Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution

The great British documentarian and philosopher Adam Curtis talks about how in Victorian times people spoke about death constantly but never about sex. In contemporary society, the reverse is true: we never talk about death but are obsessed with sex. I think that’s why the COVID-19 pandemic was especially terrifying to us. As body bags were stacked

There is zero evidence of how contemplation, emotion, self-awareness, reflection (not to mention poetry, art, and prayer), and the internal cinematic experience of consciousness help or have helped humanity propagate and thrive.

We take in, blend, and yet transcend senses, creating a peculiar alchemy of the awareness and sensation of being a human, of having a moment-by-moment experience of living. In the philosophy and science of mind, these little bites of memorable conscious experiences are called “qualia.”

We are currently in a global mental health crisis that is ruthlessly affecting teens and young adults at a rate unlike anything the world has ever seen. In the dozens and dozens of talks and presentations I’ve given at colleges and universities, this fact seems to be abundantly well-known by those under fifty and almost completely, cluelessly unkno

it might be difficult, at first blush, to get something seemingly tangible, practical, and readily applicable to one’s day-to-day life from poetry or spirituality. But men die miserably every day from lack of what is found there. In other words, we humans suffer needlessly from an absence of what can be found in poetry and in spirituality.

The bottom line is that young people are suffering greatly. They seem to be lacking in the tools, skills, and ability to find solutions to these difficult issues. To befriend, to bond, to connect, to self-soothe, to find joy. To create community. They are seemingly cut off from what nourishes them, suffering from diseases of despair, and oftentimes

In the country of Bhutan, happiness is a central focus of life and culture. The government doesn’t solely measure economic improvement but also its citizens’ well-being, with its tracking of GNH or Gross National Happiness. And yet, in the same culture, one is expected to think about death at least three times a day.

The show metaphorically tackled all of 1960s society’s greatest challenges—war, racism, technological advancement—from the point of view of an enlightened human race. This wasn’t a show about personal growth; it was a show about collective transformation.

scientific/physicalist explanations of how we perceive and process fail to accurately explain the totality of our living, breathing experience.