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Has the Retreat Industry Contributed to Human Regression?
Martin LeFevre: A veritable retreat and spiritual guidance industry has sprung up in the last few decades in the West and spread around the world. Apart from the ethical questions of turning spirituality into business (a practice as old as both), there is the question: To what degree are all these retreats and religious teachers […]
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Letter to a Friend About Meditation
Martin LeFevre: Perhaps because you have tried many different methods of meditation, you now see that methods are antithetical to meditation. As you said, “Meditation begins when ‘the me’ ends.” So without implying a method, how does one go from that intellectual understanding to experiencing its actuality? Here are some principles, and suggestions. They are […]
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A Birthday Wish From America For Humanity on the 4th of July
Martin LeFevre: On July 4th the United States celebrates its 247th Independence Day. Or I should say, millions of people celebrate by trying to get away, resulting in many Americans voluntarily locking themselves up in crammed airports for days because of flight delays. As a leading pundit asks, “Is America toast?” The best thing one […]
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Our View of Nature Is the Cornerstone of Our Worldview
Martin LeFevre: Our view of nature establishes our worldview, and our worldview determines our view of nature. They are not the same thing however. One’s worldview flows from one’s ideas or insights into human nature, while one’s view of nature reflects one’s ideas or insights into life, truth and God. And ideas and insights are […]
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Three Kinds of Singularity
Martin LeFevre: There are three meanings to the word “singularity” – cosmological, technological, and psychological. The first and last are real, while the second is the fever dream of technophiles. The cosmological singularity, which gave rise to the misnomer of the Big Bang, is the originating point of the universe, in which “the entire universe […]
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It’s All In Our Heads?
Martin LeFevre: In the old days it used to be said of the newspaper business: “Don’t pick a fight with an industry that buys ink by the barrel and paper by the ton.” With regard to psychiatry, one might say today, “Don’t pick a fight with an industry that pushes antidepressants by the billions.” Even […]
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An Explanation, Though It Won’t Change the Explained
Martin LeFevre: A friend writes asking to inquire together into an essential question: “I deeply question myself and with friends, what is the root cause of this disastrous course of humankind?” I understand her to mean, “when and why did man make the “wrong turn?” and “what is the root cause within us of humankind […]
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When Did Progressives Become Warmongers?
Martin LeFevre: Under the guise of being guardians of democracy, Democrats and progressives are pushing the United States toward world war. Otherwise rational voices are saying truly stupid things like, “Some of those who oppose Western aid to Ukraine just don’t see the moral equivalence with World War II.” Invoking hackneyed references to D-Day, an […]
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What Does “Doing the Work” Really Mean?
Martin LeFevre: For uncounted millennia, humans have been externally oriented. During indigenous times and in previous ages, being externally motivated was necessary for survival. Now our survival as a species depends on enough people doing the inner spadework. Even after the Industrial Revolution, when more and more people had the leisure for reflection, self-examination was […]
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Children Don’t Need To Be Conditioned
Martin LeFevre: Meditation can be defined as the process of freeing the brain from its enslavement to conditioning. I don’t practice any system of meditation for doing so, since systems, techniques and methods are themselves forms of conditioning. While still in my teens I stumbled upon passive watchfulness and active questioning, which are the […]
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AI’s Quantum Leap Demands a Quantum Leap in Human Intelligence
Martin LeFevre: The surreal hype, false hope and potential harm from AI are flooding the field with would-be philosophers. Even pundits are saying things like, “To make good on its promise, artificial intelligence needs to deepen human intelligence.” But how can intelligence be deepened when people don’t know what it is? There is the idea […]
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The Ending of Psychological Thought
Martin LeFevre: The afternoon is hazy, probably from the huge wildfires in Canada, and Sentinel Rock in the canyon beyond town is partially obscured. The reasoning mind chooses not to drive to Upper Park, but when upon reaching the deciding point, I continue driving from a deeper place without choosing to do so. I […]
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Teleology Without Goals and Ends
Martin LeFevre: Science, which is rightly and necessarily based on materialism, has discounted and dismissed teleology. It has been simplistically viewed as a doctrine explaining phenomena in terms of goals or ends, but philosophically, it’s much more subtle. Though it is not in the purview of science, it’s philosophically valid to ask (irrespective of […]
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The World Is Not the Earth
Martin LeFevre: Back when I taught preschool children, or was often around little ones, I would sometimes point to a tree, a bird in flight, a flower – and ask, did people make that? They would laugh and say no. Then I’d point to a building, a car or an airplane – and ask, did […]
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Why Science Can’t Save Us
Martin LeFevre: Though I’m sometimes accused of it, I’ve never understood why anyone would try to save this mad, dark world. It’s not about saving the world; it’s about saving oneself and humanity, which are essentially the same thing. And science cannot do so. Why? Because knowledge, however accurate and extensive, still requires application, and […]
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