The Middle Way Society: Recent Episodes
The Middle Way Society
My guest today is Gavin Haynes, a freelance journalist, writer, presenter and former editor-at-large at Vice. He's here to talk to us about the Purity Spiral. How a process of moral outbidding is corroding communities from within.
In this week's podcast, the chair of the Middle Way Society, Robert M Ellis talks to us about his most recent book 'The Thought of Sangharakshita: A Critical Assessment'.
In this latest member profile, Anna Markey talks to us about her background in Australia, her time spent in India as a young woman and her initial engagement with Buddhism. She then goes on to talk about her interest in language and her career as a teacher, why she joined the society and what her understanding is of the Middle Way.
An extract from an interview with Stephen Batchelor for the Middle Way Society about his latest book 'The Art of Solitude' in which he offers some reflections and advice on how to deal with self-isolation during the corona virus emergency.
Our guest today is Stephen Batchelor, a patron of the MW Society, author and Buddhist scholar who's here to talk about his latest book 'The Art of Solitude'.
My guest today is Mark Austin who is an accredited teacher of 5Rhythms dance classes, which he runs regularly in the north of England. In the interview we explore the origins of the practice, what it is, how a typical session pans out and how it relates to the Middle Way.
Our guest today is Adam Luecke PH. D who is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. His research focuses on multiple areas of social psychology, including prosocial behaviour and the benefits of mindfulness. He’s done a wide range of research that suggests that mindfulness increases analytical thought, decreases just world beliefs, reduces discrimination and implicit age and races bias. This research will be the topic of our discussion today.
My guest today is David Robson, David is an award-winning science writer and editor, who specialises in writing in-depth articles probing the extremes of the human mind, body and behaviour. He was a features editor at New Scientist for five years and is currently a senior journalist at BBC Future. He regularly features on the BBC World Service discussing scientific issues, and his writing has also appeared in Guardian, the Atlantic and the Washington Post. His first book ‘The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Stupid Mistakes and How to Make Wiser Decisions was published earlier this year and this will be the topic of our discussion today
Our guest today is Sally Kohn, who arguably is one of the leading progressive voices in America. A frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. Sally is a popular keynote speaker including most recently with the Forgiveness Project , talking about political division, hate, otherizing, diversity and identity — and how we can solve the deep problems of our past and present. Her first book 'The Opposite of Hate' came out last year and will be the topic of our discussion today.
We are joined today by the philosopher and founder of the Middle Way Society. Robert has been a regular guest on the podcast and is the author of a range of books on Middle Way Philosophy, both within and beyond Buddhism, including The Christian Middle Way (Christian Alternative 2018). He has a PhD in Philosophy and a Cambridge BA in Oriental Studies and Theology. He has taught in many different contexts, and was formerly a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order. He’s here to talk to us about his latest book The Buddha’s Middle Way (Equinox 2019).
Our guest today is Katherine Weare who is Emeritus Professor at the University of Exeter where she is working to develop and evaluate mindfulness in schools programs. Katherine is a dedicated mindfulness practitioner herself as well as a qualified mindfulness teacher. Her overall field is social and emotional learning and mental health and wellbeing in schools. She is known as an international expert on evidence-based practice and has conducted several definitive reviews and led programmes which have informed policy and practice in many countries. She is the author of several books including Promoting Mental, Emotional and Social Health: A Whole School Approach, Developing the Emotionally Literate School and most recently Happy Teachers Change the World: A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education which she co-wrote with Tich Nath Hanh and will be the topic of our discussion today
Today’s guest is the British environmental writer and political activist George Monbiot. George writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain (2000) and Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding (2013). He will be discussing the topic of rewilding with the chair of the Middle Way Society, the philosopher Robert M Ellis.
Our guest today is Simon Bell. Simon is a retired mental health nurse who spent 37 years working in the National Health Service in the U.K. For 22 years he dealt solely with suspects, defendants and offenders from the time of their arrest until the point when criminal proceedings took place. He dealt with most types of offending behavior and over the course of his career was involved in assessing and caring for several thousand offenders and victims of crime. His passion for history goes back to childhood; his passion for the Holocaust has its origins in being involved with the care of survivors of Nazi brutality whom he met during his early days in mental health car. He’s the author of 'Auschwitz-Birkenau - From Hell to Hope' and 'Tribalism and Prejudice - The Far-Right and Lessons From History which will be the topic of our discussion today.
My guest today is Maryanne Wolf. Maryanne is the John Dibiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service and Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research. She is an expert on the neurological underpinnings of reading, language, and dyslexia. She is also the author of numerous scientific publications as well two books written for the general public ‘Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain’ which has been translated in 10 languages and her latest book ‘Reader Come Home: The reading brain in a digital world which will be the topic of our discussion today.
Our guest today is Jeremy Sherman. Jeremy is a decision theorist researching and writing about choice from the origin of life to everyday living. He teaches college courses across the social sciences and blogs for Psychology Today. He’s here to talk to us about his latest book Neither Ghost nor Manchine in which he distils for a general audience the theory developed by renowned neuroscientist Terrence Deacon that extends the breakthrough constraint-based insight that inspired evolutionary, information, and self-organization theory. He argues that emergent dynamics theory provides a testable hypothesis for how mattering arose from matter, function from physics, and means-to-ends behavior from cause-and-effect dynamics. In effect that what this offers, is a physics of purpose and can make science safe for value, We’ll also talk about how this all might relate to the Middle Way
We are joined today by the writer, sociologist, lecture and music critic, Keith Kahn-Harris. His books include Judaism: All That Matters, Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict in the Jewish Community, Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge and his latest book Denial: The Unspeakable Truth and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
We are joined today by the author and integrator Jeremy Lent and the chair of the Middle Way Society Robert M Ellis. Jeremy was a recent guest on the podcast when he spoke to us about his book “The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s search for Meaning”. Shortly afterwards Robert wrote a review of the book and some of the themes and issues raised in that review will form the basis for our discussion today.
Our guest today is Alex Beard. Alex is a former English teacher at a London comprehensive and is now a senior director at Teach For All, a growing network of independent organizations working to ensure that all children fulfil their potential. He is fortunate to spend his time travelling the world in search of the practices that will shape the future of learning and has written about his experiences for the Independent, Guardian, Financial Times and Wired. His book Natural Born Learners is a user's guide to transforming learning in the twenty-first century and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
Our guest today is Laura Bridgman. Laura was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1995, and was resident at Amaravati and Chithurst monasteries in the UK for eighteen years until she moved out to live as a solitary nun in 2010. In 2015 Laura left the monastic tradition to pursue the Diamond Heart (Ridhwan) spiritual path alongside her Vipassana practice. She has run several retreats over the last couple of years on the subject of the ‘Inner Critic’ and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
My guest today is Allan Frater, a psychotherapist and teacher at the Psychosynthesis Trust in London. Psychosynthesis is a transpersonal or psychospiritual psychology, in which the spiritual or soulful is integrated with the psychological. It has its origins in the work of Dr Roberto Assagioli, an early pioneer of psychoanalysis which he studied under Freud and as a contemporary of Carl Jung. On returning to Italy, Assagioli went beyond psychoanalysis in the formation of psychosynthesis, which included influences from his life-long interest in eastern traditions such as Buddhism, as well as the esoteric western traditions, such as alchemy, Neo-Platonism and kabbalah.However, psychosynthesis was presented as a secular psychology and an empirical science of human subjectivity. The topic of our discussion today will be the origins, aims and methods of psychosynthesis, as well the emphasis that Allan has been developing in his teaching which he calls, ‘wild imagination’.
Sangharakshita is the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community, previously known as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO). He is also the author of dozens of books and hundreds of lectures on Buddhism. Brought up in London, Sangharakshita spent 20 years in India, where he was ordained as a Buddhist monk, but then returned to the UK in the 1960’s to become one of the first figures to engage seriously with the need to interpret Buddhist practice for Western audiences. He has done so particularly through the use of practical concepts like integration, individuality, creativity and provisional belief.
This wide-ranging conversation between Robert and Sangharakshita was recorded face-to-face in Sangharakshita's flat at Adhisthana, Herefordshire, UK. From about 1.45 to 7.40 Sangharakshita speaks unprompted about the Middle Way in his own life and the Buddha's, but after this the conversation is more interactive, including discussion of the Middle Way in relation to the Eightfold Path, the extremes of eternalism and nihilism, business decisions, and meditation. The Middle Way beyond Buddhism is discussed, in philosophy and Christianity, as well as the question of how much Buddhists have actually paid attention to it, and how far it has been important in Sangharakshita's approach to teaching Buddhism in the West.
We’re joined this week by the creative and versatile polymath Anthony McCann. As a keynote speaker, after-dinner speaker, consultant, coach, trainer, and facilitator, he inspires people to reimagine and redesign their relationships, working environments, and communities through a better understanding of proximity, power, and possibility in their lives. His work is based on 20 years of original research and teaching across the humanities and social sciences, and also of practitioner experience in leadership, community development, and performing arts. He’s here to talk to us today about ‘The Garaiocht Manifesto’ . More an invitation than a message. When it comes to professional life, trust your humanity. The Manifesto offers a human-scale and humane set of principles for sustaining the heart of being human in the art of being human in professional life.
Our guest today is the philosopher Robert M Ellis. Robert is the creator of Middle Way Philosophy, a practical philosophy working out the implications of human uncertainty and embodiment for every aspect of our lives, and the founder of the Middle Way Society. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Lancaster and has earned a living as a teacher, lecturer and tutor. He's here to talk to us about his latest book The Christian Middle Way: The case against Christian Belief but for Christian Faith, published by Christian Alternative which comes out on the 27th July. He’ll also be running a weekend retreat on the Christian Middle Way from the 20th to the 22nd July which will give people an opportunity to explore its approach at the Brazier’s Park centre in the lovely Oxfordshire Countryside.
Our guest today is the author and integrator Jeremy Lent. Jeremy grew up in the UK but has spent most of his adult life in the US, where earlier in his career, he was the founder, chairman and CEO of the internet company NextCard.. His writings investigate the patterns of thought that have led civilization to its current crisis of sustainability. He is the founder of the non-profit Liology Institute, which is dedicated to a worldview that enables humanity to thrive sustainably. He is the author of Requiem of the ‘Human Soul’ and ‘The Patterning Instinct’ the latter of which will be the topic of our discussion.
We are joined today by the internationally renowned psychologist, author and science journalist Daniel Goleman. For twelve years, he wrote for The New York Times, reporting on the brain and behavioural sciences. His 1995 book Emotional Intelligence was on The New York Times Best Seller list for a year-and-a-half as well as being a best-seller in many countries, and is in print worldwide in 40 languages. He’s the author of many other books on a wide array of topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency, meditation, social and emotional learning, ecoliteracy and the ecological crisis and he recently collaborated with the Dalai Lama on the book ‘A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Humanity’. He’s here to talk to us today about his latest book which he co-wrote with his long –time friend and collaborator Richard J Davidson entitled ‘Altered Traits: Science Reveals how Meditation changes your Mind, Brain and Body.
We are joined today by the scientist Emma Byrne. Emma normally specialises in the field of artificial intelligence, however she’s recently taken a different tack and is here to talk about her latest book entitled ‘Swearing is good for you’. Using peer reviewed science, she argues that swearing is likely to have been one of the first forms of language that we developed and that since then, it’s been helping us to deal with pain, work together, manage our emotions and improve our minds.
Our guest today is Daniel P Keating, a professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Pediatrics at the University of Michigan. He’s the author of several books including ‘Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations’, ‘Nature and Nurture in Early Child Development’ and he’s here to talk to us today about his latest book ‘Born Anxious: The lifelong impact of Early Life Adversity and how to break the cycle.
Our guest today is the British journalist and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell who is perhaps most well-known for his work with LBGT social movements and advocacy. He’s here to talk to us today about homophobia, its history, causes and what can be done about it.
Our guest today is Barbara Gail Montero who is a Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. Her work focuses on one or the other of two different notions of body: body as the physical or material basis of everything, and body as the moving, breathing, flesh and blood instrument that we use when we run, walk, or dance. Before entering academia, she was a professional ballet dancer and she’s here to talk to us today about her recently published book ‘Thought in Action: Expertise and the conscious Mind’.
Our guest today is the British politician, Tim Farron. Tim was the leader of the Liberal Democrats from July 2015 to July 2017. He's been the Member of Parliament for Westmoreland and Lonsdale since 2005 and he's here to talk to us today about Liberalism, it's origins and development, its core values and how it might relate to the Middle Way.
Our guest today is Stephen Jenkinson a Harvard-trained theologian and a teacher, author, storyteller, spiritual activist, farmer and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School, a teaching house and learning house for the skills of deep living and making human culture. Before founding the school, he headed the counsel team of Canada’s largest palliative care program and in 2008 a film ‘Griefwalker' was made about his work with the dying and their families and he’s the author of several books including ‘Money and the Soul’s desires’ and ‘Die Wise’ .
Our guest t0day is Arie Kruglanski. a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland College Park, and has been at the forefront of research into closed-mindedness-or, the "need for closure"— in particular its relationship to fundamentalist belief systems and violent extremism. He is is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and has edited a variety of prominent journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition. During his long career he has received numerous awards, including the Donald Campbell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology. His work in the domains of human judgment and belief formation has been disseminated in over 300 articles. He’s the author of six books including the psychology of close-mindedness and the psychology of terrorism and the themes explored in these books will be the topic of our discussion today
Our guest today is Abeba Birhane. Abeba is an Ethiopian Cognitive science PhD student presently living in Dublin. She blogs regularly at https://abebabirhane.wordpress.com on topics including philosophy, psychology, feminism, anthropology. She recently drew quite a bit of attention on the internet in an article for Aeon entitled “Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons’ and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
We are joined today by Amod Lele, who teaches Indian philosophy at Boston University. He is also Visiting Researcher at the Center for the Study of Asia, and an Educational Technologist with Information Services & Technology. He writes a regular blog in cross-cultural philosophy, called Love of All Wisdom on which I came across an article he wrote on ‘Literal Conservatism’ and this will be the topic of our discussion today
Our guest today is Bernardo Sorj. Bernardo is a Brazilian social scientist, retired professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He is Director of The Edelstein Center for Social Research and of the Plataforma Democrática Project. He has published 30 books and more than 100 articles, on Latin American political development, international relations, the social impact of new technologies, social theory and Judaism and in 2005 was elected Brazil’s Man of Ideas. He’s here to talk to us about ‘Humanism without Hubris’.
We welcome back to the podcast ,Igor Grossmann, who is Associate Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Wisdom and Research Lab based at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. His main research interest is the complex processes that enable individuals to think and act wisely. He has also done pioneering work on the development of wisdom in different cultures. Dr. Grossmann was named one of the 2015 Rising Stars in the field of Psychological Science.He’s going to be joined in discussion with a regular guest on the podcast, the philosopher Robert M Ellis, who is the chair of the Middle Way Society and author amongst other books of the Middle Way Philosophy series. Igor recently published a paper in Perspectives on Psychological Science entitled Wisdom in Context in which he puts forward 4 main Factors that foster wise thinking and this the topic that we’ll be discussing today.
Our guest today is Lisa Miracchi. Lisa is a philosophy professor at the University of Pennsylvania . She’s presently teaching a seminar entitled “Yoga and Philosophy’ in which she argues that yoga is philosophy in physical form and this will be the topic of our discussion.
In our latest round table discussion we welcome back to the podcast In our latest round table discussion we welcome back to the podcast Hári Sewell who is a trainer and consultant in equality and social justice and author of Working with Ethnicity, Race and Culture in Mental Health , ex-white supremacist and now peace activist Arno Michaelis, author of My Life After Hate and the chair of the Middle Way Society, the philosopher Robert M Ellis, author of many books including the Middle Way Philosophy series. The topic today will be prejudice, what it is, how it affects us and what we might do about it. who is a trainer and consultant in equality and social justice and author of Working with Ethnicity, Race and Culture in Mental Health , ex-white supremacist and now peace activist Arno Michaelis, author of My Life After Hate and the chair of the Middle Way Society, the philosopher Robert M Ellis, author of many books including the Middle Way Philosophy series. The topic today will be prejudice, what it is, how it affects us and what we might do about it.
Our guest today is the Australian artist Abdul Abdullah. His interdisciplinary approach is primarily concerned with the experience of the ‘other’ in society. This, and the wider topic of prejudice will be the focus of our conversation today. In the youtube version, there is also a slideshow of Abdul's work.
We are joined today by Tim Jackson who is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). He is also an award-winning playwright with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC. Tim is perhaps most well-known for his best-selling book ‘Prosperity without Growth’. He has recently published a revised second edition and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
We are joined today by Jacob Dunne. Jacob was jailed for manslaughter after a fatal one punch attack in 2011. He talks to us about his early life, his time in prison and the transformative effect of restorative justice, especially how meeting his victim's parents completely turned his life around.
“We are joined today by Ellen Bialystok, a Canadian psychologist and professor who is one of the world’s leading experts on bilingualism and this will be the topic of our conversation.”
Our guest today is Dr. Dan Siegel. Dan is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute which focuses on the development of mindsight, which teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families and communities. Dr. Siegel has published extensively for both the professional and lay audiences. He has written several New York Times bestsellers including: Mindsight, Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, and two books with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D: The Whole-Brain Child, and No-Drama Discipline. He’s going to talk to us today about his latest book Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human.
My guest today is Sugata Mitra, who is professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University in the UK. Sugata is by training a physicist with over 25 inventions to his name in the area of cognitive science and education technology. He is widely cited in works on literacy and education and is perhaps most well known as a proponent of minimally invasive education and his ‘Hole in the Wall’ experiment. He won the 2013 Ted prize for his talk ‘Build a School in a Cloud’ after which he used the prize money to set up a number of the schools. He’s here to talk to us today about how learning might be seen as an emergent phenomenon in a self organising education system which emerges as spontaneous order at the edge of chaos.
Our guest today is Jamie Holmes, a former Research Coordinator at Harvard University in the Department of Economics and a Future Tense Fellow at New America . His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Slate, Politico, the Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic and The Atlantic and he’s here to talk to us today about his new book Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing.
Our guest today is Guy Claxton. an internationally renowned writer, consultant and academic specialising in creativity, education and the mind.He is the author of more than twenty books including the best selling Building Learning Power. He’s going to talk to us today about his latest book: Intelligence in the flesh: Why your mind needs your body much more than it thinks. In the discussion we explore some of the potential implications and ramifications of this perspective with regard to the role of the brain, emotions, the theory of embodied meaning, education and the arts as well as challenging dualisms such as reason and emotion, subjectivity and objectivity and facts and values.
We are joined today by the author and essayist Chuck Klosterman who has written books and essays focused on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times Magazine. Chuck is the author of eight books including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. He talks to us today about his latest book But What If We’re Wrong: Thinking about The Present as if it were the Past as well as other aspects of having a sceptical mind-set.
We are joined today by the author and book editor Roderick Tweedy who’s here to talk to us about his book The God of the Left Hemisphere. The book explores the remarkable connections between the activities and functions of the human brain that writer William Blake termed 'Urizen' and the powerful complex of rationalising and ordering processes which modern neuroscience identifies as 'left hemisphere' brain activity. Blake's prescient insight into the nature and origins of this arguably dominant force within the brain allows him to radically reinterpret the psychological basis of the entity commonly referred to as 'God'.
Our guest today is Helena Bassil-Morozow , a cultural philosopher, writer, and lecturer in media and communication at Glasgow Caledonian University. She’s interested in ways in which we interact with our society, and particularly how our identities are shaped by our environment. Her books include 'Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd' , 'The Trickster in Contemporary Film'. Her latest book which she has co-written with Luke Hockley and which comes out in December is entitled 'Jungian Film Studies: the Essential Guide' and this is going to be the topic of our discussion.
We are joined today by Nancy L Morgan, a psychologist at a private practice in Clinical Psychology and Director of Behavioral Health at LifeMoves. Life Moves is an organization that combats homelessness in the San Mateo and Santa Clara counties of California and this will be topic of our conversation.
We are joined today by Igor Grossmann, who is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Wisdom and Research Lab based at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. His main research interest is the complex processes that enable individuals to think and act wisely. He has also done pioneering work on the development of wisdom in different cultures and was named one of the 2015 Rising Stars in the field of Psychological Science. He recently co-wrote a paper with Alex C. Huynh entitled Emotional Complexity: Clarifying Definitions and Cultural Correlates in which certain common , especially Western assumptions about having ‘mixed feelings’ are challenged
We are joined today by Matt Robert. Matt runs multiple "recovery“ oriented groups in the greater Boston area in the US. Some are open to the public, some are in detoxes, psychiatric units, shelters, etc.. He uses the platform of SMART Recovery (Self-Management And Recovery Training), and the thrust of his groups is about helping people examine their intention and motivation to change. The groups include people with substance use issues, as well as any behaviour with undesired negative consequences that build up over time and get in the way living one's life as desired. He also does this in the context of hybrid 12-Step groups that incorporate mindfulness, meditation and Buddhist philosophy.
We are joined today by Tom Gash. Tom is an advisor, researcher and writer on crime policy and government effectiveness, who helps people to think differently about the big challenges facing governments worldwide. He is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, and an expert adviser for the Boston Consulting Group. He’s going to talk to us today about his book Criminal: The Truth about Why People do Bad Things which challenges many of the assumptions and entrenched beliefs that are commonly held about crime and criminals.
In this latest member profile, Jim Champion talks to us about his background, how he became interested in science and his career as a physics teacher. He also talks about why he joined the society and his understanding of the Middle Way.
We are joined today by the religious historian and best-selling author Karen Armstrong who has been described as "arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting religion writer today" (Wikipedia). She is perhaps best known for her books on comparative religion, including A History of God, A Short History of Myth and The Spiral Staircase. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule and her latest book Fields of Blood challenges the notion that the wars are generally caused by religion. She received the TED prize in 2008 which was the impetus for the creation of The Charter for Compassion, a document which urges the peoples and religions of the world to embrace the core value of compassion. She’s going to talk to us today about what religion is, why it matters and in what way it relates to the Middle Way.
We are joined today by British author and journalist, Tobias Jones. Tobias was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, and then worked at the London Review of Books and the Independent on Sunday. He’s a best-selling author and his books include The dark heart of Italy, Utopian dreams and Blood on the Altar. He moved to Parma in Italy in 1999, returning to the UK in 2004. Jones and his wife now manage a ten acre woodland shelter near Shepton Mallet, Somerset called Windsor Hill Wood. The sanctuary is the subject of his 7th book, A Place of Refuge and will be the topic of our discussion today
We are joined today by the Welsh Journalist, documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and bestselling author Jon Ronson. He’s written nine books including Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Psychopath Test as well his most recent work So you’ve been publicly shamed , an exploration of shame in particular via social media outlets such as Twitter an this is going to be the topic of our discussion. The book is full of humour but I also found it very compassionate and wise and as you’ll see as the conversation unfolds, brave too.
We are joined today by Glyn Blackett who is a Mind – Body health coach from York in the UK. He specializes in stress management skills training, in particular using biofeedback in conjunction with the practice of mindfulness. He’s the author of the book Mind-Body Intelligence: How to manage your mind using biofeedback and mindfulness and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
My guest today is Robert Epstein, who is a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioural Research and Technology in California. He is the author of 15 books, and the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today. His books include Teen 2.0: Saving our children and families from the torment of adolescence and Parsing the Turing Test: Philosophical and methodological issues in the quest for the thinking computer. He’s going to talk to us today about why the brain is not a computer and how the computer metaphor is not only incorrect but unhelpful.
Here's the link to the Aeon article: https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer
We are joined today by Charles Kenny, who is an English/American economist and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. He’s the author of several books including Overselling the Web: Development and the internet, The upside of Down: Why the rise of the rest is good for the West and we are going to talk about his book Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding--And How We Can Improve the World Even More. In the book he argues that despite the claims that global development has failed due to the income gap between developed and developing nations growing , foreign aid is on the contrary, a powerful and effective tool to build broader global quality of life, aid money can and does work, improves people’s lives and makes the world a better and safer place.
We are joined today by Nigel Ohlson, a counsellor /psychotherapist & professional youth worker practising in South Devon in the UK. He’s also experienced in delivering Adventure Therapy based programmes and this will be the topic of our discussion.
We are joined today by Mike Rose who is a research professor in the department of education of UCLA, California. He’s the author of several books including Why School, Back to School and Possible Lives. We’re going to be talking about education and some of the themes explored in these books but we’ll be focusing in particular on his book The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker which challenges the long-held notion that people who work with their hands make up a less intelligent class.
This week’s guest is Sharon Begley. Sharon is an American journalist who is the senior science writer for Stat, the publication from The Boston Globe that covers stories related to the life sciences. Previously she was the senior health & science correspondent at Reuters, the science columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and previous to that the science editor at Newsweek. Her interests include the neuroplasticity of the brain, issues affecting science journalism and education She’s the co-author (with Jeffrey Schwartz) of The Mind and the Brain, the author of Train your Mind, Change your Brain and co-author (with Richard J. Davidson) of The Emotional Life of Your Brain which will be the topic of our discussion today.
Our guest today is Peter Block who is a consultant and speaker in the areas of organization development, community building, and civic engagement. He’s the author of several books including Another Kingdom: Departing the consumer culture, The Community: the structure of belonging and perhaps his most well-known work The Abundant community which he co-wrote with John McNight and which has now become a fully grown project in itself beyond the book. The broad themes discussed in these books will form the topic our discussion.
My guest today is Adam Briggle, who is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas. He is the author of A Rich Bioethics, co-author of Ethics and Science: An Introduction, and author of A Field Philosopher's Guide to Fracking. He recently had a joint article with the philosopher Robert Frodeman published in the New York Times entitled “When Philosophy Lost its Way’ and this will be the topic of our discussion.
My guest today is Stephen Farah who is the senior lecturer at the Centre for Applied Jungian Studies in Johannesburg, South Africa. He became passionate about Jungian psychology after experiencing it as radically life changing when he first encountered it in the late nineties. Stephen’s interest are consciousness, meaning and the individuation project. He has a BA Honours degree in philosophy from The University of the Witwatersrand and a Masters degree in Jungian and Post Jungian studies from The Centre of Psychoanalytic Studies at The University of Essex. He’s here to talk to us today about the centre, Jungian psychology, its relevance today, how we can apply it and how it might relate to the Middle Way
This week’s guest is the social psychologist and social activist Dr. Melanie Joy. Melanie is perhaps most well known for coining the term Carnism, which she popularized in her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows. She’s the founder and president of Beyond Carnism, a charitable organisation which she founded in 2010 and Carnism will be the topic of our discussion today.
The Buddhist scholar and author Stephen Batchelor talks to Susan Averbach about his new book After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age. They then move on to discussing whether the Middle Way can or should be promoted beyond the Buddhist tradition and Stephen also outlines a new initiative he has become involved in, The Bodhi College , an ethical and philosophical framework for those practising meditation and the Dharma in today’s world by drawing on the early teachings of the Buddha before they became codified into the doctrines of the different Buddhist traditions
A discussion hosted by Barry Daniel, with Susan Averbach, Robert M Ellis and Willie Grieve. If we are going to avoid using ‘faith’ as a cover word for dogmatic belief, what does it mean? What can we have faith in, and how does faith relate to the Middle Way?
Alva Noë is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His work has focused mainly on the theory of perception and consciousness with which he straddles in particular the fields of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. He’s also interested in phenomenology, the philosophy of John Dewey and the theory of art. His books include Action in Perception, Out of our Heads, Varieties of presence as well as his latest book Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature which will be the topic of our discussion today.
Our guest today is Mark Williams who is a professor of paleobiology at the University of Leicester. He’s the co-author, along with Jan Zalasiewicz of The Goldilocks Planet: The 4 billion year story of Earth's Climate and has published several peer reviewed papers on paleobiology, paleoenvironments and paleoclimates in conjunction with other researchers including his latest ‘The Anthropocene Biosphere’ which explores the impact of humans from a geological perspective on the biosphere. It also looks at how humans are potentially driving a sixth mass extinction and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
Our guest today is Ellen Langer, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the first woman ever to be tenured in psychology at Harvard. Her studies include the illusion of control, decision-making, aging and mindfulness theory and she has often been described as the mother of mindfulness. She has written many books including the best selling, Mindfulness, The Powerof Mindful Learning, On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity; Counterclockwise and the Wiley Mindfulness Handbook . She’s going to talk to us today about mindfulness, mindful health, mindful learning and the power of possibility.
Our guest today is Peter Sheath, a mental health nurse, counsellor, consultant, trainer and person in long term recovery who has been involved in the field of health and social care for many years. He has worked in a variety of mental health settings including managing acute psychiatry units, community psychiatric nursing, day centre management and nurse teaching. Peter is extremely passionate about addiction and its relationship with mental health. As a result, he has worked extensively in the third sector since moving in to substance misuse. In 2011 Peter was invited to address the United Nations Drugs Symposium and UK drugs consortium to talk specifically about recovery from addiction and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
Our guest today is Steven Heine, a Canadian professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and a leader in the field of cultural psychology. In 2010, he, along with his colleagues Joseph Henrich and Ava Norenzayan wrote the ground-breaking paper ‘The WEIRDest’ people in the world?’ with WEIRD meaning Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. The paper suggests that the view we have of the mind derived from the research of behavioural scientists is distorted due to the majority of studies in this field being done on only a small and not particularly representative sector of the human population. This will be the topic of our conversation today.
In this round table discussion, Susan Averbach, Tim Kaine and Shana Averbach discuss what they understand by feminism, how it has evolved, the progress it has made and the challenges it faces. Reversing gender roles in fiction and professional documentation is also discussed as well looking at gender equality in the work place to what degree feminism is a phenomenon of the developed world.
(In the initial exchanges the Skype audio quality is a little bit choppy, but it clears up after that)
Our guest today is Dr Marc Lewis, a developmental neuroscientist and currently a professor at the Radboud University in Nijmegen in the Netherlands. For many years his work centred on dynamic systems approaches to understanding the development of emotions and personality but recently he has perhaps become most well known for his account of his own personal experience of drug addiction Memoirs of Addicted Brain and merging that with the neuroscience of addiction. In his latest book The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is not a Disease he argues that seeing addiction as a disease is not only incorrect but also harmful and this will be the topic of our discussion today
This week the historian Christopher Beckwith talks about his latest book Greek Buddha with the chair of the society Robert M Ellis
We are joined today by David Mcraney, an internationally bestselling author, journalist, and lecturer who created the You Are Not So Smart blog, books, and podcast. David, who lives in Mississippi, cut his teeth covering Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and across the Deep South. Since then, he has been a beat reporter, editor, photographer, voiceover artist and television host. Before that, he had a varied working life, waiting tables, working construction, selling leather coats, building and installing electrical control panels, and owning pet stores. He’s here to talk to us today about his latest book ‘How to Beat your Brain’, an attempt to help us overcome our quirks and make decisions more effectively.
We are joined today by Monica Dare who is a Pilates and Alexander Technique instructor. Monica trained in London with Body Control Pilates in 1998; from there she moved to Brighton where she worked at one of the UK's leading studios for 18 months. She continued her studies in Kendal in the Lake District where she completed a three year full time training course qualifying in The Alexander Technique. She’s going to talk to us about Pilates as an integrative practice .
Joining us today is Arno Michaelis. Arno is now a peace activist, but spent the late 1980s and early 1990s deeply involved with racist skinhead organizations, and was lead singer of the hate-metal band Centurion, which sold 20,000 CDs by the mid-nineties and is still popular with racists today. Single parenthood, love for his daughter, and the forgiveness shown by people he once hated all helped to turn his life around, bringing me to embrace diversity and practice gratitude for all life. Today he’s a speaker, author of the book My Life After Hate, and very fortunate to be able to share an ongoing process of character development working with Serve 2 Unite. Leveraging an online magazine, S2U engages students creatively with a global network of peacemakers and mentors in partnership with Against Violent Extremism, The Forgiveness Project, and Over My Shoulder Foundation. He’s here to talk to us about his life, overcoming hatred, his peace work and how all this might relate to the Middle Way
We are joined today by Sarah Dickinson, who is a volunteer with Samaritans, a registered charity aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress, struggling to cope, or at risk of suicide throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. She’s going to tell us a little bit about the rationale of the organisation, what it does, how one can volunteer and how it might relate to the Middle Way?
My guest today is Hári Sewell who is the director of HS Consultancy Associates, specialists in mental health, equalities & social care. He’s the author of several books, including ‘Working with Ethnicity, Race and Culture in Mental Health’ and ‘The Equality Act 2010 in Mental Health’. He is a social worker by background with over 20 years experience. Until recently he was the Executive Director on Organisational Development in an inner-city mental health foundation trust. He was also Director of Substance Misuse services and Director of Social Care as well as leading the Race Equality programme for the National Mental Health Development. Through these roles Hári has worked to improve service provision for groups with protected characteristics. He has used his positions to advance this agenda and has earned a reputation nationally and internationally for this work. He’s going to talk to us today about race, racialization and inter-relatedness and how all this might relate to the Middle Way.
Today’s guests are Pete Goble and Rich Flanagan. Pete is a retired nurse and currently a Buddhist Health Care Chaplain. Rich is an Operating Department Practitioner, working in the NHS, specialising in anaesthetics and post-operative recovery. They’re both members of the Middle Way Society and they are here to talk today about how people perceive pain, the assumptions we make about it, how it’s influence d culturally, psychic and physical pain, attitudes and trends in dealing with pain and how this might all relate to the Middle Way.
Today’s guest is Susan Greenfield. Baroness Greenfield is a neuroscientist, writer, broadcaster and member of the House of Lords. Her research has focused on brain physiology, especially on the brain mechanisms of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. She’s also become well known as a populariser of science and has written many books including ‘Journey to the Centres of the Mind’, ‘The Private Life of the Brain’ ‘Inside the Body’ and ‘ You and Me: The Neuroscience of Identity’. She’s recently become interested in the potential impact digital technologies can have on the mind culminating in her latest book ‘Mind Change’ and this will be the topic of our discussion today.
In this latest member profile Barry Daniel talks to Susan Averbach about his life and background, why he joined the society, what other interests he has and how it has been for him producing the Middle Way Society Podcast.
This week’s guest is the environmentalist Jonathon Porritt who is the founder director of Forum for the Future, the UK’s leading sustainable development charity. He’s the former chair of the Green Party and former director of Friends of the Earth. He’s going to talk to us today about his latest book ‘The World we Made: Alex McKay's Story from 2050’ and the prospects for people engaging with the issue of climate change in general.
We are joined by the philosopher Richard Shusterman, the professor of philosophy at Florida Atlantic University. He’s the author of several books including Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life, Body Consciousness and Thinking through the Body. He’s also travelled widely and is arguably something of a polymath having held appointments in other disciplines in the humanities. For example, he taught comparative literature in Israel , he’s been the Visiting Research Professor in Aesthetics in Hiroshima, Japan and he was an associate of the École des Hautes Études in Sciences Sociales in Paris. He’s also a professional practitioner of the Feldenkrais method and he’s perhaps most known for his contributions to aesthetics and the emerging field of somaesthetics and this is what we’re going to be talking about today.
We are joined today by the chair of the Middle Way Society Robert M. Ellis who talks to us about politics and how it might relate to the Middle Way.
We are joined by Bjorn Ihler who is a peace activist, writer and filmmaker working against dogmatism, particularly in the forms of racism, hatred and violent extremism. His work is greatly founded on his experiences as a survivor of the attack on Utoya island in Norway in 2011. He’s written numerous articles for national and international newspapers and has been an inspiration to many activists through participation in conferences and organisations such as the Oslo Freedom Forum, Against Violent Extremism and the Forgiveness Project. Bjorn has a degree in Theatre and Performance Design and Technology from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Art In 2013, he collaborated in the writing of the play ‘The Events’ by David Greig, an account of a surivivor resembling the Utoya attack and he’s is currently producing the film ‘Rough Cut – Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity’.
This week's guest is Susan Averbach. Susan has a Master's Degree in Jewish Studies from Gratz College and was ordained as a rabbi by the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism last year. One of her goals as a rabbi is to work towards integrating Buddhist practice with humanistic Judaism and to promote a more Middle Way perspective.
We are joined by the renowned economist and academic, Noreena Hertz. Noreena has been described by the Observer as ‘one of the world’s leading young thinkers’, she’s the author of several best-selling books including ‘The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the death of democracy’ and The Debt Threat: How debt is destroying the developing world. She’s the Honorary Professor at the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making at University College London and is here to talk to us today about her latest book ‘Eyes Wide Open: How to make smart decisions in a confusing world’.
Evan Thompson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, is an expert in the fields of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with Western philosophy and science. He co-wrote the ground-breaking The Embodied Mind with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, which was the arguably the first book to explore the relationship between Buddhist Philosophy and cognitive science. He’s also the author of Colour Vision and Mind in Life. He’s here to talk to us today about his latest book ‘Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy’ and how it might relate to the Middle Way.
We are joined by the renowned developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik. As a leader in the field of children’s learning and development, she’s a proponent of the idea that children’s minds can help us get to grips with some of the most fundamental philosophical questions. She’s an authority on the theory of mind and also put forward the ‘theory theory’ which suggests that babies and young children learn about the world in a scientific way. She’ll be talking today about her book ‘The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds tell us about truth, love and the meaning of life’ and how this might relate to the Middle Way
We are joined today by Rod King, the founder and campaign director of ‘Twenty’s Plenty for us’ a movement set up to campaign for a default 20 mile speed limit in the UK. He’s going to talk about its rationale, the effect that it has had, the challenges it faces, how he sees it progressing and how this all might relate to the Middle Way.
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and research scientist and the author of more than 80 technical papers and numerous books. He’s perhaps most well known for his book ‘The Science Delusion’ and his morphic resonance hypothesis. These will be the topics of the discussion today as well as exploring the idea of science as an integrative practice.
Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at the University of Columbia. He’s the first recipient of the American Philosophical Association’s Prometheus Prize for his work to expand the frontiers of science and philosophy. He’s written many books including ‘Philosophy of Science: A new introduction’, ‘Preludes to Pragmatism’ and ‘The Ethical Project’. His latest book is ‘Life after Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism’ and that will be the topic of the conversation today.
Lynne Franks was the founder of one of the UK’s best-known PR consultancies in the 1970’s. She has in recent years focused her attention on women’s issues especially in regard to women’s empowerment and sustainability and this is the topic of our discussion.
The philosopher Julian Baggini talks to us about his latest book 'The Virtues of the Table‘, how our relationship with food and drink is a great way to explore what it means to be human and how to try to live conscientiously.
The difference between self and ego, why we need to avoid beliefs about the self and to work with our experiences of ego. A talk given by Robert M Ellis of the Middle Way Society on the summer retreat 2014, and also including discussion with Barry Daniel and Martin Blundell