The Kainos Podcast (Alexander Beiner)

Everything in our lives, from our relationships down to the cells of our hearts, is a process of combining. Things connect to other things to form relationships that create more than the sum of their parts, and in this way the world emerges. As Nora Bateson puts it in her new book, Combining, nothing we see is ‘just that and nothing more.’ 

This piece is a combination of words and sound, as I recently recorded a conversation with Bateson, which you can find as an audio podcast above, or on Apple Podcasts and most other podcast platforms. Nora is one of the leading voices in the world of systems change, or what she prefers to call ‘systems learning,’ and Combining is a bracing blend of complexity theory, poetry, mythos and ecology which I’ve been enjoying it immensely.

Bateson is also a faculty member on my upcoming course New Ways of Knowing, and as well as Combining and wider questions around how we can influence the systems we’re part of, we also talk about the experiential process of ‘trans-contextual knowing’ she’ll be guiding in her session. 

Below, I’ve also included a couple of updates, a thank you on the first anniversary of this Substack, and a new guided insight practice for paid subscribers.

News and Updates 

This is the first audio-only piece I’ve released on here, and it was refreshing to return to this format after an extended break. I enjoyed our conversation so much I plan to release more like this in the future, alongside my regular features, essays and reading lists. Coming up next week is a conversation with poet and author Sophie Strand exploring how myth and poetry can help us make sense of complexity. Sophie is another faculty member on New Ways of Knowing, and as well as standalone pieces, these conversations have been inspiring and influencing how I develop the course.

In other news, last week I recorded a live Street Epistemology session with Peter Boghossian. Boghossian is one of the authors of How to Have Impossible Conversations, an academic and author focused on finding ways to bridge culture war divides through new forms of dialogue. As this is a key focus of mine too, it was a joy to dialogue and inquire together. If you haven’t heard of the Street Epistemology methodology and are interested in new conversations that move beyond cultural stuckness, I’d highly recommend checking out this video and the wider Street Epistemology scene. 

One Year of The Bigger Picture 

I wanted to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone for reading this Substack. November 5th marked one year of The Bigger Picture, and in that time I’ve written 35 features and articles, with over 750,000 views and close to 30,000 subscribers.

Transitioning from Rebel Wisdom a year ago was intense, scary and exciting, and I’m massively grateful for all your continued engagement and interest in my work. It’s nearing six months since my book The Bigger Picture was published, and I’m also grateful that so many of you have bought and reviewed it so favourably; the Audible version is currently ranked #2 in the Science & Philosophy category which feels wonderful and mind-boggling. 

A very special thanks to paying subscribers: without you this Substack wouldn’t be possible. Your support provides me with a regular income and helps me buy essential kit, like the new microphone I used to record my interview with Nora.

For paid subscribers this week, I have an updated and improved Sovereignty Meditation. This is a meditation I’ve been developing over the last five years that draws on cognitive science and the wisdom traditions to combine breathwork, concentration, contemplation and journaling into a single practice. It’s one I use personally during intense times, whether that’s dealing with the complexity of life and culture, or preparing for a psychedelic experience. 

You can also find my video content and other updates on my Instagram, and I’ll be sharing more about my new fiction project and putting a call out for guest writers in the near future. Thanks again for engaging with my work; I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. 

It seems I can’t publish this piece with a paywall and a podcast, Substack wants it to be one or the other - so I’ve changed it and now everyone has access to the paid member meditation

Hi everyone, you can find the new Sovereignty Meditation below. As I mention in the audio, the intention of the guide is to help you learn each step of the meditation (Breathwork, Concentration, Mindfulness and Journalling) and then create your own version of it. I use this almost every day and it was inspired in part by John Vervaeke’s work around building ‘an ecology of practices’.

Download the Sovereignty Meditation here

The different practices that make up this meditation are by no means extensive, but I’ve found them to provide a good spectrum of ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out’ that give me a more ‘optimal grip’ on myself and the world. I hope you enjoy it - if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments.

In the 1960’s, communications theorist Marshall McLuhan famously wrote ‘the medium is the message’. Thousands of years before he lived, we were already expressing this idea through our creation myths; myths in which the universe is spoken into being, or danced into form. At a deep level, we’ve always known that how our world is created tells us about what has been created.Today, advanced AI is forcing us to ask what it means when the medium is disconnected from the embodied world; held in distant servers and immortal algorithms. It’s a question that one of the godfathers of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, may be touching on in his research into ‘mortal computing’, in which AI is bound to hardware instead of software. This would mean it learns as a unique individual (with all the energy efficiencies that entails) and dies as one once its hardware is destroyed.

This modern research revives an ancient question. If consciousness isn’t expressed through the medium of a body, is it truly alive? This strange overlap of predictive AI, archaic myth, and philosophy weaves a thread that has been fascinating me more every day.

It’s part of what drew me to the work of author and poet Sophie Strand, who is my guest this week in one of the most far-ranging and exciting conversations I’ve had all year. We explore these questions and many more, including the difference between written and oral communication, and the role of beauty and poetry in helping us move through the metacrisis.

Strand’s work focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Her first book of essays The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine was published in 2022, and her latest book, The Madonna Secret, is an eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels and that was published earlier this year. She also writes an excellent Substack.

Sophie has a real gift with words and a uniquely lyrical approach to history and contemporary culture. She's also one of the teachers on my upcoming course New Ways of Knowing, where she'll be sharing how myth and poetry can be give us new ways to navigate complexity and tap into a deeper appreciation for the world. 

The course begins on December 13, and 80% of the live tickets are now sold out.

This is the second in a three part audio series with teachers on the course, which will culminate next week in a conversation with the newest faculty member, Peter Limberg, who many of you will know as the creator of The Stoa and writer of the brilliant Less Foolish Substack.

After this series, I’ll be returning to my regular features and articles, as well as publishing podcasts like this, and hosting guest writers from early next year.

You can find these podcasts on Apple Podcasts as well as listening to them on Substack, and from next year paying subscribers will also be receiving exclusive audio content.

There are only 6 live tickets remaining for my course New Ways of Knowing, which kicks off in less than a week. Join a collective inquiry into the ideas and practices that help us thrive in a time of upheaval, with a world-class faculty and participants from more than 20 countries.

Where’s the vital edge in culture today? How do we find art to shove us into the abyss, taboo conversations to open our minds, and shards of wisdom to open our hearts?

For Peter Limberg, this is a question we have to take seriously, but a tricky one. In his view, there is no culture any more. Drawing on the idea that we’re living through an era of cultural stagnation, what art critic Ben Davis calls ‘the after-culture’, in this interview he explains why the solution to this predicament may be buried where we least expect it.

Many of you will be familiar with Peter’s work; he’s the steward of an in-person and online community called The Stoa, and writer of the brilliant Less Foolish Substack. In my view he’s one of the most creative and incisive voices exploring the meaning crisis, the culture wars and the application of ancient wisdom traditions to the complexity of modern life.

He’s also a teacher on New Ways of Knowing, and this marks the third and final instalment in my audio series interviewing faculty. Dive in to find out what it means to make day to day life an artistic practice, new insights from his influential essay ‘The Memetic Tribes of Culture War 2.0’, and how you can drink a Stoic Smile.

The best conversations unravel new threads with every turn of phrase. You’re left with a tapestry, not of answers but of new possibilities. I had a feeling that a dialogue with Josh Schrei might weave that kind of tapestry, and I wasn’t disappointed.

If you haven’t heard of his podcast The Emerald, I’d highly recommend it. It’s gained a dedicated following over the last few years, and is as much an endeavour in ‘mythic sensemaking’ as it is an artistic expression. The Emerald “explores the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination … drawing from a deep well of poetry, lore, and mythos to challenge conventional narratives on politics and public discourse, meditation and mindfulness, art, science, literature, and more.”

There are overlaps with Josh’s work and my own, so we covered a lot of terrain; AI, the meaning crisis, the return of ritual, and why an animate worldview might be essential if we’re to make it through the meta-crisis. You can find the episode above, or on the Substack app, Apple podcasts and most other podcasting platforms.

Tripping on Utopia

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on Nora Bateson’s piece ‘Communication is Sacred’ - it’s had a wonderful reception and felt like a positive way to launch guest pieces on The Bigger Picture. As I mentioned in my introduction to her essay, I’ve also been in touch with Benjamin Breen and he’s sent me a couple of paragraphs to give context in response to Nora’s piece, which you can find below:

I wrote Tripping on Utopia because I believe that history has important lessons to impart for anyone interested in the present and future of psychedelics. I did not try to glorify or to condemn any of the historical figures in my book; rather, I wanted to just understand them in the context of their time. The New Yorker’s review of Tripping noted that Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson were "the most sympathetic figures in the book,” but it also noted that they are presented as part of much wider history which emphasizes the optimism and idealism of early psychedelic researchers during a period of enormous challenges. As I explain in a recent piece for the online magazine Nautilus, one key intervention I make is to retell the history of psychedelic therapy from the perspective of women in the 1940s and 1950s (not only Mead, but also pioneering therapists like Betty Eisner) rather than men in the '60s and '70s. Another goal was simply to understand early psychedelic researchers on their own terms, which meant casting a wide net and thinking deeply about the intellectual foundations of their work. This is why the main theme of the book is utopian yet applied science — an approach that Mead in particular did more than anyone else to elevate in public discourse, and one that informed the work of everyone from the most well known figures in the history of psychedelics (Humphry Osmond, Aldous Huxley) to the less well known (like Eisner). As you can perhaps guess from this summary, Gregory Bateson is an important figure in the history I tell but this is not a biography of him. It’s a comprehensively researched history of the first generation of psychedelic scientists, the product of over five years of daily work and careful research in well over a dozen historical archives. If you’re interested in the science and culture of psychedelics, I think it’s worth your attention. 

You can buy Tripping on Utopia on the US Amazon here or the UK Amazon here.

In this podcast episode, I speak with Trish Blain about her concept of ‘consciousness agility’ and why it can help us move into new territory in our lives. We also talk about what it takes to turn wisdom into action, why collaborating with others can be so difficult, and why creativity isn’t just about artistic expression, but a force that lies at the heart of reality. 

Trish and I have designed a new process called NonOrdinary Impact, and we’re running a free taster session on Monday 20th of May, which you can sign up for here.

NonOrdinary Impact is a process of self-discovery that will help you shift from thinking about a project, or a new step in life, to bringing it into the world. Explore new ways to collaborate, move through blockages around your unique expression, and learn how to harness your creative energy with the support of others doing the same.

Paid subscribers get 10% off, and you can also apply for a scholarship place on the course website here.

In this episode I speak with Nicola Price who runs the breathwork school Inspirational Breathing. Breathwork has exploded in popularity in recent years, with some people calling it ‘the new yoga’. But what is it exactly, and how can we reconnect to ourselves, come up with new ideas and process emotions just by breathing?

I’ve been training as a breathwork facilitator with Inspirational Breathing for the past year, and in November we’re launching a new course, Breathing in Culture, where you’ll have the opportunity to dive into this practice, working with a trained facilitator in small groups for weekly breathing sessions, while developing your own personal breathwork practice. 

Breathwork is the most effective practice I’ve found for ‘breaking frame’, processing my emotions and gaining perspective on my inner world and the culture. Because it’s such a powerful way to expand perspectives, the course also includes sessions with though-leaders like Peter Boghossian, Katherine Dee and Peter Limberg to provide inspiration and new ideas. To draw on Trish Blain’s Four Forces model, the breathwork fills you with life force to provide Growth energy, while the sensemaking sessions provide Purpose to help you to channel and direct that growth into your life. If you want to learn more, have a listen to my conversation with Nicola or check out Breathing in Culture.  

There are just two places left for our breathwork and sensemaking course ‘Breathing in Culture’ which begins on 13 November - join here. Trish Blain and I are also offering a free ‘NonOrdinary Sensemaking’ session around the US election on 14 November which you can sign up for here and read more about at the end of this page.

In my recent pieces, I’ve been making sense of the US election through the lens of where we get our news from, exploring the growing split between the legacy and alternative media. This has been a big focus of my work since 2016 and I think this election marks a turning point, one the legacy media may never recover from. But even though we now get our news from social media and alternative journalism, we’re also seeing a cultural backlash against our online lives. Jonathan Haidt made waves this year with The Anxious Generation, which looked at the negative impact of social media and screens on children and adolescents. Many of us have been addicted to our phones for years, and I’ve had a lot of conversations recently with people who feel a sense of emptiness and exhaustion in their online lives; it’s certainly something I’ve felt.  

Two of my favourite thinkers on these issues are Peter Limberg and Katherine Dee, who are my guests in this episode. Peter writes a brilliant Substack (Less Foolish) and heads up a platform called The Stoa, while Katherine is an internet historian and journalist who also writes a great Substack (default.blog) and has written for The Spectator, Unherd and Tablet. They’re running a new series together called Internet Real Life, looking at the changing cultural value of ‘being online’ and the new countercultures that are unplugging from the endless cycle of content creation.  

They’re also guest teachers on Breathing in Culture (along with Peter Boghossian). Both are full of unique insights into how our online lives are evolving, and how to navigate our fractured media landscape. 

‘NonOrdinary Sensemaking: US Election’ with Trish Blain and Alexander BeinerWhether you are thrilled, devastated or somewhere in between about the US election, it’s clear that civil discourse, consensus reality, and non-partisan cooperation have become nearly impossible.

And yet, how do we move forward if we can’t work together?

In this free session we’ll be offering a space to make sense together using techniques that help us tap into our implicit knowledge, combining Trish Blain’s frameworks with Alexander’s sensemaking techniques to help you reach deeper levels of insight, connect to hope and imagine a ‘Hell, Yeah!’ future in the midst of chaos.

To support more audio content and free events on The Bigger Picture, and to access exclusive pieces, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

For the first month of Kainos, Alexander Beiner is having conversations with some of the most important and heterodox voices exploring how to build a more beautiful world. In this conversation with systems theorist, poet and filmmaker Nora Bateson, we explore the new capacities we need to develop to navigate a time of upheaval when we don't know where we're headed.

Thank you Tom Morgan, Ed Prideaux, Chuck Lynd, j juniper, Will hodgins, and many others for tuning into my live video with Abi Millar! Join me for my next live video in the app.

I’m on my way to Australia for a tour hosted by Small Giants Academy! We’re kicking off with a preview screening of the upcoming Kainos documentary ‘Crossroads’ and a talk at the Byron Bay Theatre on Saturday 22nd of March - get your tickets here.

Having been ‘woke critical’ since 2016, in recent years I’ve felt increasingly vindicated as mainstream culture has pushed back against the institutionalisation of social justice theory.

The publication of the Cass Report in 2024 felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back here in the UK, and I wrote a piece about its implications which I think has stood the test of time.

However, I’ve felt increasingly uncomfortable with the recent pushback against DEI and other initiatives in the US. Not because I disagree with the need for reform, but because it feels like a new form of authoritarianism that throws the baby out with the bathwater. So I was relieved to read Helen Pluckrose’s recent articles about the rise of the Woke Right, in which she points out that

‘…a stark division is revealed between those who opposed wokeness primarily because it was authoritarian and being institutionalised and those who opposed it because it was the wrong kind of authoritarian and wanted to institutionalise something else…"

As a Classical Liberal and one of the masterminds behind the Grievance Studies Affair, Helen is uniquely placed to make these critiques, and we had a great conversation on Substack Live delving into this topic.

You can join conversations like this and participate in the Q&A by signing up as a Founding Member, or get early access as a paid member.