mind there are also gross levels, such as our sensory perceptions, which cannot function or even come into being without depending on physical organs like our senses. And within the category of the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness, there are various divisions, or types of mental consciousness that are heavily dependent upon the physiological basis, our brain, for their arising. These types of mind cannot be understood in isolation from their physiological bases.

Now a crucial question arises: How is it that these various types of cognitive events-the sensory perceptions, mental states and so forth-can exist and possess this nature of knowing, luminosity and clarity? According to the Buddhist science of mind, these cognitive events possess the nature of knowing because of the fundamental nature of clarity that underlies all cognitive events. This is what I described earlier as the mind's fundamental nature, the clear light nature of mind. Therefore, when various mental states are described in Buddhist literature, you will find discussions of the different types of conditions that give rise to cognitive events. For example, in the case of sensory perceptions, external objects serve as the objective, or causal condition; the immediately preceding moment of consciousness is the immediate condition; and the sense organ is the physiological or dominant condition. It is on the basis of the aggregation of these three conditions-causal, immediate and physiological-that experiences such as sensory perceptions occur.

Another distinctive feature of mind is that it has the capacity to observe itself. The issue of mind's ability to observe and examine itself has long been an important philosophical question. In general, there are different ways in which mind can observe itself. For instance, in the case of examining a past experience, such as things that happened yesterday you recall that experience and examine your memory of it, so the problem does not arise. But we also have experiences during which the observing mind becomes aware of itself while still engaged in its observed experience. Here, because both observing mind and observed mental states are present at the same time, we cannot explain the phenomenon of the mind becoming self-aware, being subject and object simultaneously, through appealing to the factor of time lapse.

Thus it is important to understand that when we talk about mind, we are talking about a highly intricate network of different mental events and states. Through the introspective properties of mind we can observe, for example, what specific thoughts are in our mind at a given moment, what objects our minds are holding, what kinds of intentions we have and so on. In a meditative state, for example, when you are meditating and cultivating a single- pointedness of mind, you constantly apply the introspective faculty to analyze whether or not your mental attention is single-pointedly focused on the object, whether there is any laxity involved, whether you are distracted and so forth. In this situation you are applying various mental factors and it is not as if a single mind were examining itself. Rather, you are applying various different types of mental factor to examine your mind.

As to the question of whether or not a single mental state can observe and examine itself, this has been a very important and difficult question in the Buddhist science of mind. Some Buddhist thinkers have maintained that there s a faculty of mind called "self- consciousness," or "self-awareness." It could be said that this is an apperceptive faculty of mind, one that can observe itself. But this contention has been disputed. Those who maintain that such an apperceptive faculty exists distinguish two aspects within the mental, or cognitive, event. One of these is external and object-oriented in the sense that there is a duality of subject and object, while the other is introspective in nature and it is this that enables the mind to observe itself. The existence of this apperceptive self-cognizing faculty of mind has been disputed, especially by the later Buddhist philosophical school of thought the Prasangika.

In our own day-to-day experiences we can observe that, especially on the gross level, our mind is interrelated with and dependent upon the physiological states off the body. Just as our state of mind, be it depressed or joyful, affects our physical health, so too does our physical state affect our mind.

As I mentioned earlier, Buddhist tantric literature mentions specific energy centers within the body that may, I think, have some connection with what some neurobiologists call the second brain, the immune system. These energy centers play a crucial role in increasing or decreasing the various emotional states within our mind. It is because of the intimate relationship between mind and body and the existence of these special physiological centers within our body that physical yoga exercises and the application of special meditative techniques aimed at training the mind can have positive effects on health. It has been shown, for example, that by applying appropriate meditative techniques, we can control our respiration and increase or decrease our body temperature.

Furthermore, just as we can apply various meditative techniques during the waking state so too, on the basis of understanding the subtle relationship between mind and body, can we practice various meditations while we are in dream states. The implication of the potential of such practices is that at a certain level it is possible to separate the gross levels of consciousness from gross physical states and arrive at a subtler level of mind and body. In other words, you can separate your mind from your coarse physical body. You could, for example, separate your mind from your body during sleep and do some extra work that you cannot do in your ordinary body. However, you might not get paid for it!

So you can see here the clear indication of a close link between body and mind: they can be complementary. In light of this, I am very glad to see that some scientists are undertaking significant research in the mind/body relationship and its implications for our understanding of the nature of mental and physical well-being. My old friend Dr. Benson [Herbert Benson, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School], for example, has been carrying out experiments on Tibetan Buddhist meditators for some years now. Similar research work is also being undertaken in Czechoslovakia. Judging by our findings so far, I feel confident that there is still a great deal to be done in the future.

As the insights we gain from such research grow, there is no doubt that our understanding of mind and body, and also of physical and mental health, will be greatly enriched. Some modern scholars describe Buddhism not as a religion but as a science of mind, and there seem to be some grounds for this claim.

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One of the fundamental views in Buddhism is the principle of "dependent origination." This states that all phenomena, both subjective experiences and external objects, come into existence in dependence upon causes and conditions; nothing comes into existence uncaused. Given this principle, it becomes crucial to understand what causality is and what types of cause there are.

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an unparalleled chronicle, a journey into haunting, haunted places, which will fascinate and captivate

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﻿"Amélie Ravalec's dazzling film Art & Mind is an unparalleled chronicle, a journey into haunting, haunted places, which will fascinate and captivate both experts in the field and those for whom its themes are less familiar." - RAW VISION MAGAZINE

A journey into art, madness and the unconscious. An exploration of visionary artists and the creative impulse, from the Flemish Masters of the Renaissance to the avant-garde movement of Surrealism and the unsung geniuses of Art Brut and Outsider Art.

Featuring artists Hieronymus Bosch, Francisco Goya, Vincent Van Gogh, William Blake, Edvard Munch, Salvador Dali and many more.

Featuring interviews with art historians, artists, museum curators, psychiatrists, neuroscientists; and over 350 artworks from prestigious museums and collections worldwide including Tate Britain, Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Prinzhorn Collection, Rijksmuseum, La Halle Saint Pierre, ABCD Collection, Outsider Art Fair, Wellcome Collection, Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Lombroso Museum, Freud Museum, MAHHSA, Lille Métropole Museum of Contemporary and Outsider Art, Maisons Victor Hugo, Adamson Collection, Museum Dr Guislain, Henry Boxer Gallery and Museum Im Lagerhaus.

Get notified when Art & Mind is showing in your local area.

"Art & Mind explores the interrelated creative impulses of compulsion, vision, spiritual and conceptual fixations, and the inspiration found in the deepest recesses of the human mind." Northwest Film Forum

"This is a most engaging story. You will become lost, submerged, and enthralled by the narrative developing in front of your eyes. The film is a thorough and many layers deep investigation of the *unknown* in art. Surrealist automatic writing, art brut, mental patients visions, high gothic phantasmagoria, Goya nightmares... there is a common thread. Don't miss this movie!" IMdB

"The artist's mind is terra incognita for outsiders. What is the nature of inspiration? What motivates a person to create? Why do people with mental problems often have greater intellect and sensitivity than healthy people? Amélie Ravalec's film, dedicated to the study of the connection between art and the secrets of the human psyche, tries to answer these questions." Pioner Russia

"The film presents us with a vivid cavalcade of artworks, each of which is worthy of analysis, speculation and appreciation; and, by way of expert commentary, locates the work in the philosophical and aesthetic concepts of its era. Early notions of sin, infirmity, possession and psychic transformation - all varieties of what was seen as "folly"- give way to the idea of melancholia as both a pathological condition and a source of wisdom and insight, and later still to the embracing of unreason and the unconscious by the avant-garde." Raw Vision Magazine

Art & Mind explores the relationship between art and madness. The theme of madness inspired some of the most incredible painters in history, but mad people often experienced an unstoppable urge to create art too. Art & Mind also investigates how visionary and avant-garde artists sought to explore their unconscious mind as an inspiration for their art.

The theme of madness inspired artists since the Middle-Ages to create truly magnificent paintings: the "Stone of Madness" by Hieronymus Bosch and the Flemish Masters, the apocalyptic visions of Pieter Bruegel, compelling depictions of asylums by Goya and countless portraits of madness including Edvard Munch's The Scream and Vincent Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear.

Art & Mind traces the advances in the understanding of the human mind and its influences on art. The emergence of the unconscious inspired Romantic artists to explore the hidden realms of dreams and visions in their art. Emerging psychology theories of Sigmund Freud and his contemporaries later became a major source of inspiration for the Surrealists.

The border between visionary creation and madness is sometimes tenuous, and many artists experienced bouts of madness. Van Gogh cut his own ear while confined in a psychiatric hospital, William Blake had conversations with dead poets, Goya was hearing voices and Munch was convinced of being condemned into madness since birth. The Surrealists Leonora Carrington, Unica Zürn and Antonin Artaud also spent time confined in asylums and captured their experiences of madness in their art.

Stories of outsider artists are just as inspiring, ranging from the 45-volumes magnum opus of Adolf Wölfli to the compelling portraits of schizophrenia by Bryan Charnley. Art & Mind unveils the history of Art Brut, from its foundations in the dark corners of Victorian asylums to being exhibited in the world's finest galleries, museums and private collections.

2019
WORLD PREMIERE - SOLD OUT
April 27th, THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS, LONDON, UK
Presented by ICA X Freud Museum
Q&A with director Amélie Ravalec, Raw Vision Magazine editor John Maizels
and psychiatrist & chair of the Adamson Collection Dr David O'Flynn

April 27th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
April 28th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
April 28th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
April 28th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
April 30th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
April 30th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 1st, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 1st, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 1st, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 2nd, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 2nd, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 4th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 5th, Art House Crouch End, London, UK
With Q&A by director Amélie Ravalec
May 5th, Bio Roy, Gothenburg, Sweden
May 5th, Capri Theatre x Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, USA
Introduced by Montgomery Museum of Fine Art Curator, Alice Novak
May 5th, Prestige Filmtheater, Künzelsau, Germany
May 5th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 6th, Tartu Elektriteater, Tartu, Estonia
May 7th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UKMay 8th, Mockingbird Cinema, Birmingham, UK
May 8th, Lark Theater, Larkspur, California, USA
May 8th, The Lyric Cinema x Museum of Art Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
May 8th, Splendid Palace, Riga, Latvia
Introduced by Professor of Psychiatry Maris Taubes
May 8th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 9th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 9th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 9th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 10th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
﻿May 10th, Studio Skoop, Ghent, Belgium
x Museum of Fine Arts and Museum Dr Guislain
Introduction by director Amélie Ravalec
May 10th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 11th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
﻿May 11th, Lark Theater, Larkspur, California, USA
May 11th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 11th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 12th, Filmhuis Alkmaar, Alkmaar, Netherlands
May 12th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 14th, Het Ketelhuis, Amsterdam, Netherlands
May 14th, Tartu Elektriteater, Tartu, Estonia
May 14th, Sedona International Film Festival, Sedona, Arizona, USA
May 14th, Sedona International Film Festival, Sedona, Arizona, USA
May 15th, The FilmBar, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Supported by Phoenix Art Museum
May 15th, Bijou Art Cinemas, Eugene, Oregon, USA
May 15th, Filmhuis Alkmaar, Alkmaar, Netherlands
May 16th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 16th, Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento, California, USA
Introduced by cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Petr Janata
May 16th, The FilmBar, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
May 16th, The FilmBar, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
May 16th, The Screening Room, Tucson, Arizona, USA
May 16th, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
May 16th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 17th, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
May 17th, Hoffman Center for the Arts, Manzanita, Oregon, USA
May 17th, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
May 17th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 17th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 18th, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 18th, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
May 18th, Elephant Space, Seoul, Korea
May 18th, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
May 19th, Duke of York's Picture House, Brighton, UK
Q&A from director Amélie Ravalec
May 19th, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
May 19th, The Showroom, Asbury Park, New Jersey, USA
May 19th, Acme Screening Room, Lambertville, New Jersey, USA
Q&A with mental health counselor Bambi Thorne Kuhl and therapist, Christyne Siliverdis
May 19th, The FilmBar, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
May 19th, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
May 19th, The Screening Room, Tucson, Arizona, USA
May 21st, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
May 22nd, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
May 23rd, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii
May 23rd, The Leatherhead Theatre, London, UK
May 24th, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
May 24th, Acme Screening Room, Lambertville, New Jersey, USA
May 24th, Tartu Elektriteater, Tartu, Estonia
May 25th, Fine Arts Film Festival, Los Angeles, USA
May 25th, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
May 26th, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii
May 26th, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
May 26th, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii
May 26th, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii
May 27th, Cinema, Filmkunstkino, Dusseldorf, Germany
May 30th, Tartu Elektriteater, Tartu, Estonia
May 30th, Cinema, Filmkunstkino, Dusseldorf, Germany
May 30th, The Paramount, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
May 31st, Contemporary Space, Varna, Bulgaria
June 1st, Zoetropolis Theatre, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
June 1st, Contemporary Space, Varna, Bulgaria
June 1st, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
June 2nd, Contemporary Space, Varna, Bulgaria
June 2nd, Zoetropolis Theatre, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
June 2nd, Time and Space, Hudson, New York, USA
June 3rd, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 3rd, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 3rd, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 3rd, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 4th, Contemporary Space, Varna, Bulgaria
June 4th, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 4th, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 4th, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 5th, Contemporary Space, Varna, Bulgaria
June 5th, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 5th, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 5th, Multisala Barberini, Rome, Italy
June 10th, Multisali Verdi, Vittorio Veneto, Italy
June 10th, IMG Cinemas Candiani di Mestre, Venice, Italy
June 11th, Multisali Verdi, Vittorio Veneto, Italy
June 11th, IMG Cinemas Candiani di Mestre, Venice, Italy
June 12th, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
June 13th, Splendid Palace, Riga, Latvia
﻿June 14th, Capitol, Marburg, Germany
June 14th, Cineplex, Marburg, Germany
June 14th, Cineplex, Marburg, Germany
June 16th, Old Greenbelt Theatre, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
June 17th, Old Greenbelt Theatre, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
June 24th, Nicolai Biograf, Kolding, Denmark
June 29th, Jarvis Conservatory, Napa, California, USA
June 29th, Jarvis Conservatory, Napa, California, USA
July 8th, Nicolai Biograf, Kolding, Denmark
July 14th, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia
July 14th, Cineplex, Marburg, Germany
July 14th, ProLi Kino, Passau, Germany
July 16th, Capitol, Marburg, Germany
July 16th, Derby QUAD, Derby, UK
July 17th, Nicolai Biograf, Kolding, Denmark
July 18th, The Elizabeth Picture Theatre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 18th, New Farm Cinemas, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 18th, Derby QUAD, Derby, UK
July 19th, The Elizabeth Picture Theatre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 19th, New Farm Cinemas, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 20th, Avoca Beach Picture Theatre, New South Wales, Australia
July 20th, The Elizabeth Picture Theatre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 20th, New Farm Cinemas, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 21st, Falmouth Art Center, Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA
July 21st, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia
July 21st, The Elizabeth Picture Theatre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 21st, New Farm Cinemas, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 21st, Adria, Berlin, Germany
July 21st, Cineplex Rundkino, Dresden, Germany
July 21st, Cineplex, Amberg, Germany
July 21st, Cineplex, Bayreuth, Germany
July 21st, Cineplex, Neumarkt, Germany
July 21st, Cineplex Planken, Mannheim, Germany
July 22nd, Avoca Beach Picture Theatre, New South Wales, Australia
July 22nd, The Elizabeth Picture Theatre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 22nd, New Farm Cinemas, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 23rd, The Elizabeth Picture Theatre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 23rd, New Farm Cinemas, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 24th, The Elizabeth Picture Theatre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 24th, New Farm Cinemas, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
July 27th, Luna Leederville, Perth, Australia
July 28th, Adria Filmtheater, Berlin, Germany
July 28th, Cineplex Rundkino, Dresden, Germany
July 28th, Luna Leederville, Perth, Australia
July 30th, Luna Leederville, Perth, Australia
August 22nd - Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia (with Q&A)
August 22nd - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 22nd - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 23rd - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 23rd - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 24th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 25th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 25th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 26th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 26th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
August 26th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
August 22nd onwards: Russia - 586 screenings total
Moscow: Zvezda, GUM, Kinomax on Prague, Pioneer, Eldar, Zvezda, Tretyakov Gallery, Higherhender cinema, KARO, October 11, Vympel, Polyot, 5 zvyozd, DomJur kinocenter, Iskra, Star, Tretyakov Gallery, Pennant, Space, Flight,
5 Stars Novokuznetskaya, Kinomax Mosaic, HouseJour, Spark, Kinomax Titan, Kinomax Water.
St. Petersburg: Angleterre, KARO Warsaw Express, Landok, Cinema Center Rodina, Lenfilm, Aurora, Art Center
Yekaterinburg: Yeltsin Center, Salute - Kazan: World, Kinomax Tandem - Saratov: Home Cinema - Vladivostok: Kinomax Sapphire - Krasnoyarsk: Home Cinema, Kinomax, Kinomax - Tula: JK Cinema - Odintsovo: Cinema Galaxy - Irkutsk: Kinomax - Novosibirsk: Victory, Aurora, Seventh heaven - Omsk: Glory - Samara: Art - Berdsk: Orion - Penza: Contemporary - Rostov-on-Don: Horizon, Cinema Club "Cinema House, Kinomax MEGAMAG - Kemerovo: Planet Cinema, Promenade 2
August 27th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
August 27th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
August 27th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 27th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 28th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
August 28th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
August 28th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 28th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
August 29th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
August 29th - Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
September 1st, Dairy Arts Centre, Boulder, Colorado, USA
September 3rd, Dairy Arts Centre, Boulder, Colorado, USA
September 4th, Dairy Arts Centre, Boulder, Colorado, USA
September 4th, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, USA
September 5th, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, USA
September 6th - Globe Cinema, Calgary, Canada
September 7th - Globe Cinema, Calgary, Canada
September 7th, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, USA
September 8th - ICA, London, UK
With intro by Director Amélie Ravalec
September 8th - Globe Cinema, Calgary, Canada
September 9th - Globe Cinema, Calgary, Canada
September 10th - Hopewell Theater, Hopewell, New Jersey, USA
September 10th - Globe Cinema, Calgary, Canada
September 11th - Globe Cinema, Calgary, Canada
September 11th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 11th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 12th - Globe Cinema, Calgary, Canada
September 12th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 13th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 13th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 14th, The Florence Griswold Museum, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, USA
September 16th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 17th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 19th, Klikkuð Menning Festival at Bio Paradis, Reykjavik, Iceland
September 19th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 20th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 21st - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 22nd - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 22nd, Klikkuð Menning Festival at Bio Paradis, Reykjavik, Iceland
September 27th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
September 28th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 1st - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 3rd, Museum Ovartaci, Aarhus, Denmark
Q&A with director Amélie Ravalec
October 3rd - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 7th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 8th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 9th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 10th, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
October 10th, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
October 11th, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
October 18th, Saint-André des Arts, Paris, France
Q&A with director Amélie Ravalec, Fabrice Flahutez and Jean Jacques Plaisance
October 20th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 20th, World Theatre, Queensland, Australia
October 26th - Documentary Film Center - Moscow, Russia
October 27th, Saint-André des Arts, Paris, France
October 27th, Majestic Cinemas - Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia
October 27th, Majestic Cinemas - Nambucca Heads, NSW, Australia
October 27th, Majestic Cinemas - Sawtell, NSW, Australia
October 27th, Majestic Cinemas - Nambour, NSW, Australia
October 27th, Belgrave Cinema, Armidale, NSW, Australia
October 27th, Inlet Cinema, Sussex Inlet, NSW, Australia
October 30th, Majestic Cinemas - Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia
October 30th, Majestic Cinemas - Nambucca Heads, NSW, Australia
October 30th, Majestic Cinemas - Sawtell, NSW, Australia
October 30th, Majestic Cinemas - Nambour, NSW, Australia
October 30th, Belgrave Cinema, Armidale, NSW, Australia
October 30th, Inlet Cinema, Sussex Inlet, NSW, Australia
November 3rd, Saint-André des Arts, Paris, France
November 9th, Les Arcades, Cannes, France
November 10th, Saint-André des Arts, Paris, France
March 20th, School of Creative Arts, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Art, Madness and Visionary Artists -Talk by director Amélie Ravalec
November 16th, Symphony Space, New York, USA
Q&A with director Amélie Ravalec
November 17th, Saint-André des Arts, Paris, France
November 21st, Cube Microplex, Bristol, UK
November 27th, Broadway Cinema, Nottingham, UK
December 3rd, Cinema Osservanza Imola, Bologna, Italy
December 4th, Cinema Osservanza Imola, Bologna, Italy
December 5th, Springfield Museums, MA, USA
December 6th, "Sanando desde el Inconsciente" Congreso Internacional
December 11th, A4 Zero Space, Bratislava, Slovakia

2020

February 1st, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, USA
February 2nd, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, USA
February 13th, Gallo Huset, Aarhus, Denmark

POSTPONED
March 15th, Schlosstheater Münster, Münster, Germany
March 18th, Film Studio 90, Varese, Italy
March 18th, Film Studio 90, Varese, Italy
March 22nd, Patagonia Creative Arts Association
April 18th, Jacob Burns Film Center, NY, USA
April 25th, Nuart Festival @Belmont Filmhouse, Aberdeen, UK
April 30th, STATE Studio Museum - PNEUMA Exhibition - Berlin, Germany
With director Q&A
April 30th, Affaires culturelles des HUG, Geneva, Switzerland

Amélie Ravalec is a London-based Parisian director. Her previous documentary Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay traced the origins of Industrial music, from the crumbling industrial cities of Europe to America's thriving avant-garde scene. Industrial Soundtrack opened theatrically May 2015 with over 130 screenings in 30 countries, and was acquired by ARTE TV in 2017. The film was featured in The Guardian, Sight & Sound, Film Comment, Vice, Pitchfork, Fact, The Wire...

Ravalec's debut film Paris/Berlin: 20 Years Of Underground Techno documented the underground movement of techno through the lens of two very different cities, from secret Parisian parties to Berlin's infamous Berghain club. Paris/Berlin was released in 2012 in 18 countries and won the Festival Pick Award at Sydney's Fringe Festival in 2013.

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﻿"Amélie Ravalec's dazzling film Art & Mind is an unparalleled chronicle, a journey into haunting, haunted places, which will fascinate and captivate both experts in the field and those for whom its themes are less familiar." - RAW VISION MAGAZINE Featuring artists Hieronymus Bosch, Francisco Goya, Vincent Van Gogh, William Blake, Edvard Munch, Salvador Dali and many more.

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Photo credit: Natalia Figueredo on Unsplash.

Making art can be therapeutic, but for professional artists the act of making can be filled with stress and tension as we work against deadlines and our own expectations. Some of us may struggle with letting go in the creative process or getting out of our own heads. And for many of us the stress is physical-hunched over potter's wheels and tables, standing for hours with tensed shoulders and jaws in front of our easel. Mindfulness can help us relax and welcome some ease back into our lives.

And in our current climate of global pandemic, social distancing and shelter-in-place has us retreating into our minds and anxieties even more. In this surreal world of Coronavirus when the whole world seems to have shifted upside down, our tensions elevated, our security, safety and health a focus of worry, it's time to take some deep breaths. So let's try that.

BREATHE.

Breathing, we do it all of the time, right? Easy enough. But sometimes we forget to take ( deep) breaths. Even at maximum exercise capacity, we only use 70% of our lungs.

During chaotic times everything feels like it is unraveling. But deep breathing is one of the easiest and natural tools to combat stress, anxiety, and even reduce pain and high blood pressure. Here are some perks of deep breaths that not only help during your art making practice, but in all aspects of your life. A happy healthy artist is a productive artist!

Ease the fight or flight response. Your body is wired to handle stressful situations. When stressed, your brain will release a stress hormone called cortisol. But if your cortisol levels are too high for too long, the hormone can hurt more than help. By taking deep breaths, you slow your heart rate, and allow more oxygen to enter your bloodstream, which communicates to your brain to relax. Deep breathing decreases stress and increases calmness.

Lower your blood pressure. As your muscles relax, your blood vessels dilate, which improves circulation.

Increase energy. More oxygen also means more energy! The more oxygen in your blood, the better your body performs. Now you can sit over your potter's wheel or stand by your easel for longer.

Detoxify your body. Breathing releases carbon monoxide. If you don't breathe fully your body must work overtime to release toxins.

Combat pain. Deep breathing also releases endorphins-feel good chemicals-which can combat pain! Been spending more hours cooped up in your studio with self isolation measures? Knees hurting? Have shoulder and back pain? Take a few deep breaths.

Improve immunity. Here's a good one during COVID19 scares. Breathing improves immunity. When your blood is fully oxygenated, it carries nutrients more efficiently.

Improve digestion. Are you eating all of your self-isolation snacks in one sitting? More time at home mean more time to eat? Deep breathing improves blood flow which in turns promotes effective functioning of your organs, like your intestines!

Support posture. Take a deep breath in. Did you feel your spine lengthen and straighten? When you take a deep breath in, your lungs take up more space, pulling your diaphragm down and lengthening your torso to support the space and movement.

Photo credit: Le Minh Phuong from Unsplash.

Here is a simple breathing exercise to practice in your studio.

Breathe in through your nose for five seconds. Fill your belly, lungs, throat and mouth with air. Hold this breath in for two seconds. Slowly and gently release the breath through the mouth for five seconds. Hold at "empty" for two seconds. Repeat this at least five times. You can place your hand on your belly to ensure that you're filling your abdomen-you'll feel the rise of your stomach.

You can also increase your breath count. Breathe in for seven seconds, or longer.

Another approach? Make your exhale longer than your inhale. Typically our inhales, when we're being mindful, are longer than our exhales. But remember the benefits of detoxifying your body by releasing carbon monoxide mentioned above? We rarely breath out fully. Give it a try.

Here are some more breathing exercises for relaxation from Michigan Medicine.

You can do these breathing exercises from anywhere. Find a quiet space and sit, or even stand at your easel. Practice these deep breaths while brewing coffee, or before entering your studio. And, remember, this is supposed to be peaceful! Not uncomfortable. Do what feels good for your body.

Find a simple meditation that works for you.

Mindfulness is a hot term these days. And during times of crisis like COVID19 it's easy to feel scattered, overwhelmed and anxious. Meditation practices help anchor us in the here and now, and not worry about the past or what has yet to come.

Meditation helps calm the brain chatter. Overthinking a piece of art? Are you discombobulated approaching your art materials? If you need a helpful mental nudge to gain clarity and a bit of peace of mind, try some simple meditation exercises.

Sit or lie down with eyes closed and...breathe. Focus on your breath. Become aware of your body. Notice how it rises and falls with the flow of your breath. Your body is like an ocean-sending waves of movement through space.

Watch a flickering candle.

Sit outside and observe. Watch clouds in the sky, trees swaying in the wind, birds hopping from branch to branch.

Take a walk. Meditation doesn't have to be a chore. Notice the sensations as your body moves in the space. What do you hear, smell, feel and see? Currently stuck in shelter-in-place? Bring your walk inside and be aware of your steps. Take 10 paces, turn, 10 more steps, stop. Repeat.

Remember, don't judge your mind for wandering. It's our brain's job to think! To help corral your mind, you can count your breaths during these meditations.

Find a mantra to ground your day and inspire your creative practice.

Mantras are repeated sounds, words or phrases. They can attract positive energy and thoughts during times when we need comfort, hopefulness and connectivity. You can build self-confidence, ease fears, cultivate strength, reduce stress, manifest good feelings, etc.

Feeling disconnected from your art practice? Practice a mantra in your space. Here are a few options. You can also come up with your own!

"I have much to celebrate."

"I am enough." You can add other affirmations like "I am strong." "I am beautiful."

"Where I am right now is exactly where I need to be."

"All I need comes to me when I need it."

"May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease."

"I am open to the possibilities of the Universe."

Photo credit: Juan Chavez from Unsplash.

Yoga Nidra is an ancient yogic practice that is increasingly becoming popular as a form of meditation. It is a systematic form of guided relaxation that typically takes more than 30 minutes. Practitioners say that it helps reduce stress and better sleep. It can bring joy and well-being.

How to do it? Find a comfortable spot to lie down-floor, couch, bed. Play a yoga nidra recording from a CD, meditation app or music app like Spotify to guide you to relaxation. Do you have a friend that practices yoga nidra? Ask them to guide you via phone call or video platform like Zoom. Or, close your eyes, and walk yourself through your body. How do my toes feel against the surface on which they rest? Scan your body. What do my knees feel like-sore? Feel your belly rise and fall. Notice your jaw, cheeks, eyelids. Yoga Nidra is a practice to welcome yourself.

Download an app.

When starting a new habit, it's helpful to have some guidance. Here are two favorite apps from this Artwork Archive staff member and yoga teacher.

Simple Habit: This app is marketed as a meditation app designed to help busy people. You don't have to go to an ashram to get your meditation on. You don't even need to be seated cross-legged with sage burning by your side. With Simple Habit you can select meditations based on the time you have (even as short as five minutes) and select guided meditations based on your activity-taking a walk, commuting by train, etc. They have categories for different types of intentions too: career, parenting, sleep, happiness, etc..

Insight Timer: This app features guided meditations, music and talks posted by contributing experts. You'll find sleep music for falling asleep faster and deeper, which will help you approach your studio rested and refreshed the next day. You'll also find yoga nidra meditations for relaxation, poetry to ease the mind, and more.

It's estimated that 95% of our behavior runs on autopilot. Let's bring some more mindfulness to our day-to-day. Mindfulness helps us connect and focus-two instrumental parts of our art practice! Just like learning a new artistic skill, deep breathing and meditation takes practice. Try to incorporate one breathing exercise, meditation and/or mantra each day.

Looking for more ways to incorporate mindfulness in your day? Check out this article on yoga for artists.

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Photo credit: Natalia Figueredo on Unsplash. Making art can be therapeutic, but for professional artists the act of making can be filled with stress and tension as we work against deadlines and our own expectations. Some of us may struggle with letting go in the creative process or getting out of our own heads.

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...consciousness is an intrinsic property of everything, just like gravity

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...consciousness is an intrinsic property of everything, just like gravity

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Neuroscientist Christof Koch discusses scientific theories of consciousness with the Dalai Lama.

New theories in neuroscience suggest consciousness is an intrinsic property of everything, just like gravity. That development opens a world of opportunity for collaboration between Buddhists and neuroscientists.

"The heart of consciousness," says neuroscientist Christof Koch, "is that it feels like something. How is it that a piece of matter, like my brain, can feel anything?"

In 2013, Koch, one of the world's leading experts on consciousness, went to a monastery in India to discuss that question with a group of Buddhist monks. He and the Dalai Lama debated neuroscience and mind for a full day.

They had different approaches. Koch offered contemporary scientific theories on the subject, and His Holiness countered with ancient Buddhist teachings. Yet, at the end of their discussion, the two thinkers agreed on almost every point.

"What struck me most was his belief in what we in the West call 'panpsychism' - the belief that consciousness is everywhere," says Koch. "And that we have to reduce the suffering of all conscious creatures."

Panpsychism, the idea of universal consciousness, is a prominent thought in some branches of ancient Greek philosophy, paganism, and Buddhism. And it has been largely dismissed by modern science - until recently.

In his work on consciousness, Koch collaborates with a researcher named Giulio Tononi. Tononi is the father of the most popular modern theory of consciousness, called Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which Koch once called "the only really promising fundamental theory of consciousness."

Tononi's theory states that consciousness appears in physical systems that contain many different and highly interconnected pieces of information. Based on that hypothesis, consciousness can be measured as a theoretical quantity, which the researchers call phi.

Tononi has a test for measuring phi (the amount of consciousness) in a human brain. It is similar to ringing a bell; scientists send a magnetic pulse into a human brain and watch the pulse reverberate through the neurons - back and forth, side to side. The longer and clearer the reverberation, the higher the subject's amount of consciousness. Using that test, Koch and Tononi can tell whether a patient is awake, asleep, or anesthetized.

There are already pressing and practical needs for a way to measure consciousness. Doctors and scientists could use phi to tell if a person in a vegetative state is effectively dead, how much awareness a person with dementia has, when a foetus develops consciousness, how much animals perceive, or even whether a computer can feel.

"That's more urgent," asserts Koch. "We're witnessing the birth of computer intelligence. Is a machine conscious? Does it feel like anything? If it does, it may acquire legal rights, and I certainly have ethical obligations towards it. I can't just turn it off or wipe its disc clean."

IIT also marries these practical applications with profound ideas. The theory says that any object with a phi greater than zero has consciousness. That would mean animals, plants, cells, bacteria, and maybe even protons are conscious beings.

Koch sees IIT as promising because it offers an understanding of panpsychism that fits into modern science. In an academic paper, Koch and Tononi make the profound statement that their theory "treats consciousness as an intrinsic, fundamental property of reality."

Modern research and recent dialogues between Buddhists and scientists have focused mainly on understanding the physical brain. But scientists have barely begun to develop an understanding of mind - or consciousness - itself.

On the Buddhist side, however, this is a discussion that has been going on for thousands of years. Buddhism associates mind with sentience. The late Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche stated that while mind, along with all objects, is empty, unlike most objects, it is also luminous. In a similar vein, IIT says consciousness is an intrinsic quality of everything yet only appears significantly in certain conditions - like how everything has mass, but only large objects have noticeable gravity.

In his major work, the Shobogenzo, Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen Buddhism, went so far as to say, "All is sentient being." Grass, trees, land, sun, moon and stars are all mind, wrote Dogen.

Koch, who became interested in Buddhism in college, says that his personal worldview has come to overlap with the Buddhist teachings on non-self, impermanence, atheism, and panpsychism. His interest in Buddhism, he says, represents a significant shift from his Roman Catholic upbringing. When he started studying consciousness - working with Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick - Koch believed that the only explanation for experience would have to invoke God. But, instead of affirming religion, Koch and Crick together established consciousness as a respected branch of neuroscience and invited Buddhist teachers into the discussion.

At Drepung Monastery, the Dalai Lama told Koch that the Buddha taught that sentience is everywhere at varying levels, and that humans should have compassion for all sentient beings. Until that point, Koch hadn't appreciated the weight of his philosophy.

"I was confronted with the Buddhist teaching that sentience is probably everywhere at varying levels, and that inspired me to take the consequences of this theory seriously," says Koch. "When I see insects in my home, I don't kill them."

The theory of IIT shows promise for the future. With more research, Koch and Tononi could better test consciousness, to prove scientifically that all beings are sentient. Meanwhile, Buddhists around the world are constantly working to develop an understanding of the mind. Traleg Rinpoche said that analytical methods can only go so far toward understanding the mind. Instead, he says, by resting his or her mind and contemplating it, a meditator can develop an understanding of the nature of mind and how it relates to everything else.

Critics of IIT argue that the theory fails to explain where consciousness comes from. Science writer John Horgan argues, "you can't explain consciousness by saying it consists of information, because information exists only relative to consciousness."

Understanding the source of consciousness is an extremely difficult hurdle, but Koch is up to it. He says that his ultimate goal is to understand the universe. Some say that the best way to do that is to look inside your own mind. Maybe Koch is on to something.

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Leading neuroscientists and Buddhists agree: "Consciousness is everywhere"

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Neuroscientist Christof Koch discusses scientific theories of consciousness with the Dalai Lama. New theories in neuroscience suggest consciousness is an intrinsic property of everything, just like gravity. That development opens a world of opportunity for collaboration between Buddhists and neuroscientists. "The heart of consciousness," says neuroscientist Christof Koch, "is that it feels like something.

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Guided mediation on practicing non-judgement

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Guided mediation on practicing non-judgement

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This sort of synthesis—the bringing together of philosophy, psychology, art criticism, and neuroscience ..—is just getting started

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In 1961, Piero Manzoni created his most famous art work-ninety small, sealed tins, titled "Artist's Shit." Its creation was said to be prompted by Manzoni's father, who owned a canning factory, telling his son, "Your work is shit." Manzoni intended "Artist's Shit" in part as a commentary on consumerism and the obsession we have with artists. As Manzoni put it, "If collectors really want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit."

Manzoni originally priced the tins according to their equivalent weight in gold, but they were purchased by the Tate Gallery and other collectors for much more, and, in 2016, one of the tins was bought in Milan for two hundred and seventy-five thousand euros. Plainly, then, some like this work; they believe that it's of value. Others see it as ridiculous. In " The Art Instinct," the philosopher Denis Dutton takes considerable pleasure in telling the story of how Manzoni failed to properly autoclave the tins, and many of them, years later, in private collections and museums, exploded.

You'd think that psychologists would have a lot to say about our differing reactions to such creations, but research in art and aesthetics tends to focus on more conventional forms of art. There are a lot of studies on the perception of tonal music, exploring which aspects of musical pleasure are universal and which vary across culture, what babies and children prefer to listen to, how expertise shapes our perception of music, and so on. There is research into figurative art, usually paintings, much of it exploring how we make the leap from a two-dimensional array of colors and shapes to a three-dimensional world. But there's little research on our reception of work such as "Artist's Shit," or the better-known pieces by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.

In part, this is because many psychologists, like many lay people, think that whatever is going on when connoisseurs value this work has little to do with aesthetics. Steven Pinker sums up a popular view in " How The Mind Works," when he writes, "Modern and postmodern works are intended not to give pleasure but to confirm and confound the theories of a guild of critics and analysts, to épater la bourgeoisie, and to baffle the rubes in Peoria."

Not everyone is so skeptical, though, and two recent books, by prominent psychologists, take these modern and postmodern works more seriously.

Ellen Winner, a professor at Boston College, is well known for her research on the psychology of art. Her new book, " How Art Works," is ambitious, covering everything from figurative paintings to abstract expressionism, tonal music, novels, and theatre.

What's unusual about this book is its interest in the philosophy of art, carefully reviewing the central questions that philosophers have long dealt with. What distinguishes art from other things? (What is it about Manzoni's creation, for instance, that makes even its harshest critics recognize it as a work of art, whatever else they may think of it?) Why do some of us like sad music and scary movies? And are the resulting sadness and fear the same psychological states we experience in real life when, say, a friend dies or we suddenly lose control of a car on an icy road? What makes a forgery worth so much less than an original? What makes some art good?

Other questions that Winner explores have practical import. Educators often defend art and art education by talking about its positive effects. Are they right? Does exposure to classical music make children better at mathematics? More generally, is literature a civilizing force; does reading books make us more moral?

To answer these questions, Winner draws on research in psychology, including studies from her own lab. In some cases, the questions that preoccupy philosophers are identical to the questions of psychologists and so are amenable to straightforward scientific research. Sometimes, though, the philosophical questions aren't empirical-nobody is going to do an experiment to answer the question "What is art?"-but, still, one can study an interesting near neighbor, in the style of what's sometimes known as "experimental philosophy." For instance, you can look at what people (art experts, laypeople, four-year-olds) think is art.

This is an engaging project, and "How Art Works" is exhilarating in part because Winner actually has some answers. It turns out, for instance, that, contrary to the speculations of some philosophers, aversive emotions are part of the appeal of certain fictions-the scarier the movie (up to a point), the more people enjoy watching it. It also turns out that there is little evidence that either exposure to art or extensive practice in creating art have more general positive effects on smarts or kindness. You probably know by now that the Mozart effect-the idea that hearing classical music makes people smarter-is a bust, and Winner suggests that this is also the case for other claims about art's power. Yes, there are many studies showing that children who take art classes tend to later outperform others in all sorts of ways. But such studies suffer from selection effects-the children who take these classes tend to be more advanced to start with. When you do proper experiments, randomly assigning children to classes, such results go away. Winner is in favor of teaching art in school, but she is a purist, seeing art as valuable for its own sake, not because of any other effects it might have.

For me, the most exciting part of the book is Winner's discussion of visual art, including abstract art. She's not a hater. She points out that, despite all the jokes along the lines of "my child can paint that," it turns out that non-experts are perfectly capable of telling the difference between actual unfamiliar works by abstract expressionists and superficially similar ones by children and adults.

Also, following many philosophers, Winner appreciates how our perception of abstract art is powerfully influenced by our understanding of the performance underlying the work's creation, and particularly our beliefs about what's going on in the head of the artist. In my own work with the psychologist Susan Gelman, supported by more recent experiments from Winner's laboratory, it turns out that even children are sensitive to the intentions of an artist: four-year-olds will see splotches of colored paint as a mess if they believe they were the result of a spill, but if they think the image was the product of intense concentration, they are far more likely to call it "a painting."

This sort of focus on the artist's intention is what goes on in the reaction to work such as Manzoni's; you can appreciate it only if you know what it was intended to be. This understanding doesn't mean that you will like the work of art; you might find the idea uninteresting or the performance uninspired. Denis Dutton, for instance, talks about Duchamp's "readymades"-such as his urinal turned into an art piece-as works of "incandescent genius," but he sees this sort of artistic innovation (what Arthur Danto described as "the transfiguration of the commonplace") as akin to a joke that can be laughed at only once. Dutton has a low opinion of "Artist's Shit," not because he doesn't appreciate the idea but because he finds it boring and derivative.

You might be tempted to see this focus on the mind of the artist as an optional extra. After all, some claim to enjoy art based solely on its immediate appearance, shorn of all history. But unmediated appreciation might be a myth. Winner points out that these sorts of inferential processes ("top-down processes," in the language of psychologists and neuroscientists) are at work even in our appreciation of the most canonical art works. After all, it matters intensely to us whether "The Supper at Emmaus" was created by Johannes Vermeer or by the forger Han van Meegeren.

Some types of influences on aesthetic appreciation should worry us. The psychologist James Cutting took a series of French Impressionists-Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley-and, for each, he selected pairs of paintings on the same subject matter, painted within two years of each other. (For Renoir, for instance, he chose "The Swing," painted in 1876, and "The Bower in the Garden (Under the Trees at Le Moulin de la Galette)," painted one year earlier; both paintings depict people in outdoor summer scenes.) Then he computed which painting is more central to the Impressionist canon by seeing which is more represented in art books. And then he showed Cornell undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members these pairs and asked them which painting they liked best. As Cutting predicted, they tended to prefer the more common one (in this case, "The Swing").

Cutting sees this as an effect of familiarity, the result of what psychologists call the "mere exposure" effect, in which the more you see something, the more you like it. But maybe he got his cause and effect backward: it's not that we like "The Swing" because it's more frequently reproduced; rather, "The Swing" is better, and so we both like it more and it's more often shown in art books. But Cutting went on to conduct further studies, finding that exposure influences taste-if you give people enough chances to look at "The Bower in the Garden," the preference for "The Swing" goes away.

Now, there are nuances here, some of the results aren't entirely clear-cut, and Winner is intrigued but not convinced-she notes, among other things, that Cutting did not test art experts. But his line of work meshes well with a more general theme of Winner's argument, which is that our taste in art is influenced by multiple forces, including some that we might not be consciously aware of.

In " Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures," Eric Kandel takes a different approach. Kandel is a professor at Columbia University, and received the Nobel Prize for his work on the neural structure of memory. He has also long been interested in art, particularly abstract art, and, in this trim volume, Kandel the Nobel laureate and Kandel the art lover join forces.

His main claim, expressed in the book's title, is that scientists and artists have something interesting in common. Science often works through reductionism: breaking things into their component parts and showing how these parts combine to give us insights into the whole. In Kandel's own research, he explores how neurons, when wired in the right way, make memory and perception possible. Kandel believes that abstract artists do something similar, that brain science and art "share, to a surprising degree, common methodologies." The artists who fascinate Kandel deconstruct visual experience, focussing on one or a few components, "Reducing images to their essential elements of form, line, color, or light." Kandel admits that the goals are different-scientists want to understand the world, and artists hope to elicit new perceptual and emotional responses-but, still, he sees the analogy as surprising and important.

"Reductionism in Art and Brain Science" is a gem. Kandel is a confident writer, and his enthusiasm for brain science and abstract art shines through. His exposition is aided by the use of lovely images of brains and works of art, and it's hard to imagine a better introduction to either field. So it's tempting to just ignore the analogy, taking it as little more than a narrative device allowing Kandel to talk about his two loves in one book.

This is probably the most generous reaction, because the analogy isn't a good one. The problem is that science doesn't just chop up the world into component parts. Rather, it does so with the goal of showing how these parts combine to bring about the whole. A scientist like Kandel doesn't just analyze the parts of the brain (axons, dendrites, and so on) and then stop; rather, his goal is to show how the small parts combine to form larger parts (neurons) and how these larger parts are wired up in such a way that they do interesting things like store memories. Evolutionary biology isn't just about molecules; it's about how molecules make up larger structures, such as DNA, that can store and transmit information. Science chops up the world and then puts it back together. And, as Kandel himself admits at the end of the book, abstract art almost never does this; his favorite artists have no interest in how the parts combine to make the whole. (If you really want an analogy, cooking is probably a better one. When you cook, you start with ingredients and put them together, working to establish a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Or consider language, where sounds combine to make words, and words make phrases and sentences. It turns out that the process of deconstruction and synthesis is common to all sorts of pursuits-though I'm not sure how interesting this observation is.)

What about Kandel's subtitle and its reference to the bridging of two cultures? Kandel often describes art and artistic experience in terms of brain processes. In a discussion of Piet Mondrian, he approvingly quotes Semir Zeki, who notes that the straight lines of Mondrian's work trigger the firing of certain neural cells, and concludes, "I find it difficult to believe that the relationship between the physiology of the visual cortex and the creation of artists is entirely fortuitous."

Actually, though, I find it easy to believe this. After all, Kandel's book is filled with examples of artists who don't use straight lines in their work, and Kandel himself notes that this reductionist analysis doesn't explain why Mondrian eschewed oblique lines, which also have cells dedicated to them. The talk of the visual cortex doesn't seem either helpful or insightful.

Or take Willem de Kooning and Gustav Klimt, whose works, Kandel tells us in a very interesting discussion, combine aggression and sexuality. But then Kandel goes on to explain that, in the hypothalamus, there is one population of neurons that regulates aggression and another that regulates mating, and it turns out that "about 20 percent of the neurons located on the border between the two population can be active during either mating or aggression. This suggests that the brain circuits regulating these two behaviors are intimately linked." But presumably the reader is already aware that sex and aggression are linked. We know this from Darwin and Freud, and from primatologists, developmental psychologists, criminologists, and feminist scholars. We know it mostly just by paying attention to the world around us. The fact that this relationship happens to be expressed in hippocampus neuroanatomy tells us nothing new about sex, aggression, or art.

As far as I can tell, actually, the brain talk never adds to the book. Kandel writes, "It is likely that Mondrian's linear paintings recruit intermediate-level visual processing, which takes place in the primary visual cortex," but would it matter if he were wrong and it took place in the secondary visual cortex? He writes, "Pollock seems to have grasped intuitively that the visual brain is a pattern-recognition device," but this is just a fancy way of saying that Pollock knew that we tend to organize our experience into patterns. And so on. Of course, the perception and pleasure and understanding of art all take place in the brain-where else would they happen? But, at least for abstract art, there is something to be said for the skepticism of the philosopher Jerry Fodor, who once wrote, "If the mind happens in space at all, it happens somewhere north of the neck. What exactly turns on knowing how far north?"

Fodor might be too grumpy here. We might learn something from neuroscience if, instead of simply connecting visual experience and brain areas, as Kandel does, we use the methods of neuroscience to assess and develop different psychological and philosophical theories of art. Consider, for instance, Kandel's observation that "when we look at an abstract work of art, we relate it to our entire life experience of the physical world: people we have seen or known, environments we have been in, as well as memories of other works of art we have encountered." He quotes William James on "the victorious assimilation of the new" and suggests that this "is inherently pleasurable because it stimulates our creative selves."

This makes sense, but it's incomplete. All sorts of things stimulate our thoughts and our creativity, but they don't get to be art, let alone great art. Kandel talks about how modern minimalist artists aspire to "evoke imaginative responses from the beholder," but he also observes that "we look all the time at simple surfaces that are remarkably like minimalist paintings: walls, chalkboards, and so on." So what's the difference? Why is an all-white painting by Robert Rauschenberg a valuable masterpiece, but the white wall behind it is ... just a wall?

Presumably, the answer has a lot to do with what Winner explores, with our understanding that one of these things was created by an artist and the other wasn't, by our beliefs about who Rauschenberg was and what he was up to, by our appreciation of the context in which his painting was created. We actually know very little about what's going on here, about why some people are dazzled by this art and others are unmoved. Perhaps methods such as fMRI can help push our understanding forward, informing us about the precise conditions that trigger emotional memory and social reasoning, and helping us test theories about why people respond so differently to abstract art. This sort of synthesis-the bringing together of philosophy, psychology, art criticism, and neuroscience to explore the relationship between art and mind-is just getting started.

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In 1961, Piero Manzoni created his most famous art work-ninety small, sealed tins, titled "Artist's Shit." Its creation was said to be prompted by Manzoni's father, who owned a canning factory, telling his son, "Your work is shit." Manzoni intended "Artist's Shit" in part as a commentary on consumerism and the obsession we have with artists.

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Bringing together science and contemplative wisdom 

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Bringing science and contemplative wisdom together to better understand the mind and create positive change in the world.

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Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Buddhist conceptions of mind evolved from early attempts to offer a systematic account of human experience as described in the large body
of discourses attributed to the Buddha. The Buddha offered an account
of the human individual as a composite of various psychological and physical elements that…

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Reviewing Paul Kalanithi's "When  Breath Becomes Air"

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Reviewing Paul Kalanithi's "When  Breath Becomes Air"

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aul Kalanithi became a neurosurgeon because he felt compelled by neurosurgery and "its unforgiving call to perfection... it seemed to present the most challenging and direct confrontation with meaning, identity and death". He was, in his own words, overwhelmed and intoxicated by neurosurgery - feelings which I certainly shared when I started my own neurosurgical training 35 years ago. He wrote his moving book When Breath Becomes Air as he approached the completion of his training as a neurosurgeon, but after he had developed metastatic lung cancer. He died at the age of 37, before he could ever practise as a fully qualified surgeon. The book, which he wrote as he was dying, is published posthumously.

It is disturbing, at first, to read an autobiographical book in which the author knows he is dying and you know that he will be dead by the end of it. But Kalanithi writes very well, in a plain and matter-of-fact way, without a trace of self-pity, and you are immediately gripped and carried along. The fact that I use the present tense in writing about him shows that the book has taken on a life of its own, as Kalanithi clearly hoped it would. It's a remarkable book, for many reasons, especially for his description of his transition from all-powerful doctor to anxious patient, and of how he was "so authoritative in a surgeon's coat but so meek in a patient's gown".

Kalanithi came from a medical family and at first had no wish to become a doctor. "I knew medicine only by its absence - specifically, the absence of a father growing up, one who went to work before dawn and returned in the dark to a plate of reheated dinner."

Instead, he studied English literature and human biology at Stanford University, California, and then a master's in the history and philosophy of science at Cambridge. He hoped to find what makes life meaningful from writers such as TS Eliot and Nabokov, but was disappointed: "I had spent so much time studying literature at Stanford and the history of medicine at Cambridge in an attempt to better understand the particularities of death, only to come away feeling like they were still unknowable to me."

He wrote his thesis on the American poet Walt Whitman and his vision of the "Physiological-Spiritual Man" in the modern, secular age, who could only be understood by a physician. As Kalanithi cast about for a career after completing his degree, he realised that medicine was the obvious choice, after all. "Moral speculation," he writes, "was puny compared to moral action."

One of the strengths of medical education in America is that it is a postgraduate degree, so that doctors are older and can be more widely educated than those in the UK by the time they qualify. (I would love to see medicine become a postgraduate degree in this country.) That having been said, med school in the US is a gruelling experience, and postgraduate neurosurgical training even more so. When the time came for Kalanithi and his colleagues at med school to decide on their specialities, he was surprised to find that many students opted for "lifestyle" careers and wanted their commencement oath - an updated version of the Hippocratic oath, which was abandoned in this country many years ago - to be rewritten, with the promise to place patients' interests above their own removed. Kalanithi writes that "putting lifestyle first is how you find a job - not a calling" as he opts for neurosurgery.

As a dying patient, he now looks back and regrets that he had become inured to his patients' suffering

This ambivalence between vocation and work has always been at the heart of medicine, and it is more important than ever to recognise it - at least in Britain, where the Conservative government and its hired management consultants seem to see healthcare as just another industry without any moral dimension.

Neurosurgery in the US has the reputation for being the most onerous speciality in which to train. "Neurosurgery residents," his chief resident tells him, "aren't just the best surgeons - we're the best doctors in the hospital." His chairman tells him that he must only eat with his left hand, so that he becomes ambidextrous. Kalanithi describes neurosurgical residency as a black hole, which even his closest colleagues could not understand.

So he endures the long hours of training and is clearly highly successful and utterly dedicated. But when he looks back on this period - now as a dying patient himself - he regrets that he had become inured to his patients' suffering : "...being so close to the fiery light only blinded me to their nature". He considers that the cost of his dedication was high - his failures to save patients brought "nearly unbearable guilt". One of his colleagues kills themselves over an operative mistake. And yet these burdens a doctor must bear he considers to be both "holy and wholly impossible: in taking up another's cross, one must sometimes get crushed by the weight".

As with many doctors with cancer - who often deny their symptoms - it was some time before the diagnosis was made. He dismissed his back pain - caused by secondary disease in his spine - as benign. He recounts the months of treatment, and the difficult limbo of prolonged remission, which modern medicine can now give us: we are treated but not cured, and must learn to live with a slow death sentence. He movingly describes the negotiation between hope and the acceptance of death, and the complexity of discussions with one's oncologist, as different chemotherapy treatments provide only temporary reprieve, and become increasingly toxic. The balance between hope and resignation becomes difficult to strike. He even completes his training and comes close to accepting the job of his dreams, but then must admit it is only a fantasy that he will live long enough to take it up, and turns it down.

Paul Kalanithi became a neurosurgeon because he wanted to learn about "what really matters in life". His view of medicine remained deeply idealistic and not yet tempered by the sometimes bitter lessons and need for painful moral compromise that come with responsibility.

Towards the end of the book, he and his wife, knowing that he is soon to die, decide to have a child, and he returns to the religious faith in which he was brought up. He was clearly a deeply thoughtful and compassionate man, and his death is a great loss to medicine, but at least he has left this remarkable book behind.

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When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi review - thoughtful and poignant

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aul Kalanithi became a neurosurgeon because he felt compelled by neurosurgery and "its unforgiving call to perfection... it seemed to present the most challenging and direct confrontation with meaning, identity and death". He was, in his own words, overwhelmed and intoxicated by neurosurgery - feelings which I certainly shared when I started my own neurosurgical training 35 years ago.

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The question of what the soul is, is therefore not as important here as is the question of what the soul does. What is the function of the soul in society?... 

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Minna Salami - A Feminist Analysis of the Soul

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Minna Salami - A Feminist Analysis of the Soul

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'The question of what the soul is, is therefore not as important here as is the question of what the soul does. What is the function of the soul in society? In culture, in religion, in politics? Emotionally, what role does the soul play?'
- Minna Salami
Read & download the essay as a PDF here: A Feminist Analysis of the Soul

The full essay is also available to read below.

A Feminist Analysis of the Soul
By Minna Salami
There was a period during my childhood when I would recite a version of the following bedtime prayer in Finnish before falling asleep:
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.
At this stage of my life, I was preoccupied with death. I was about five years old, and my mother and I had read the Little Match Girl, a story about a poor young girl who wanders the streets to sell matches for a penny to avoid her father's beatings. As the girl huddles in the cold trying to sell her matches, she discovers that whenever she painstakingly sacrifices a match for a brief sensation of warmth, she simultaneously sees a vision. In one vision, there is a warm stove, in another, a merry family, etc. The most satisfying of the visions is that of her grandmother, the kindest person the girl ever knew. To keep her grandmother close, the little girl lights all her matches, one after one, after which she dies, and her grandmother carries her soul to heaven.

The story devastated my developing mind. I wanted to know: What happened to the girl's soul in heaven? Could she have done something differently to save her soul? Why did she have to die so suddenly and brutally?

In Women Who Run with the Wolves, the Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes that a 'brutal episode' in fairy tales 'communicates an imperative psychic truth'. One that she says, 'we are unlikely to heed the alarm if it is stated in lesser terms'.

The 'psychic truth' that the story about the poor, deserted little match girl communicated to me was that life contains suffering, injustice, and loss. But the story conveyed another 'psychic truth' too, one that has continued to shape my life and work, namely, that the Little Match Girl's disadvantaged fate was tied to the fate of the female soul.
I don't believe that humans have souls. That is, I don't presume that there is a substance that is a soul, which can be distinguished from the body or the mind in any predesignated way.
Nor do I have faith in doctrines that suppose that such a substance as a soul shapes, or is shaped by, our pre-and post-life predicaments. When I say 'female soul' I do not mean that there is such a material thing as a female soul (there most certainly isn't). I don't use the phrase to invoke a spacetime fact but rather a claiming of space within time.

While I don't believe that humans have souls, what I do believe and what motivates this essay, is that humans have a notion of having souls. And that notion is, in return, of great significance to the organisation of human life, most specifically when it comes to the organisation of power. (I also believe that the notion of the soul shapes the power dynamics between human and nonhuman life, but more on that later).

The question of what the soul is, is therefore not as important here as is the question of what the soul does. What is the function of the soul in society? In culture, in religion, in politics? Emotionally, what role does the soul play?

Before addressing these questions, a brief reflection on the hypothetical soul is nevertheless worth undertaking. In querying the definition of the soul as we know it, it becomes clear that the idea of the soul, as we know it, is teleologically entangled in patriarchal causes and thus contradicts many of the virtuous purposes that proponents of the soul suppose themselves to be making.

In everyday communication, people use the term soul to describe genuine, beautiful, and meaningful experiences. For example, they describe the meeting of a compatible partner as finding a soul mate; they refer to a calm person of good judgement as an old soul; they call food that is nourishing and full-flavoured, soul food, and, similarly; music that is tied to resilience and resistance, gospel and blues, is known as soul music.

In liturgical language, the term soul typically implies a nonphysical conduit that provides a connection to the divine. Abrahamic religions see the soul not only as a kind of umbilical cord between the human and God but as the very property of a possessive heavenly Father who says, 'Behold, all souls are mine'. The soul, in religious terms, is a nonphysical essence that nevertheless incarnates physically to embody the hope for eternal salvation.

The soul has a wide span historically and geographically too, going back at least to Ancient Egypt where ba, ka, and akh were components of the soul that respectively represented the life force, the spirit force, and the unity of the two, which transcended this world and reached into the next. The Old English sawol (from which soul stems) is believed to derive from the Teutonic saiwalo 'coming from the sea' as the Teutons believed that the sea was the dwelling place of souls after death. The Old Chinese word for soul, kuei, historically represented a whole and undivided being, but with the emergence of the Yin Yang school around 300 BC, the soul is believed to have split into two elements, the earthly soul related to the Yin, and the ethereal soul related to the Yang.

In 1605, Francis Bacon, instigator of the scientific method, proclaimed in The Advancement of Learning that to speak of a sacred spirit would mean to, 'Step out of the bark of human reason, and enter into the ship of the church; which is only able by the Divine compass to rightly direct its course'. He continued to say, 'Neither will the stars of philosophy, which have hitherto so nobly shone upon us, any longer supply their light. So that on this subject also it will be as well to keep silence'. In science, it seemed that the soul had met its nemesis.

Insofar that religion cannot provide scientific evidence of the soul, scientists have of course since proven Bacon right. The causal roles that were previously assigned to the soul, such as behavioural patterns and mental processing, are in fact rooted in the brain. Yet while people are decreasingly likely to believe that the soul has a direct connection to evidence-based thinking, the soul continues to have a significant influence on language, society and culture.

In 2020, Disney's Pixar released a film titled Soul, about a jazz pianist, Joe, who right after securing a gig he's waited his whole life for, falls down a manhole and enters a coma. Consequently, his soul departs his body and Joe finds himself in a limbo between the Great Before and the Great Beyond. In this liminal space between 'pre-life' and 'post-life', Joe goes through trials and tribulations which all, arguably, eventually teach him this: The soul is an aggrandising entity.

Like a magnifying glass, the soul amplifies the state of its incubator. It jazzes up that which resides within, be it negative or positive. The soul illuminates love (soulmates), food (soul food), music (soul music) as mentioned earlier. However, in the interest of virtuous reconfiguration, the soul also exposes ingratitude, egocentricity and unkindness like a spotlight above a painting. Thus, when Joe has flawed and impure thoughts, such as when he is self-centred and fame-seeking, everything seems to go wrong. On the other hand, when Joe's thoughts are virtuous, when he notices the little things and is present-minded, then life has beauty and meaning. The soul is like a river carried forth both by the sediment of corruption and the resplendence of virtue.

Pixar's Soul also illuminates how today's soul is entangled with a potpourri of dominant contemporary ideologies such as capitalism, neoliberalism, New Age spirituality and depth psychology. In the film's Great Before, unborn souls wander around looking for their 'spark' - their purpose. To help find their spark, the unborn souls attend 'You Seminars' which, amusingly, are guested by the souls of largehearted minds of the past - Carl Jung, George Orwell, Mother Teresa, to name a few. At these dazzling events, the unborn souls ponder which character traits might help them lead fulfilling, purposeful lives on earth. The seminars are a mix between a TED talk, a virtual reality arcade and a neo-Buddhist retreat. The soul might be struggling to find its place in contemporary society, but if Pixar's film is to go by, it is still very much sought after.

What joins people, metaphysically and spiritually, idiomatically and contemplatively, historically and today, in the language of the soul, is a desire to affirm that apart from the material and physical dimension to life, life is also characterised by something ineffable. There is some quality of great depth and mystery that lies beyond reason that tugs at human contemplation. Even for the secular, the soul connotes a nonphysical and intangible quality that warrants pause.

Yet while the soul certainly connotes something wondrous about existence, the soul far more insidiously, also, implies something specific and institutionalised about existence--, which in this case is a specificity that that has to do with power. In the shared language of the soul, women and men do not, and cannot, harness the same conjecture.

Throughout history, the notion of the soul has been infused with presumed gender neutrality even while it has predominantly been defined by men: Aristotle, Confucius, Descartes, Averroes, Immanuel Kant, Tomas Aquinas, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Nagel, Roger Scruton, and so forth.

Aristotle divided the soul into three parts: the nourishing or plant soul ( anima vegetativa), the sensing or animal soul ( anima sensitiva), and the reasonable thinking soul ( anima rationalis). He argued that all three souls were united during life but that while the first two die with the body; the third is immortal. Kant argued that the soul was the thing that made practical reason possible while Emerson described the soul as 'the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related'. The 12th century Islamic philosopher, Averroes, believed that the soul was a corporeal form essentially tied up to the body and unable to survive death. To Scruton, the relation of the soul to the body is like that of a house to its bricks. 'The soul' he said in The Soul of the World, 'is a principle of organisation, which governs the flesh and endows it with meaning. It is no more separable from the flesh than is the house from its bricks, even if the soul may survive the gradual replacement of every bodily part'.

You might be thinking that there's nothing wrong with the above definitions of the soul. Indeed, snapshots into how male thinkers have defined the soul across the ages can be fascinating. Alas, the problem lies not so much with male definitions of the soul, but rather with male definitions of women. For if the soul is tied to the body as a 'house to its bricks', then the views of those who have shaped how society approaches the soul, about the bodies of women, matters. And so, to stick with the examples, Aristotle suggested that a female was a deformed male, Kant argued that women were morally deficient, and Scruton's traditional values often collude with patriarchal norms.

Furthermore, there is no absence of cases where men have defined the soul in explicitly sexist ways. In the archive of male supremacist depictions of the soul, Thomas Aquinas's theory deserves special mention. According to Aquinas, the source of the human soul was what he called spiritus seminis, in essence, the gassy substance that gives sperm its foamy texture. In the same way that God impregnated Mary with an embodiment of his soul, men, Aquinas believed, infer a soul upon an embryo through the spiritus seminis in their ejaculation.
The soul may be supernatural and metaphysical, but it still manages to nest itself in a patriarchal culture of thinking that is very much of the corporeal world.
As Marina Benjamin writes in her stunning essay More Primitive, More Sensual, More Obscene, 'maleness is always and everywhere universalized, not least when encoding creative achievement. It is the seed, not the egg, that implants ideas in our heads and suggests vistas pregnant with possibility. It is the seed (or inspiration) that counts, even when the most promising ideas need to gestate before they can bloom, or incubate, or marinate'.

Mind you, on rare occasion, definitions of the soul by men are favourable to women. For example, it has been argued that in the Ghanaian Ashanti kingdom, the word for the soul, kla, if used as a masculine, stands for the voice that tempts man to evil. If used in the feminine, it is the voice that persuades us to do good. Also, a number of European words for the soul such as seele (German), sawol (Anglo-Saxon), själ (Swedish), sielu (Finnish), anima (Latin/Italian), dusha (Russian) and amé (French) are all feminine gender.

Still, men are gatekeepers of the soul. From authoritative books to holy sites to articles of faith, the authorities on the soul have always been male. Men are the Messiahs, Popes, Buddhas and Sheikhs. They are the aristocracy that govern the culture of the soul. The mosques, churches and temples are headed by men - and they are the gurus, sages and prophets that propel worship. If the soul reflects our deepest desires for meaning, then it is a dangerous game of power that women must rely on male figures and symbols of male entitlement to access the soul, often at great risk.

'Entitlement', philosopher Kate Manne writes in her phenomenal book, Entitled, 'is not a dirty word: entitlements can be genuine, valid, justified'. The problem, she says, is that entitlement has 'most often referred to some people's undue sense of what they deserve or are owed by others'. Hardly anywhere is this more concentrated than in the variegated domains of the soul, where, throughout time and place, institutions which shape and define the soul-religion, culture, philosophy, psychology and language--have denied women what we could refer to as 'masculine goods'.

'Masculine goods' are, according to Manne, 'power, authority, and claims to knowledge'. In short, they are goods that women are to refrain from taking. Instead, 'Women are expected to give traditionally feminine goods (such as sex, nurturing, and reproductive labour)'. It is not whether the woman has a soul that is in question: Rather, as Manne writes, it is that 'She is positioned not as a human being but, rather, as a human giver '. As human givers, women lack the authority to define the role of the soul in political, emotional and psychosocial contexts.

Which leads me to the most insidious consequence of the male dominant gendering of the soul. While the soul is conceptualised as neutral, and sometimes even as the 'feminine' side of God, women's thoughts and experiences have hardly shaped the notion. In a world where women occupy only 0.5 per cent of about 3,500 years of recorded history (as the NY Times reports), little importance is given to how women themselves define the soul. What analyses do women make about the soul? If the understandings that women held about the soul had the same historical significance and public presence that those of men do, in what ways would the soul be encoded into spiritual, cultural, social and political life? We cannot know because it is men's ideas, thoughts, arguments, values, beliefs, attitudes, and preoccupations with the soul that dominate our aesthetic, political and cultural thoughts.

But if the soul is a notion that continues to convey questions about selfhood and society that convey depth and meaning, then we must ask: What are the consequences that definitions of the soul are shaped by patriarchal thought? How does the presumed neutrality of male-normative perspectives impact not only women but knowledge production at large? Although men have typically agreed that soul is a difficult word to define, they have nevertheless not only 'defined' the soul through the ages, knowingly or not they have done so in ways that compromise women's minds, bodies and contributions to society.
These are the reasons why a feminist analysis of the soul is necessary.
I grew up in an interfaith household with a Finnish protestant mother and a Nigerian Muslim father--both faiths where the Holy Trinity consisted of masculine hypostases (underlying substances): the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit--and like any child raised around the divine masculine, which is most children, I wondered why there was no Holy Mother, or Holy Daughter? Why were there no women in this redeeming place that the Little Match Girl's soul went to?

According to Pinkola Estés, the tattered Little Match Girl represents womanhood in a 'frozen condition' where outer circumstances force a woman to undervalue her 'light'. 'When a woman is frozen of feeling', Pinkola Estés says, 'then a fantasy life is far more pleasurable than anything else she can set her sights upon'.

Unlike men, for whom suffering in fairy tales is 'often understood as initiatory dismemberment, something carrying great meaning', the Little Match Girl's fate is a warning of 'the injured instinct in women, the giving of light for little price'. In this psychic predicament even the grandmother, who here represents the manna from heaven, cannot reignite the 'soul that has left its husk behind'.

To revivify 'soul-esteem', Pinkola Estés argues, that the story of the Little Match Girl teaches women that 'we have to move, not just sit there. We have to do something that makes our situation different. Without a move, we are back on the streets selling matches again'.

As a child, the Little Match Girl stirred two conflicting instincts in me: it touched an up-and-coming feminist sensibility, but it also taught me that soul was a terminology with superpowers of sorts. The notion of the soul offered a balm that the child could apply to the harsh truth of death. With one simple word, it comforted me with the proposition that the dead are not completely dead, their physical being may be gone but their souls still exist in a harmonising realm. As writer and storyteller Marina Warner says, fairy tales are 'a literature of consolation'.

I may no longer believe that the curtains of life close quite so poetically, but when it comes to implications of language, I concede that no word can quite replace soul in this way. Not the Greek psyche, or the popular--to Jungian analysts-- anima, or the Buddhist karma. The word soul continues to wield a significant narrative currency because it instantly conjures a domain of beauty, rootedness and consolation, of humanness and personhood.

The moment when a human is first recognised as a person with the basic right to life is known as ensoulment. Although the term's origins are religious, implicating the precise time that God gives a human their soul, ensoulment remains one of the most controversial topics in modern bioethics, science, and philosophy not least because of its implications in abortion rights.

In many faiths, it is believed that ensoulment occurs at a specific moment, which varies from religion to religion. Some faiths argue that the embryo is automatically ensouled at conception. Others, especially those doctrines that believe in reincarnation, purport that ensoulment happens when a pre-existing soul is added to the physical being. As mentioned, the point of ensoulment can be very specific. For instance, Aristotle believed that it took forty days for the male child to be ensouled and eighty days for the female child. Recent debatesaround what is called the 14-day-line have triggered renewed conversations about the timeframe of ensoulment.

Concisely put, ensoulment is a postulation that seeks to pinpoint the beginning of personhood. And personhood is, in return, the standpoint that confers someone with basic rights and that makes them worthy of moral consideration.
What has no personhood, is typically not granted rights or status. This is also the reason why--addressing the point raised earlier in this essay about human and nonhuman life--that the granting of environmental personhood to the nonhuman natural world implicates the soul.
Ecuador and Bolivia led the way of earth jurisprudence (an approach to the law based on the belief that nature has rights) that has since become a global discussion, by integrating (nature in Quichia and Aimara indigenous languages) into their constitutions as a legal entity, thus 'ensouling' Pachamama.

Women have always paid a price for their desire for personhood. There have always been, and there continue to be, times and places when to express personhood was a dangerous and oftentimes lethal deed for women. The control of women's reproductive systems, the imposition of male lineage, the denial of rights and education, the objectification of women's bodies, violence, rape and sexual harassment, the denial of positions of power, of erotic agency, of goddesses, have all served the same agenda to deny women personhood subtly and overtly. This is true when women have refused to worship an empyrean patriarchal God and it is the case when they expose sexual violators in a campaign such as Me Too. It is still absolutely the case in the modern world and even in the most progressive of societies.

So, taking women's understandings and experiences into account when it comes to the soul is necessary for feminism, first of all, because there is a way of thinking about the soul that predicates personhood, and the area of personhood is one that is unconscionably gendered.

Secondly, a feminist focus on the soul matters because, as mentioned throughout this essay, while men have tended to view their perspective of the soul as neutral, they have in fact shaped the notion from the thresholds of male experience. To cite Marina Benjamin again, '[E]very feminist knows that male cultures and male hegemonies are not in the habit of announcing themselves as male. They just are. They are what we have; what we are asked to accept is the way the world is'.

To give an example, men have tended to define the soul in abstract and theoretical terms, as an immaterial and transcendental force that exists in another--usually, better--plane than ours. While we should not imbue the soul with a material actuality that it does not have, neither should the immaterial but sensuous impact that the soul does have be denied. It is my contention that when you adopt a woman-centred perspective, the role that the soul plays may be more about subconscious, psychosocial and non-spatiotemporal existence.

Dominant shapers of the soul have tended to follow the Platonic school of thought, of idea-worship and devaluation of the physical world. They have planted hegemonic universals and epistemic certainties into the institutionalisation of the soul. Consequently, they have depreciated-if not shown contempt-for inclusivity, pluralism, bodies, nature and matter, while over-valuing spirit and transcendence. They have divided knowledge into the aesthetic and the political, and denigrated lived experience while over-worshipping abstract analysis.

In contrast to the patriarchal view, a woman-centred definition of the soul is rapturous but nontranscendentalist. That is to say, the soul may not be something that can be measured in the world, but it is something about the world. Where conventional interpretations typically imply that formulations about the soul should be propagated into the general culture, a feminist standpoint reverses the process and suggests, conversely, that the general culture should shape the soul. From a feminist view, lived experience is the parent of the soul rather than its child. Our actions and interactions shape the soul's ecology, rather than vice versa.

This is also why women's invocations and theorisations of the soul typically are rooted in what feminist philosopher Sandra Harding in her ground-breaking essay Women's Standpoints on Nature refers to as socially situated knowledge (ways of looking at the world that are impacted by our lives and experiences) rather than esoteric and putative knowing. They engage the poetic, earth, body, ritual, nature, community, consciousness-raising and holisticism rather than invoking lofty sets of rules and autarchic father figures. If the soul exists in feminist discourse, it is an embodied soul at the intersection between power and discourse, beauty and revolution, logical analysis and lived experience, between social justice as well as the otherworldly and numinous. Rather than a site of constriction, the soul becomes a tool for setting free. As playwright, Ntozake Shange, said, 'I found god in myself and I loved her, I loved her deeply'. In a few words, Shange conveys that finding soul for women is embodied, transformative and defiant of old ways of thinking.

Despite the contentious baggage carried by historical and contemporary meanings of the soul, it remains a notion with generative and explorative potential. Challenging the patriarchal ways that the soul has been engendered is both politically and epistemically important. The sense of wonder that the soul conveys helps us discover what it means to be human in an ecosystem with other humans and nonhumans. That discovery can in return assist to develop better relationships between women and men, the environment, the cosmos as well as with ideas, science and concepts. But it must first be a soul that includes both women's and men's experiences, one that resists the abuse of power. A living, loving soul.

Minna Salami is a Nigerian, Finnish and Swedish writer and commentator. She is the founder of the multiple award-winning blog Ms Afropolitan and the author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. Find out more here.

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A Feminist Analysis of the Soul - [ Perspectiva ]

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'The question of what the soul is, is therefore not as important here as is the question of what the soul does. What is the function of the soul in society? In culture, in religion, in politics? Emotionally, what role does the soul play?'

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'With an awareness of spiritual intelligence, education becomes an activity that seeks to draw out and recollect, rather than pour in and test’

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Spiritual Intelligence: What it is, why it's needed, how it might return. Mark Vernon, Perspectiva 

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Spiritual Intelligence: What it is, why it's needed, how it might return. Mark Vernon, Perspectiva 

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'With an awareness of spiritual intelligence, education becomes an activity that seeks to draw out and recollect, rather than pour in and test'.
- Mark Vernon
Read & download the essay as a PDF here: Spiritual Intelligence

The full essay is also available to read below.

Spiritual Intelligence: What it is, why it's needed, how it might return
By Mark Vernon
What is spiritual intelligence?

I recently became a wizard. Unfortunately, my assumption of the role involved neither magical rites nor secret lore. Rather, I became a wizard of a pedestrian type, increasingly common in a technological age.

I am involved in a project seeking to build an artificial spiritual companion using AIs. Trials involve individuals pretending to be AIs, so that patterns of exchange can be mapped for computers to replicate. The artificial artificial intelligences, also known as real people, are called wizards after the Wizard of Oz, who turns out to be an ordinary person on the other side of a screen. I was one such pretender.

That said, second-guessing how an AI might respond to human explorations of meaning turns out to be a fascinating experience, in part because it requires a conscious effort not to respond meaningfully. The aim of the exercise is merely to reflect back what a person has said and leave them to develop their thoughts and feelings. And this is hard to do. Interacting with another without conveying intimations of comprehension and significance feels cold and uncaring. I finished the trials with a renewed sense that we humans are congenital seekers and searchers. Discovery is built into the intelligence with which we engage with others and the world.

It was evening and, as we walked into his room, he turned on a light. 'Ah. Bathed in eternity', he reflected. He knows that the entities we call photons travel at the speed of light, being light, which is to say that they don't experience time. They exist in eternity.

The moment took me by surprise. I can still feel the tingle on my skin. His observation felt akin to William Blake's remark that when he looked at the sun, he didn't see a disk of fire, somewhat like a golden guinea. 'Oh! No! No!', he continued: 'I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!' Blake's is Christian language, rather than Platonic, but what he and Penrose share is a type of intelligence, common to humanity, that enables us to detect more.

I reckon that desire for more cannot be suppressed and I'm not alone in that. The political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, has reflected upon it too. In his book, The End of History and The Last Man, he discusses the vacuum of meaning that can spread in liberal democracies because of the longing for more than a consumptive life of security and plenty. He draws on the ancient Greek notion of thumos, which Plato explores in his dialogue, the Phaedrus. Thumos is the capacity to feel the vitality of life, often referred to by the word 'soul'. Plato explains that thumos is a human characteristic which experiences passionate desires, such as the yearning for what is good. It might manifest in various ways, from the hero's love of glory to the sage's search for wisdom. Plato argued that Socrates had satisfied his thumos in the noble manner of his death and the ancient philosopher's calm but fatal imbibing of the hemlock illuminates Fukuyama's point that thumos is not interested in security and comfort, but demanding goals, even if they require self-sacrifice. '[Thumos] tries to prove that the self is something better and higher than a fearful, needy, instinctual, physically determined animal', Fukuyama explains.

The risk for overly rational societies, which are inclined to dismiss the spiritual and treat human beings as cogs in a mindless machine, Fukuyama continues, is that thumos re-emerges in violent and perverse ways. The return of a repressed thumos is one way of understanding the significance of Donald Trump and conspiracy theories, as well as the impulsive and pseudo-empowering appeal of culture spats and wars.

The project for which I sit as a wizard, on the other side of the screen, has aims in addition to trialing artificial spiritual companions. Recognising that AIs are increasingly present and shaping our lives, it is seeking to describe the type of intelligence that yearns for what is beautiful and difficult, and can detect eternity in light and the sunrise. It can be given a name: spiritual intelligence. The idea is to ask what spiritual intelligence might be, in contrast to other types, particularly artificial intelligence. The enquiry is not motivated by the fear that AIs are about to become Terminator-like machines that may kill us: to my mind, the advance of AIs is demonstrating how elusive sentient consciousness is to silicon replication. Rather, the more immediate danger is that we increasingly fail to trust the full variety of intelligences we possess, culturally and individually.

Spiritual intelligence is, unsurprisingly, a contested term in the study of human intelligences. The psychologist, Howard Gardner, considers it in his seminal work on multiple intelligences, though favours the term existential intelligence. I am going to stick with the spiritual designation, in part to signal what the psychologist and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality, Lisa Miller, calls 'the emerging field of postmaterial psychology'.

She argues that the term postmaterial is needed because it is the best way to capture the growing body of evidence that 'the human brain can detect broad, non-material communications'. These intelligent exchanges with human and non-human others - known in moments of prayer and meditation, contemplation and peak experiences - lead many, if not most of humanity, to believe they are in relationship with a higher power or divinity, however conceived. Others will prefer to speak of an innate sense of the transcendent, meaning an awareness of a level of existence that weaves through and underpins the empirical, rational and emotional: it is powered by wonder, generates wisdom, and insists on asking why? Miller stresses the huge value of this 'heart-knowing', to cite another description that makes clear the link between spiritual intelligence and the felt body, as is stressed in a range of fields from the neuroscience of comprehension to studies in human development. People value these insights because they guide them, console them, challenge them. An awareness of this more comes with seeking and is integral to meaning.

The psychologist and lead of the artificial spiritual companions project, Fraser Watts, notes that different kinds of intelligence are often grouped into two broad types. One is propositional, problem-solving and model-making in nature. It is analytical and is the type of intelligence that dominates work in AI, which 'sometimes seems to assume that all the human mind ever does is solve problems', Watts writes. But it doesn't, and so a second type of intelligence must be considered and characterised in a different way, as involving participatory engagement and inspirational apprehensions. This type is described as dispositional, rather than propositional, and is active in a wide range of human concerns, from the creation of art to the cultivation of virtues. It can also understand that logic and reason must be the servants of the imagination and comprehension, as Iain McGilchrist, has described it. Spiritual intelligence is part of this second group too.

That said, it is necessary to attempt a re-articulation of spiritual intelligence for the contemporary moment. Modernity might be described as the attempt to evolve Homo spiritualis out of existence, and even if the attempt seems increasingly outdated, we are still left with Fukuyama's observations about the risks of living in a soulless age. So consider three areas in which spiritual intelligence is operative and which can, therefore, serve to illuminate it: the desire for the good, the experience of time, and the nature of societal wellsprings. These three may not only help alert us to the intelligence that we have and AIs fail to replicate, but may also help us re-discover and formulate what others at Perspectiva have explored as a metaphysics fit for the future. So first consider the desire for the good.

The sovereignty of good

In her collection of essays, published as The Sovereignty of Good, the philosopher and novelist, Iris Murdoch, explores the ambivalences of human attempts to grasp what's good. She argues that because what's good always exceeds us, many have the apprehension that, somehow, the good stands over us and can, on occasion, be experienced as calling us. We don't have it, it has us.

An obvious one is that the appeal of the good does not depend upon any rational or moral agreement about what the good is. To put it another way, the fact that human beings dispute what's good is, to spiritual intelligence, a clear sign that what's good profoundly matters. Conversely, spiritual intelligence can facilitate the tolerance of any discord that comes with such disputes and may further be required if damaging conflicts about the good are to be avoided.

Our love of the elusive good does not depend upon unambiguous manifestations of it, which is just as well. One of the features of the good, as it shows up in the world, is that it is routinely mixed up with what's less than ideal, if not self-evidently bad. Further, what is good for one person may well be bad for another. 'The sea is the purest and most polluted water', noted Heraclitus. 'Fish can drink it and it is good for them; to me it is undrinkable and death-dealing'.

Faced with such conundrums, human beings often resort to moral arguments and attempt to resolve the seeming contradictions. Perhaps the most widespread approach in the modern world is to seek to undo the entanglement of good and evil by focusing on the consequences of actions and weighing them in the balance. Another is to derive universal moral laws that can be adhered to regardless of outcomes. Another again is simply to assert what will happen, according to the conviction that 'might is right'.

Spiritual intelligence is different. It is not overly troubled by the compromises required to live because it knows how to hold onto what's good, even when faced with conflicts and shadows. This can lead to conclusions that, at first glance, seem shocking. 'If all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe', observed Thomas Aquinas. 'A lion would cease to live, if there were no slaying of animals; and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution'. Spiritual intelligence can see good in ill, and often in surprising and unexpected ways. An example of this would be the way that tragedies move us because they simultaneously radiate love.

Further still, spiritual intelligence understands that failure and disaster do not erase the hope for and possibility of perfect goodness. Quite the opposite. Spiritual adepts from across the world's wisdom traditions insist on the reality of perfection, and only spiritual intelligence can understand why. As Murdoch continues, the injunction that human beings should 'Be perfect!', and not just a bit better, is crucial. It takes us out of ourselves and helps keep us aligned with that which might make us more than ourselves. Ideals matter because living well is not about replicating behaviour, as an AI attempts to do, though we may well do much imitating at times. Rather, it is about participating in an experience of life whose vitality exceeds us and our ability wholly to mirror or understand it - though we can intuitively delight in and know of it.

This analysis suggests a range of practical outcomes required to secure the presence of the mysterious good in our lives once more because spiritual intelligence grows with a concern for rituals, worship and the arts, alongside reason, rules and the sciences. Such activities, understood spiritually, can align individuals and groups to deeper pulses of reality and carry them to the shorelines of knowledge, where learning becomes a type of listening, thought a type of resonance, and personal change a type of inner expansion.

To put it another way, with an awareness of spiritual intelligence, education becomes an activity that seeks to draw out and recollect, rather than pour in and test. The disposition of the individual towards themselves and others evolves with growing spiritual intelligence too, which is why it is discerned in someone because of the qualities that they embody, not because of the cleverness of what they say.

Spiritual intelligence rests most securely on a type of knowing that is not told but shown, not proven but felt. It changes the experience of the world from the inside out, which leads us to the second area of inquiry, the way we experience time. What another colleague at Perspectiva, Ivo Mensch, calls temporics offers another way of illuminating these horizons.

Being and time

The efficiencies that they enabled meant that they became all pervasive. For example, it is impossible to imagine the commercial successes of the British empire without clocks. Hundreds of time signals were erected around the world, from the coasts of Africa to the bays of Australasia. They ensured that maritime trading networks could be coordinated, helping to secure profitability. As guns fired, hour by hour, populations around the globe marched to the beat of the colonial power.

Little wonder that life has become increasingly stressful and demoralising with the placing of portable time signals into our hands and pockets. Mobile phones and portable computers order the day to the sub-second. It's not that being able reliably to tell the time doesn't bring many advantages. But there's a cost, which brings us back to spiritual intelligence. I think that the real damage done by clock-time comes when other experiences of time are lost to the relentless ticking of the clock.

Consider again the moment when Penrose flooded the room with eternity. It was what can be called a kairos moment, when an ordinary event - entering a room - became an extraordinary incident, which I vividly remember. Kairos is a reminder that whilst the day often feels irresistibly divided into structured periods for work and leisure, sustenance and sleep, time also has transgressive qualities that are important in the perception of the spiritual.

The word 'kairos' comes from the ancient Greek practice of manual weaving. It describes the right moment to throw the shuttle cleanly through the loom. It was an art possessed by Penelope, in Homer's Odyssey, which is to say that she not only knew how to spin quality cloth, but also how psychologically to stay in the moment awaiting Odysseus's return, as the calendar years of his wandering around the Mediterranean mounted. In other words, kairos time is closer to eternity, partly because it is in instances of kairos that eternity is detected, such as when William Blake knew eternity in an hour as he held infinity in the palm of his hand; and partly because kairos time transcends clock-time, which left to itself would consume life, much as the god, Chronos, was said to eat his children.

With kairos, time is not experienced as a continuum of hellish repetitions, or a progress of growth and accumulation interrupted by occasional crises, but instead as a continuous, alive presence. The moment becomes the moving image of eternity, to use Plato's expression, and the day can be experienced as a portal rather than a prison. The adepts of spiritual intelligence testify to this in various ways: the present can be known as boundless, which means that life can be known as abundant with novelty and freshness always breaking in, not marked by scarcity and the grim attempt to consume, manage and possess it.

Kairotic knots

This is not just a personal matter but a social one. The philosopher Charles Taylor has written about countering chronos time with what he calls collective 'kairotic knots'. He argues that festivals and carnivals function in this way. They are not about securing the established order, by sanctioning occasional blowouts to let off steam, as some sociologists have proposed. Rather, they are moments when the chronological ordering of life is suspended, to show that whilst it is valuable, it is not ultimate.

When order and chaos, ruler and ruled, wise and fool are inverted, there arises a kairotic possibility of glimpsing a dimension in which all such regimes are transcended. This explains why festivals have a sacred quality. Rock concerts and football matches echo with it, and they are often highly ritualised occasions that remind people of virtues such as solidarity and excellence. The same experience accounts for why people will pay money to hear live music and see live sport when, in terms of the purely empirical experience, they will see more and hear better on their gizmos at home.

Another occasion for kairotic knots comes when symbolic leaders, who are above the push and pull of democratic politics, catalyse possibilities for healing and rededication. They are able to do so for the reason that they are not subject to the chronos-like transience of election and re-election, but are instead called, appointed or anointed, and so stand for more. Sanctioned by 'the best thing in us', to use Aristotle's expression, or by irrational but aspirational desires only partially understood, they can be felt to symbolise the highest aspirations of humanity, as well as the complex paradoxes of the good.

This is not a call for lifelong presidents or absolute monarchs: corrupt symbolic leaders will exercise powers of tyranny. Rather, and by way of example, consider the meeting of two symbolic leaders who aspire to the good: the visit of the Queen of the United Kingdom to the Republic of Ireland in 2011, following the invitation of the Irish president, Mary McAleese. This coming together was widely recognised as seminal in bringing healing to the Troubles. 'President McAleese and Queen Elizabeth had the conviction and humility to be leaders, bringing their increasingly secular societies to a place which they could not reach on their own', wrote Donal McKeown, a catholic bishop in Northern Ireland. 'They demonstrated that spiritual intelligence which can take the rubble of the past and make it into foundations rather than a weapons cache'.

Chronos time imprisons when it prevents experiences that are transformative, meaningful and resetting. Any revival of spiritual intelligence will acknowledge its value but simultaneously challenge its hegemony - and I suspect that will lead, in turn, to questioning another assumption of modernity, that art, music, philosophy and religion are primarily matters of private, personal concern. Secularity attempts to keep the public sphere free of personal convictions and overly spirited activities. It neutralises, or at least diminishes, the spiritual potency of moments of renewal by enclosing them with reason and bureaucracy, confining them to sanctioned spaces such as galleries and lecture rooms, or humbling them with assertions of the superiority of science.

This didn't happen with premodern festivals and carnivals. They occurred on holy days, which were not passive days of rest but lively days of activity, out of ordinary time. They involved improvised story-telling and journeys of pilgrimage, immersive rituals and personal risk. They were unpredictable and open-ended occasions, welcoming and providing settings for the breakdowns that are the precursor to any true breakthrough. Their point was to offer initiation and paths to visionary destinations.

This can sound riotous and unruly, which at times it may be, though Taylor wonders whether the modern notion of revolution emerged after the Enlightenment because of the marginalisation of kairos and creative chaos. When chronos rules, the only option for renewal may seem to be the total overthrow of the present order and its complete replacement, along with opponents and perceived enemies. Imaginatively, it seems that there is no other way. Culture wars may be a result, with the desire to eliminate another from the social sphere, by shaming or cancelling. Fantasies of apocalyptic breakdown can come to seem inevitable too, and possibly desirable, in spite of the decimating havoc they would bring.

Life and death

The transformational quality of kairos can be embraced in another way, which leads to a related aspect of a life in time that is transformed by spiritual intelligence, that of the meaning of death.

A more general expression of the primacy of birth comes with the realisation that the relationship between life and death is asymmetric, in a way that mirrors the asymmetric relationship between good and evil. Much as the good can embrace what's bad and, though there is suffering, not be lost, so life can embrace death and even be found within death. Indeed, one of the experiences that people can have when they become aware of the approach of death, and start to feel as if they are losing everything, is the unexpected realisation that, in fact, they are not.

Love, for example, can be recognised as transcending death, which is partly why tragedies radiate it. Life may, in fact, be intensified by the proximity death, which is why people talk of having a good or beautiful death. This is also why contemplating death is a common practice in spiritual traditions and stories about death leading to life are important in many wisdom and religious traditions.

Incidentally, this is not necessarily about a belief in life after death, though it may be. Salena Godden's novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, is explicitly ambivalent about the possibility of postmortem existence and yet, still Godden notes: 'When writing about Death you soon realise it isn't all about Death and that you write about Life and the living'. That's the awakening of spiritual intelligence.

These thoughts are a rediscovery of old insights about death and life, in a contemporary context. They speak to how new life is not born easily but with what, in religious contexts, would be described as metanoia or conversion, which is a letting go to let more in. 'The good life becomes increasingly selfless through an increased awareness of, sensibility to, the world beyond the self', Murdoch added. It's an alignment with a dimension of existence that is beyond the purely biological and material, which leads us to the third area of consideration, societal wellsprings.

Falling up

Any society or civilisation needs to be in touch with its spiritual sources, argued the historian Arnold Toynbee. When they aren't, they spontaneously scramble to find alternative means of sustaining themselves - maybe by deploying increasingly powerful technologies or developing increasingly sprawling philosophical systems. An existence in self-referential, enclosed epicycles isolates people from the life that turns with the love that moves the sun and the other stars, to recall Dante's famous last line in The Divine Comedy.

Toynbee understood this fatigue as arising from the effort a society must expend to sustain itself whilst growing increasingly distant from its ever-present origin. A society caught in such vicious spirals will feel a growing threat of collapse and become paranoid, as it turns in on itself. It will experience itself to be trapped in a metaphysical flatworld from which it seems there is no escape, outside of starting all over again on a different planet or uploading onto an omnipotent computer.

Dante draws out the predicament with an arresting image. He represents a civilisation in a state of decline with what he calls The Old Man of Crete. It is a statuesque, towering figure with a head of gold, and chest and arms of silver. It looks splendid, until closer inspection reveals that its glittering torso is cracked, and its legs and feet are made of broken brass and fractured iron. The old man is leaning on one foot, made of terracotta, which is crumbling.

The image stands for a society that has forgotten the gold and silver of its spirit and soul, and is instead trying to stand on its own two feet, the least valuable part of itself, which are disintegrating under the weight. When civilisations become exhausted, they uncouple from what's more than them. They confuse what's truly valuable with the value they can manufacture themselves. Money, in particular, becomes all important.

Sometimes only a stark sense of emptiness can precipitate a flip from this anxious possessiveness. It can take a realisation of the extent to which the world has been stripped of meaning to trigger, first, a collapse and, then, the return of awareness - much as death gives way to more life. That requires a return of certain virtues as well - the humility that is really open-mindedness; the generosity to trust in the abundance of life beyond human life - in short, the spiritual intelligence that knows we share in the fabric of being that bore us.

It is a type of education, such as E.F. Schumacher describes in A Guide for the Perplexed, when he argues that the divergent problems of the modern world cannot be solved by logic and method, because addressing the world's problems needs higher levels of self-awareness, coupled to higher levels of other-awareness too. This awareness must be treated not as an occasional peak experience, adding colour to the otherwise dull round, but as a permanent mode of consciousness, ready to inspire decisions and actions, individually and collectively. It is about 'love, empathy, participation mystique, understanding, compassion - these are faculties of a higher order than those required for the implementation of any policy of discipline or of freedom', Schumacher continues.

We are not alone in this endeavour. The sovereignty of good calls us, Murdoch stressed, and I suspect that the return of spiritual intelligence will be aided by the growing awareness that human intelligence, in its several aspects, is one amongst many manifestations of know-how and acumen that can be found in the dynamic ecologies of the living world. This pulsing vitality was lost to human awareness with the emergence of modern science, no doubt in part to aid mechanistic explanations and environmental exploitation. But as those drivers lose their appeal, spiritual intelligence will grow.

We should welcome it and actively cultivate it. Much suffering will be lessened if we do. Although spiritual intelligence is far from all we need, it is, in my view, the one necessary capacity that can sustain the transformation of social and individual aspirations now and into the future.

It not only brings an expansion of life without having to consume the world, but trusts the good, even in the presence of evil. It recognises that a fuller life is closely associated with letting go and death, and so can ease existential panic. And it knows that whilst chronos time is required in a functioning society, kairos time is the quality of presence needed to convert mere experience into invigorating vision.

Its return would inform a renewed metaphysical story. And that might offer satisfaction, once more, to the human soul, with its thumotic yearnings for more and meaning.

Mark Vernon is a writer, psychotherapist and associate of Perspectiva. He contributes to and presents programmes on the radio, as well as writing for the national and religious press, and online publications. He also podcasts, in particular The Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues with Rupert Sheldrake, gives talks and leads workshops. He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and other degrees in physics and in theology, having studied at Durham, Oxford and Warwick universities. He is the author of several books, including his latest, out this year: Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. He used to be an Anglican priest and lives in London, UK. Find out more here.

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Spiritual Intelligence: What it is, why it's needed, how it might return - [ Perspectiva ]

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'With an awareness of spiritual intelligence, education becomes an activity that seeks to draw out and recollect, rather than pour in and test'. - Mark Vernon Read & download the essay as a PDF here: Spiritual Intelligence The full essay is also available to read below.

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“Self-help reveals our models of selfhood.”

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Anna Katharina Schaffner on the timeless truths of self-improvement | 

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Anna Katharina Schaffner on the timeless truths of self-improvement | 

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Anna Katharina Schaffner on the timeless truths of self-improvement | Anna Katharina Schaffner — Sidewalk Talk

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Traci was thrilled to sit down with Anna for this latest episode of The Sidewalk Talk podcast to chat all about Anna’s new book, how metaphor shapes our human experience, and where to find the soul in today’s culture of human as computer.

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A lot of my free time is spent doodling. I'm a journalist on NPR's science desk by day. But all the time in between, I am an artist - specifically, a cartoonist.

I draw in between tasks. I sketch at the coffee shop before work. And I like challenging myself to complete a zine - a little magazine - on my 20-minute bus commute.

I do these things partly because it's fun and entertaining. But I suspect there's something deeper going on. Because when I create, I feel like it clears my head. It helps me make sense of my emotions. And it somehow, it makes me feel calmer and more relaxed.

That made me wonder: What is going on in my brain when I draw? Why does it feel so nice? And how can I get other people - evenif they don't consider themselves artists - on the creativity train?

It turns out there's a lot happening in our minds and bodies when we make art.

"Creativity in and of itself is important for remaining healthy, remaining connected to yourself and connected to the world," says Christianne Strang, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Alabama Birmingham and the former president of the American Art Therapy Association.

This idea extends to any type of visual creative expression: drawing, painting, collaging, sculpting clay, writing poetry, cake decorating, knitting, scrapbooking - the sky's the limit.

"Anything that engages your creative mind - the ability to make connections between unrelated things and imagine new ways to communicate - is good for you," says Girija Kaimal. She is a professor at Drexel University and a researcher in art therapy, leading art sessions with members of the military suffering from traumatic brain injury and caregivers of cancer patients.

But she's a big believer that art is for everybody - and no matter what your skill level, it's something you should try to do on a regular basis. Here's why:
It helps you imagine a more hopeful future
Art's ability to flex our imaginations may be one of the reasons why we've been making art since we were cave-dwellers, says Kaimal. It might serve an evolutionary purpose. She has a theory that art-making helps us navigate problems that might arise in the future. She wrote about this in October in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association.

Her theory builds off of anidea developed in the last few years - that our brain is a predictive machine.The brain uses "information to make predictions about we might do next - and more importantly what we need to do next to survive and thrive," says Kaimal.

When you make art, you're making a series of decisions - what kind of drawing utensil to use, what color, how to translate what you're seeing onto the paper. And ultimately, interpreting the images - figuring out what it means.

"So what our brain is doing every day, every moment, consciously and unconsciously, is trying to imagine what is going to come and preparing yourself to face that," she says.

Kaimal has seen this play out at her clinical practice as an art therapist with a student who was severely depressed. "She was despairing. Her grades were really poor and she had a sense of hopelessness," she recalls.

The student took out a piece of paper and colored the whole sheet with thick black marker. Kaimal didn't say anything.

"She looked at that black sheet of paper and stared at it for some time," says Kaimal. "And then she said, 'Wow. That looks really dark and bleak.' "

And then something amazing happened, says Kaimal. The student looked around and grabbed some pink sculpting clay. And she started making ... flowers: "She said, you know what? I think maybe this reminds me of spring."

Through that session and through creating art, says Kaimal, the student was able to imagine possibilities and see a future beyond the present moment in which she was despairing and depressed.

"This act of imagination is actually an act of survival," she says. "It is preparing us to imagine possibilities and hopefully survive those possibilities."
It activates the reward center of our brain
For a lot of people, making art can be nerve-wracking. What are you going to make? What kind of materials should you use? What if you can't execute it? What if it ... sucks?

Studies show that despite those fears, "engaging in any sort of visual expression results in the reward pathway in the brain being activated," says Kaimal. "Which means that you feel good and it's perceived as a pleasurable experience."

She and a team of researchers discovered this in a 2017 paper published in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy. They measured blood flow to the brain's reward center, the medial prefrontal cortex, in 26 participants as they completed three art activities: coloring in a mandala, doodling and drawing freely on a blank sheet of paper. And indeed - the researchers found an increase in blood flow to this part of the brain when the participants were making art.

This research suggests making art may have benefit for people dealing with health conditions that activate the reward pathways in the brain, like addictive behaviors, eating disorders or mood disorders, the researchers wrote.
It lowers stress
Although the research in the field of art therapy is emerging, there's evidence that making art can lower stress and anxiety. In a 2016 paper in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, Kaimal and a group of researchers measured cortisol levels of 39 healthy adults. Cortisol is a hormone that helps the body respond to stress.

They found that 45 minutes of creating art in a studio setting with an art therapist significant lowered cortisol levels.

The paper also showed that there were no differences in health outcomes between people who identify as experienced artists and people who don't. So that means that no matter your skill level, you'll be able to feel all the good things that come with making art.
It lets you focus deeply
Ultimately, says Kaimal, making art should induce what the scientific community calls "flow" - the wonderful thing that happens when you're in the zone. "It's that sense of losing yourself, losing all awareness. You're so in the moment and fully present that you forget all sense of time and space," she says.

And what's happening in your brain when you're in flow state? "It activates several networks including relaxed reflective state, focused attention to task and sense of pleasure," she says. Kaimal points to a 2018 study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, which found that flow was characterized by increased theta wave activity in the frontal areas of the brain - and moderate alpha wave activities in the frontal and central areas.
So what kind of art should you try?
Some types of art appear to yield greater health benefits than others.

Kaimal says modeling clay, for example, is wonderful to play around with. "It engages both your hands and many parts of your brain in sensory experiences," she says. "Your sense of touch, your sense of three-dimensional space, sight, maybe a little bit of sound - all of these are engaged in using several parts of yourself for self-expression, and likely to be more beneficial."

A number of studies have shown that coloring inside a shape - specifically a pre-drawn geometric mandala design - is more effective in boosting mood than coloring on a blank paper or even coloring inside a square shape. And one 2012 study published in Journal of the American Art Therapy Association showed that coloring inside a mandala reduces anxiety to a greater degree compared to coloring in a plaid design or a plain sheet of paper.

Strang says there's no one medium or art activity that's "better" than another. "Some days you want to may go home and paint. Other days you might want to sketch," she says. "Do what's most beneficial to you at any given time."
Process your emotions
It's important to note: if you're going through serious mental health distress, you should seek the guidance of a professional art therapist, says Strang.

However, if you're making art to connect with your own creativity, decrease anxiety and hone your coping skills, "by all means, figure out how to allow yourself to do that," she says.

Just let those "lines, shapes and colors translate your emotional experience into something visual," she says. "Use the feelings that you feel in your body, your memories. Because words don't often get it."

Her words made me reflect on all those moments when I reached into my purse for my pen and sketchbook. A lot of the time, I was using my drawings and little musings to communicate how I was feeling. What I was doing was helping myself deal. It was cathartic. And that catharsis gave me a sense of relief.

A few months ago, I got into an argument with someone. On my bus ride to work the next day, I was still stewing over it. In frustration, I pulled out my notebook and wrote out the old adage, "Do not let the world make you hard."

I carefully ripped the message off the page and affixed it to the seat in front of me on the bus. I thought, let this be a reminder to anyone who reads it!

I took a photo of the note and posted it to my Instagram. Looking back at the image later that night, I realized who the message was really for. Myself.

Malaka Gharib is a writer and editor on NPR's science desk and the author of I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir.

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Feeling Artsy? Here's How Making Art Helps Your Brain

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Making art is fun. But there's a lot more to it. It might serve an evolutionary purpose - and emerging research shows that it can help us process difficult emotions and tap into joy.

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Legendary Zen Buddhist Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on Mastering the Art of "Interbeing"

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What does love mean, exactly? We have applied to it our finest definitions; we have examined its psychology and outlined it in philosophical frameworks; we have even devised a mathematical formula for attaining it. And yet anyone who has ever taken this wholehearted leap of faith knows that love remains a mystery - perhaps the mystery of the human experience.

Learning to meet this mystery with the full realness of our being - to show up for it with absolute clarity of intention - is the dance of life.

That's what legendary Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh (October 11, 1926-January 22, 2022) explores in How to Love (public library) - a slim, simply worded collection of his immeasurably wise insights on the most complex and most rewarding human potentiality.

Indeed, in accordance with the general praxis of Buddhist teachings, Nhat Hanh delivers distilled infusions of clarity, using elementary language and metaphor to address the most elemental concerns of the soul. To receive his teachings one must make an active commitment not to succumb to the Western pathology of cynicism, our flawed self-protection mechanism that readily dismisses anything sincere and true as simplistic or naïve - even if, or precisely because, we know that all real truth and sincerity are simple by virtue of being true and sincere.

At the heart of Nhat Hanh's teachings is the idea that "understanding is love's other name" - that to love another means to fully understand his or her suffering. ("Suffering" sounds rather dramatic, but in Buddhism it refers to any source of profound dissatisfaction - be it physical or psychoemotional or spiritual.) Understanding, after all, is what everybody needs - but even if we grasp this on a theoretical level, we habitually get too caught in the smallness of our fixations to be able to offer such expansive understanding. He illustrates this mismatch of scales with an apt metaphor:

If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can't accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don't make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.

The question then becomes how to grow our own hearts, which begins with a commitment to understand and bear witness to our own suffering:

When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love. That's why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness.

Understanding someone's suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love's other name. If you don't understand, you can't love.

And yet because love is a learned "dynamic interaction," we form our patterns of understanding - and misunderstanding - early in life, by osmosis and imitation rather than conscious creation. Echoing what Western developmental psychology knows about the role of "positivity resonance" in learning love, Nhat Hanh writes:

If our parents didn't love and understand each other, how are we to know what love looks like? ... The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all.

Nhat Hanh points out the crucial difference between infatuation, which replaces any real understanding of the other with a fantasy of who he or she can be for us, and true love:

Often, we get crushes on others not because we truly love and understand them, but to distract ourselves from our suffering. When we learn to love and understand ourselves and have true compassion for ourselves, then we can truly love and understand another person.

Out of this incomplete understanding of ourselves spring our illusory infatuations, which Nhat Hanh captures with equal parts wisdom and wit:

Sometimes we feel empty; we feel a vacuum, a great lack of something. We don't know the cause; it's very vague, but that feeling of being empty inside is very strong. We expect and hope for something much better so we'll feel less alone, less empty. The desire to understand ourselves and to understand life is a deep thirst. There's also the deep thirst to be loved and to love. We are ready to love and be loved. It's very natural. But because we feel empty, we try to find an object of our love. Sometimes we haven't had the time to understand ourselves, yet we've already found the object of our love. When we realize that all our hopes and expectations of course can't be fulfilled by that person, we continue to feel empty. You want to find something, but you don't know what to search for. In everyone there's a continuous desire and expectation; deep inside, you still expect something better to happen. That is why you check your email many times a day!

Real, truthful love, he argues, is rooted in four elements - loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity - fostering which lends love "the element of holiness." The first of them addresses this dialogic relationship between our own suffering and our capacity to fully understand our loved ones:

The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person. You can't offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person.

[...]

If you have enough understanding and love, then every moment - whether it's spent making breakfast, driving the car, watering the garden, or doing anything else in your day - can be a moment of joy.

This interrelatedness of self and other is manifested in the fourth element as well, equanimity, the Sanskrit word for which - upeksha - is also translated as "inclusiveness" and "nondiscrimination":

In a deep relationship, there's no longer a boundary between you and the other person. You are her and she is you. Your suffering is her suffering. Your understanding of your own suffering helps your loved one to suffer less. Suffering and happiness are no longer individual matters. What happens to your loved one happens to you. What happens to you happens to your loved one.

[...]

In true love, there's no more separation or discrimination. His happiness is your happiness. Your suffering is his suffering. You can no longer say, "That's your problem."

Supplementing the four core elements are also the subsidiary elements of trust and respect, the currency of love's deep mutuality:

When you love someone, you have to have trust and confidence. Love without trust is not yet love. Of course, first you have to have trust, respect, and confidence in yourself. Trust that you have a good and compassionate nature. You are part of the universe; you are made of stars. When you look at your loved one, you see that he is also made of stars and carries eternity inside. Looking in this way, we naturally feel reverence. True love cannot be without trust and respect for oneself and for the other person.

The essential mechanism for establishing such trust and respect is listening - something so frequently extolled by Western psychologists, therapists, and sage grandparents that we've developed a special immunity to hearing it. And yet when Nhat Hanh reframes this obvious insight with the gentle elegance of his poetics, it somehow bypasses the rational cynicism of the jaded modern mind and registers directly in the soul:

To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. To know how to love someone, we have to understand them. To understand, we need to listen.

[...]

When you love someone, you should have the capacity to bring relief and help him to suffer less. This is an art. If you don't understand the roots of his suffering, you can't help, just as a doctor can't help heal your illness if she doesn't know the cause. You need to understand the cause of your loved one's suffering in order to help bring relief.

[...]

The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same.

Echoing legendary Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki's memorable aphorism that "the ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow," Nhat Hanh considers how the notion of the separate, egoic "I" interrupts the dialogic flow of understanding - the "interbeing," to use his wonderfully poetic and wonderfully precise term, that is love:

Often, when we say, "I love you" we focus mostly on the idea of the "I" who is doing the loving and less on the quality of the love that's being offered. This is because we are caught by the idea of self. We think we have a self. But there is no such thing as an individual separate self. A flower is made only of non-flower elements, such as chlorophyll, sunlight, and water. If we were to remove all the non-flower elements from the flower, there would be no flower left. A flower cannot be by herself alone. A flower can only inter-be with all of us... Humans are like this too. We can't exist by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be. I am made only of non-me elements, such as the Earth, the sun, parents, and ancestors. In a relationship, if you can see the nature of interbeing between you and the other person, you can see that his suffering is your own suffering, and your happiness is his own happiness. With this way of seeing, you speak and act differently. This in itself can relieve so much suffering.

The remainder of How to Love explores the simple, profoundly transformative daily practices of love and understanding, which apply not only to romantic relationships but to all forms of "interbeing." Complement it with John Steinbeck's exquisite letter of advice on love to his teenage son and Susan Sontag's lifetime of reflections on the subject, then revisit the great D.T. Suzuki on how Zen can help us cultivate our character.

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How to Love: Legendary Zen Buddhist Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on Mastering the Art of "Interbeing"

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What does love mean, exactly? We have applied to it our finest definitions; we have examined its psychology and outlined it in philosophical frameworks; we have even devised a mathematical formula for attaining it. And yet anyone who has ever taken this wholehearted leap of faith knows that love remains a mystery - perhaps the mystery of the human experience.

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 ‘It is, strangely, acceptable to mock and demonise teenagers’

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Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: ‘It is, strangely, acceptable to mock and demonise teenagers’

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The neuroscientist, who has written a book on the teenage brain, on the turmoil of adolescence and whether mindfulness can help

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What Happened to the Soul? RSA Series on 21st century Spirituality

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Ian McGilchrist and Jonathan Rawson - on the Soul

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Ian McGilchrist and Jonathan Rawson - on the Soul

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An Exercise to Balance Your Brain's Two Hemispheres

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Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

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Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

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Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

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Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.

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Renowned psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist explains how our 'divided brain' has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society

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Brené Brown's now eponymous talk on vulnerability, authenticity & what happens when we understand how shame operates, individually & collectively 

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The Power of Vulnerability | Brené Brown | TED

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Psychotherapist, novelist and wife of Britain’s best-known transvestite, Philippa Perry explains why she’s now turned self-help author

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2.5 minutes on Empathy from the RSA and Brené Brown

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2.5 minutes on Empathy from the RSA and Brené Brown