The East-West Psychology Podcast

Jonathan Kay and Stephen Julich
The East-West Psychology Podcast

The East-West Psychology Podcast: Exploring global intersectionality of spirituality, psychology and philosophy. East-West Psychology is a department in the School of Consciousness and Transformation at the California Institute of Integral Studies. A multidisciplinary hub for engaged dialogue among Eastern, Western, and Earth-based psychologies, along with world psychospiritual traditions. Join our hosts, Jonathan Kay and Stephen Julich and their guests as they delve into the intersection of psychology, philosophy, world’s wisdom traditions, the arts, and more.

  1. 3 NOV.

    Consciousness Studies Beyond Disciplines: The Metaphysics of Transdisciplinarity

    In this podcast we meet Matt Segall, core faculty in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness Program at CIIS. We discuss the need for new methods of research beyond the limits of siloed disciplines producing interdisciplinary knowledge. In research, Matt speaks of the importance of disclosing one’s own metaphysical groundings and epistemological assumptions in order to build frameworks of transdisciplinary engagement, which are spaces of discovery, creation and the invention of new concepts and languages. We also speak about Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner relations to transdisciplinary pedagogy and end by discussing Matt’s new book Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. Matthew D. Segall, Ph.D, is a transdisciplinary researcher who teaches courses applying process-relational philosophy across various disciplines, including religious studies, philosophy of nature, philosophy of mind, and social and political theory. He has published on these and a wide range of other topics, including German idealism, the philosophy of time, psychedelics, theoretical biology, architecture, and media theory. Publications: Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead (2023) Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead's Adventure in Cosmology (2021) The EWP Podcast credits: East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD candidate) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Music at the end of the episode: Expansion, on the album Experiments of Truth, by Kayos Theory Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h 32 min
  2. 13 OCT.

    Earth-bound Spirituality, the Ethics of Care, and Indigenous Song as Medicine

    Today we speak to East-West Psychology adjunct faculty Susana Bustos, about growing up in Chile and how her roots in music and psychology lead her to study music therapy. We then discuss how South American Indigenous healing practices can be considered as a forms of earth-bound spirituality, and how that gives rise to alternative notions of relationality bound by a local ethics of care. Susana speaks about plant medicine as psycho-integrators and we discuss the importance of integration in Indigenous healing practices. The discussion ends developing ideas about sonic ecology in which Susana shares an experience of singing as mystical encounter with sentience, and we explore immanent approaches to learning the ethics of cross-cultural confluence through deep listening. Susana Bustos, Ph.D. (CIIS, 2008), M.A in Clinical Psychology and in Music Therapy from Chilean universities, is adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies and other schools in the Bay Area and abroad. Susana also conducts independent research on entheogenic shamanic traditions of the Americas and holds a private practice in Berkeley, CA. Her teaching, research, and clinical work focus mainly on the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness, their integration into ordinary life, and on the quest for adequately bridging Amerindian cosmologies and practices into the West. Susana has written articles and book contributions on the interphase of shamanic song and healing and on entheogenic integration, and she lectures internationally on these topics. She directed the Spiritual Emergence Network in the US between 2016 and 2020. The EWP Podcast credits East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD candidate) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Music at the end of the episode: Magic Stones, on the album Forest Dwellers by Jonathan Kay and Andrew Kay Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h 26 min
  3. 25 AOÛT

    Polyphonic Becoming: Creative Spirituality, the Arts, and the Essence of Freedom in Education

    In this podcast we meet CIIS student Lucian Dante Lazar to discuss his research at the intersections of spirituality and the arts, aiming towards the cultivation of a holistic science of creative becoming inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy. We discuss esoteric approaches towards a pedagogy of creative education based upon experimental methods of radical freedom and epistemologies of spiritual identity. Lucien Dante Lazar (b. June 24th, 1994 in Evanston, IL) is an interdisciplinary artist whose praxis is founded in the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. He received his BA from Bard College (2016), his MFA from California College of the Arts (2020), and is currently working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies. His dissertation will concern the pedagogy of spiritual development through the diversity of the arts. Art, for Lucien Dante Lazar, is a deeply introspective and spiritual process. As a result, his work is both intimate and universal, both for the individual human being as well as for humanity as a whole. His paintings, music, sculptures, poetry, prose, as well as his interpersonal creative therapies are opportunities for healing and profound, transformative reflection. “My ultimate goal as an artist is to discover, through art, the meaning of the human being, and through this creative process, to encounter and cultivate the reality of freedom.” Lazar said. “For me, an artwork may be witnessed as a being born of, and in service to, the development of human consciousness. The more a work of art is imbued with the wide awake consciousness of humanity, the more it is capable of inviting the human being who witnesses it into a sense of one's own universality.” Lazar utilizes many mediums including drawing, painting, sculpture, and a plethora of fiber arts. He also works as a poet, an essayist, and a multi-disciplinary musician. Additionally, Lazar incorporates various therapeutic healing modalities and meditative practices into his work, which he describes under the term spiritual bodywork. Each individual work of art Lazar creates lives within this multi-dimensional creative context. The EWP Podcast credits East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (EWP PhD candidate) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Other music by Lucien Dante Lazar: Center of the Flute, 12 Apostles Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h 27 min
  4. 23 JUIN

    Bodies of Culture: Introducing the Center for Black and Indigenous Praxis with Preston Vargas and Deanna Jimenez

    In this episode we meet Preston Vargas, the director of the Center for Black and Indigenous Praxis, and Deanna Jimenez, Assistant Professor in the Somatic Psychology Department and head of the Emerging Black Clinician Fellowship. We discuss strategies of navigating white academic space as a black scholar, the notion of bodies of culture, the importance of Afrocentric Healing modalities, scholar-activism, the importance of arts, as well some fundamental ideas in the emerging field of Black Psychology. Preston Varvas earned an M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness as well as a Ph.D. in Transformative Studies from CIIS. He also worked at CIIS as a Teaching Fellow. Preston joins us from the San Francisco Aids Foundation, where he was the Senior Director, Community Partnerships & Engagement. We are thrilled that he will be coming on board to establish the CBIP as a hub for Black and Indigenous thought, wisdoms, and ways of being. Preston carries the blessings, wisdoms, and joys of his ancestors. He was born from the land of his grandmother's ancestral Wampanoag people. It is a place where his liberated Black ancestors found family and home with the local Indigenous communities. It is also the land where his mother's Cape Verdean immigrant ancestors cultivated cranberry bogs and blueberry bushes amidst deciduous forests. Though he lives on the Pacific coast, Preston honors his ancestors, the land-water spirits of Massachusetts who periodically draw him back home. Deanna Jimenez is a somatic/transpersonal psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is Assistant Professor in the Somatic Psychology Department at California Institute of Integral Studies and has a private practice supporting individuals, couples, and organizations. Her clinical work is centered in the dialogue of mental health as it intersects with race, culture, and spirituality. She received a B.A. in International Relations from UC Berkeley studying the efficacy of conflict resolution and cultural awareness in the international workplace. Following a career in corporate and non-profit fields, Deanna received her M.A. from JFK University in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology. The EWP Podcast credits East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD student) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h 3 min
  5. 11 MAI

    African Cosmologies with Dr. Butterfly

    In this episode we speak with EWP adjunct professor Dr. Butterfly, along with students, Tayina Fenelus and Cameron Rice, who both took his class on African Cosmologies last semester. We speak of intergenerational transfer of knowledge in African traditions, and other important ideas in African cosmologies such as consubstantiation, ritual, story and song, and practices of divination. Dr. Butterfly shares his views on how African cosmologies can “help one rediscover ways in which one can be soulfully attached, reconnected, and participating in activities that enrich our lives, give them meaning, and restore value to kinds of relationships to each other.” Anthony “Butterfly” Williams, MFA, PhD, (we/us) is the Executive Director of Iruke Institute International. Dr. Butterfly is a cultural alchemist whose work manifests in performance art, community organizing, and transformative education. He is an expert on the decolonization of culture through the arts. Creativity, compassion and collaboration inspire the transformation of self and society that he calls “the work.” Dr. Butterfly is a thought leader who has presented papers, lectures, workshops and symposia on creativity, culture and spirituality in academic, professional and community settings, including the U.C. Berkeley School of Social Welfare, the American Psychological Association, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, among others. Dr. Butterfly is a community builder who has designed and produced arts-based community events on men’s healing, African-centered psychology, creative leadership, police brutality, affordable housing and gay literature. His community-based collaborations include projects with Community Housing Partnership, Bayview Association for Youth, Center for Political Education, and Urban Healers, among others. Dr. Butterfly is a multimedia performance artist who has directed or acted in numerous theater productions, including original multimedia works about mass incarceration, Blaxploitation films, and the writer James Baldwin. He sings live in art galleries, where he exhibits music videos that feature his psychedelic art pop band OLOKUN. His performances have also been presented at Herbst Theater, Bayview Opera House, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the San Francisco International Arts Festival, among others. Contact: awilliams1@ciis.edu The EWP Podcast credits East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD candidate) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Music at the end of the episode: Dusk-Dawn Suite, by The Coltrane Sutras Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h 19 min
  6. 6 AVR.

    Art Practice as Research, Creative Pathways and New Directions between East-WestPsychology and the MFA at CIIS

    In this episode, we speak to Cindy Shearer, head of the MFA, and Debashish Banerji, chair of East-West Psychology about how their ideas on the vision of interdisciplinary education and creative scholarship lead them to create joint EWP and MFA degrees, as well as creative pathway dissertation track. We speak about transdisciplinary methods of arts-based research from the perspective of a scholar-artist, and the importance of art-making in forming new approaches to academic inquiry, practice, and research. Joint EWP/MFA Degrees and Creative Pathway Dissertation Cindy Shearer, DA, is the founding director for the MFA programs at CIIS. She serves as Department Chair for Interdisciplinary Arts and Professor in the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing. She also chairs the PhD in Integral Transpersonal Psychology. A writer, text/image artist, and curator, she practices and teaches writing as art, a process she writes “reconfigures the boundaries of writing and visual art.” She created Ten Not-So-Tangible Tools for Writers, a meditation on the writing process in text and image. Cindy has also worked extensively in program development and curriculum design and as a developmental editor, consultant, and writing coach. Debashish Banerji is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies and the Program Chair for the East-West Psychology department. Previously, he was the Professor of Indian Studies and Dean of Academics at the University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles. He holds the Aurobindo Puraskar Award for international excellence in Sri Aurobindo studies from the Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, Kolkata (2017) and the Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM) Book Award for Constructive Philosophy. Recent books include Meditations on the Isha Upanishad: Tracing the Philosophical Vision of Sri Aurobindo (Pink Integer Books, 2020) and Philo-Sophia: Wisdom Goddess Traditions (Lotus Press, 2021), co-edited with CIIS emeritus President, Robert McDermott. More updated information on his talks, publications and other academic activities may be found at his website www.debashishbanerji.com. The EWP Podcast credits East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD candidate) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Music at the end of the episode: breathing space, by Lopez/Kay/Wick, released on Monsoon-Music Online Record Label Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h 6 min
  7. 8 FÉVR.

    Order and Disorder in South Asia with Christopher Chapple and Debashish Banerji

    This episode is dedicated to introducing the South Asian Studies Association (SASA) and their annual academic conference being co-hosted by the Asian Contemplative and Transcultural Studies Concentration (ACTS) being held at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) on March 1st-3rd, 2024. We are joined by Chris Chapple, the president of SASA, and Debashish Banerji, board member of SASA, as well as the chair of ACTS, who describe this years hybrid, in-person and online, conference, which is called Order and Disorder in South Asia. We also discuss Chris’s new book, Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas, as well as scholar-practitioner approaches to South Asian Studies. Conference Information Join us for the Order and Disorder in South Asia conference, where leading experts and scholars will explore the delicate balance between stability and chaos in one of the world’s most diverse and dynamic regions. Delve into the historical, political, and socio-cultural complexities that have shaped South Asia, examining the forces that foster order and those that disrupt it. Gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing this vibrant part of the world. This conference promises to be a thought-provoking journey through the fascinating tapestry called South Asia. You can register here.  Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A specialist in the religions of India, he has published more than twenty books, including the recent Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas (SUNY Press). He serves as advisor to multiple organizations including the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale), the Ahimsa Center (Pomona), the Dharma Academy of North America (Berkeley), the Jain Studies Centre (SOAS, London), the South Asian Studies Association, and the International School for Jain Studies (New Delhi). Debashish Banerji is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies and the Program Chair for the East-West Psychology department. Previously, he was the Professor of Indian Studies and Dean of Academics at the University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles. He holds the Aurobindo Puraskar Award for international excellence in Sri Aurobindo studies from the Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, Kolkata (2017) and the Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM) Book Award for Constructive Philosophy. Recent books include Meditations on the Isha Upanishad: Tracing the Philosophical Vision of Sri Aurobindo (Pink Integer Books, 2020) and Philo-Sophia: Wisdom Goddess Traditions (Lotus Press, 2021), co-edited with CIIS emeritus President, Robert McDermott. More updated information on his talks, publications and other academic activities may be found at his website www.debashishbanerji.com. EWP Podcast Credits East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (EWP PhD candidate) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Music at the end of the episode: Migration, by Justin Gray’s Synthesis on Monsoon-Music Online Record Label Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h 14 min
  8. 14 JANV.

    Cultivating Contemplative Civilization and a New Civilization of Love and Ahimsa (Non-Violence)

    This episode we speak with Dr. Ananta Giri Kumar, a professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, who was recently a guest speaker at the conference hosted at CIIS called Sustainability and Contemplative Civilization: The Integral Vision of Sri Aurobindo. We will be joined by Hemalatha Swaminathan, an EWP Phd student, to discuss with Ananta his presentation topic at the conference titled, Cultivating Contemplative Civilization and a New Civilization of Love and Ahimsa. Ananta Kumar Giri is a Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India. He has been a Visiting Professor and Researcher at many universities in India and abroad, including Aalborg University (Denmark), Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris (France), the University of Kentucky (USA), University of Freiburg & Humboldt University (Germany), Jagiellonian University (Poland) and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has an abiding interest in social movements and cultural change, criticism, creativity and contemporary dialectics of philosophy and literature. Professor Giri has written and edited around two dozen books in Odia and English. East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook East-West Psychology Credits Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD student, EWP assistant) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Music at the end of the episode: Eventide, by Justin Gray’s Synthesis on Monsoon-Music Online Record Label Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 h

À propos

The East-West Psychology Podcast: Exploring global intersectionality of spirituality, psychology and philosophy. East-West Psychology is a department in the School of Consciousness and Transformation at the California Institute of Integral Studies. A multidisciplinary hub for engaged dialogue among Eastern, Western, and Earth-based psychologies, along with world psychospiritual traditions. Join our hosts, Jonathan Kay and Stephen Julich and their guests as they delve into the intersection of psychology, philosophy, world’s wisdom traditions, the arts, and more.

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