Electronic culture created soulless replacements for connective rituals- television supplanted tribal legends told by the fire; 'fast food' consumed in distraction took the place of a shared meal. We substituted matter for Mater (feminine principle), money for mother's milk, objects for emotional bonds.
Daniel PinchbeckMy personal, metaphysical belief is Vedanta, which is that ultimately there is a singular consciousness. It's like a Hindu metaphysics, that basically we're all like characters in a play that consciousness is putting on to discover its own creative capacities.
Daniel PinchbeckMaybe the same instruments and tools that have been used to keep people in slavery and ignorance could potentially be used to liberate and awaken them.
Daniel PinchbeckI think what we're going to ultimately recognize is that capitalism was a transitional and immature system. It got the planet to be globalized and now something else has to emerge. We have to be the ones. We can't wait around. Nobody else is going to do it for us. We have to be the ones who create that new emerging system.
Daniel PinchbeckShamanism is a kind of universal spiritual practice with indigenous cultures around the world, and one important element of it is taking care of spirits.
Daniel PinchbeckIf consciousness is the ground of being rather than an epiphenomenon of physical processes, we may find that a basic question asked by modern astronomy and space science- 'Is there life out there?'- should be rephrased. Organic life, as well as intelligence, may already be a property enmeshed in the fabric of the cosmos, brought to fruition through the spiraling dynamics of the solar system and the galaxy, built into the structure of the universe itself.
Daniel Pinchbeck