Our Moment in History and the Evolution of the Modern Self

18 August 2011 7pm - 18 August 2011 9pm

Venue: Colet House, 151 Talgarth Road, London W14

 

Our time is pervaded by a great paradox. On the one hand, we see signs of an unprecedented level of engaged global awareness, moral sensitivity to the human and non-human community, and spiritually informed philosophical pluralism; on the other hand, we confront the most critical, and in some respects catastrophic, state of the Earth in human history. Both these conditions have emerged directly from the modern age, whose light and shadow consequences now affect every part of the planet.  

We seem to be living at the end of an era. We are facing a threshold of fundamental collective transformation that bears a striking resemblance to what takes place on the individual level in initiatory rites of passage, in near-death experiences, in spiritual crises, and in critical stages of what Jung called the individuation process. So much is at stake. Can we find a place of equilibrium, an eye in the storm, from which we can engage this time of intense polarization and radical change? And in such an era of transition, what is the role of "heroic" communities like the Scientific and Medical Network, which carry principles and perspectives that run counter to the mainstream modern world view?

Join cultural historian and philosopher Richard Tarnas this evening as we seek insights that might illuminate our moment in history and provide a larger context for both understanding and action. 

  Richard Tarnas is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a history of Western thought widely used in universities, and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, which received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network.  

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