“Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I’ll be mad.”
~ Rumi
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, commonly known as Rumi, was a Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order. His family hailed from Balkh. Rumi is an influential figure in Sufism, and his thought and works loom large both in Persian literature and mystic poetry in general. Wikipedia
“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”
~ Thomas More
Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as a martyr and saint, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian and Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to May 1532. Wikipedia
There is a cosmic web that invisibly links us to our fellow practitioners. We perceive it only when awake and remain ignorant of it whilst asleep. Their presence is not incidental to ours; our efforts — or lack of efforts — mutually reinforce each other….
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Vincenzo recently asked me how to help grow the Italian community. Although this type of question has come up throughout all communities from the beginning of this school, for whatever reason, it struck me differently this time.
There is a cosmic web that invisibly links us to our fellow practitioners. We perceive it only when awake and remain ignorant of it whilst asleep. Their presence is not incidental to ours; our efforts — or lack of efforts — mutually reinforce each other. Although it works mysteriously, it is also quite grounded: if I witness someone else making extra effort, or sacrificing something I know to be dear to them, those efforts put more pressure on me to work seriously. And on the other hand, if I witness someone making excuses and giving justifications, I am tempted to do the same.
Ouspensky described this web in the following way: “A man can rise to the next step of the staircase only by putting another man in his place… this is a general principle… Putting people in one’s place is school-work, that is, the joint efforts of all the people belonging to the school. All school-work is organized with this purpose in view… to put new people in the place occupied by the people who are there at present and in this way to help them rise to other steps.”
In a comment during our Enneagram and Three Poisons sessions, Eva spoke of experiencing a special state in which “there was no sense of ‘I’ to judge things as good or bad…” It is exactly this illusory sense of ‘I’ that values one’s own development so much more than the development of others. Imagine not having a particular interest in ‘my own development’ over the development of anyone else; of being as interested in the progress of others as in one’s own.
Certainly, such selflessness is the best foundation for external consideration, and the more we are able to experience it, the more our communities will grow — both through our being more helpful to others, and through the thick cosmic web we form.
ABOUT THE SCHOOL Our projects are undertaken with the understanding that a school must give back. It must harness the talent and resources of its members to form an expression that can outlast them.Learn more about the School of the Old New Method
WATCH AN INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOP Learn more about the Old New Method – Watch recordings of our online gatherings that introduce the knowledge and practical methods we use.Available through purchase. View Workshops ABOUT THE FOUNDER I had no structural foundation at my disposal, no institution, no location, no following—only the conviction that these truths were pertinent to contemporary seekers… Drawing inspiration from the agricultural metaphor embedded in ancient wisdom, I arranged the central concepts into twelve monthly labors, creating a yearly cycle of symbolic cultivation tasks… Soon, a hundred people committed to practicing this cyclical teaching on a regular basis. This was the beginning of my school.” Read the full autobiographical note by Asaf Braverman ABOUT THE TEACHING Nature develops us only up to a certain point and then leaves us unfinished, just as it creates wheat but not bread, milk but not butter, grapes but not wine…Learn more about our teaching
“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry, known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Source: Wikipedia
The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse in Leo acts as a powerful cosmic accelerator. Metaphysically, it symbolizes a profound shadow-side reset, marrying the fiery, heart-centered, and ego-driven energy of Leo with a temporary blackout of conscious vitality, forcing a deep reckoning with personal authenticity, courage, and inner truth. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The Leo Archetype and the Ego
Identity and the Crown: Leo governs the sun, the heart, self-expression, and pride. When the moon completely blocks the sun, it creates an eclipse of the ego. [1, 2, 3]
Shedding False Masks: Metaphysically, this asks you to look at where your self-worth depends on external applause rather than internal sovereignty. [1]
Embracing Vulnerability: True Leo courage is exposed not by always shining, but by allowing your unpolished, authentic self to exist even in the dark. [1]
The Shadowed New Beginning
Cosmic Fast-Tracking: Unlike a standard new moon, a total solar eclipse acts as a portal for fated doors to open and close.
Stepping Out of the Dark: Because the light of the sun is momentarily stolen, it represents a sacred pause—a fertile void where intentions planted now take root invisibly before manifesting by the next major lunar shift.
Creative Rebirth: The energies favor pivoting toward passions, playfulness, and reclaiming the uninhibited joy of the inner child. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
If you’d like to explore how this impacts you personally, tell me your zodiac sign or rising sign so we can look at which life area this Leo eclipse activates for you.
August 12 Solar Eclipse: A Shadowed New Beginning
(theseasonalsoul.com)
What Is the August 12 Solar Eclipse Asking You to Begin?
Late Summer is a threshold season.
The first harvest has arrived. Something has grown. Something has been forming in your life, whether you’ve been tending it consciously or not. And now, as the light begins to subtly change, the energy of the year starts to turn.
We are not fully in autumn yet. But we are no longer in the bright outwardness of early summer either. This is the long, golden in-between — a season of ripening, discernment, preparation, and reorientation. The solar eclipse arrives in the middle of that threshold, intensifying the quiet sense that something is shifting beneath the surface.
The August 12 solar eclipse arrives in late summer, bringing the energy of a New Moon magnified — a shadowed beginning, a moment of transformation, and an invitation to notice what is stirring beneath the surface. Spiritually, this eclipse invites you to pause, release what has run its course, and return to deeper alignment with yourself before the season begins to turn inward.
What the August 12 Solar Eclipse Means Spiritually
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Spiritually, a solar eclipse is like a new moon magnified. It brings the energy of new beginnings, but not always in a clear or obvious way. It is a shadowed beginning — a moment when ordinary visibility is disrupted, and something deeper has a chance to emerge.
Solar eclipses only occur during new moons. It is a moment when the moon moves between the earth and the sun, casting shadow across the light. For a little while, what we usually see is hidden. The brightness dims. The familiar shape of the day is interrupted.
And spiritually, that interruption matters. Because sometimes the light we are used to seeing by is not the same as clarity. Sometimes, when the usual brightness fades, we can finally notice what has been hidden.
During a solar eclipse, the sun gives way to darkness. Something unseen is being revealed. Something beneath the surface may begin to stir. Something in you may be ready to step forward, even if you do not yet know exactly what it is.
A solar eclipse can signal a deeper turning point — the beginning of a larger chapter, a shift that may continue unfolding over weeks or months. This solar eclipse is not asking you to rush forward. It is asking you to pause, listen, and notice what is beginning in the dark.
A New Beginning You May Not Fully Understand
We often think new beginnings should feel exciting, obvious, or clean. A door opens. A path appears. A clear vision arrives. But eclipse beginnings are not always like that.
Eclipses happen in shadow, so they rarely reveal everything at once. The ending and the beginning may not be completely clear yet. You may not know what is shifting. You may not have language for what is changing. You may simply feel more tender, more restless, more aware that something inside you is asking for your attention.
That does not mean you are doing it wrong. It may mean you are standing at the beginning of a transformation that is still unfolding beneath the surface.
This is especially true in late summer. In nature, fruit does not ripen all at once. It forms slowly. It gathers sweetness over time. It needs warmth, attention, and patience before it is ready to be harvested. The same can be true for your own becoming.
Something may be ripening in you now that is not ready to be named yet. Something may be asking for more space, more honesty, more light.
What Is Trying to Get Your Attention?
During a solar eclipse, the earth moves into the sun’s shadow, making it a good time to get a glimpse of our own shadows. And that feels like the heart of this eclipse: Not fear. Not urgency. Not prediction. Just attention.
What is arising in you right now? What are you noticing? What feels louder than usual, or harder to ignore?
Sometimes our shadows reveal themselves through big emotional moments. But often, they speak in smaller ways: avoidance, resentment, exhaustion, longing, envy, restlessness, or the quiet ache of knowing something is no longer aligned.
A good clue into your shadow is to notice what irritates you. Where do you feel annoyed or extra frustrated right now? What is getting under your skin? Is there something deeper this feeling is trying to show you?
This does not mean every difficult feeling needs to become a project. It simply means your inner life is speaking. And this eclipse invites you to listen.
The Shadow Can Be Revealing
In the shadowed pause, something deeper can be felt.
The solar eclipse is not only about what is hidden. It is also about what is ready to be revealed.
This late summer solar eclipse is about letting yourself shine, so you can transform and start a new chapter more aligned with your soul. That does not have to mean a dramatic reinvention. It may be much quieter than that.
Maybe you’re asking for more honesty in one area of your life. Maybe you are ready to stop performing a version of yourself that feels too small. Maybe something you have been carrying is becoming too heavy to keep pretending it is fine. Maybe an old pattern, habit, or way of operating has shown you all it can teach you. Maybe the mask is beginning to loosen.
During the eclipse, darkness falls. The part of us that is usually visible — the self we show the world, the self that functions and manages and keeps things together — is briefly obscured. And in that shadowed pause, something deeper can be felt: your inner light, the true self beneath the noise.
This is not about forcing yourself to become more authentic overnight. It is about noticing where you are being invited back into alignment.
Where does your life feel out of alignment right now? Where are you ready to be more honest with yourself? What part of you is asking to come forward?
What Might Be Ready to Fall Away
Every beginning also asks for a release.
That is one reason eclipse energy can feel intense. Not because it is here to punish us, but because it can make it harder to ignore what is already shifting.
During an eclipse, shadows emerge so we can see what needs releasing: old patterns, old stories, old habits, old ways of protecting ourselves that once made sense, but no longer support who we are becoming.
And because this eclipse arrives in late summer, the question becomes even more seasonal: What has grown this year that you are ready to carry forward? And what has run its course?
The first harvest has already invited us to notice what has been forming. But harvest is never only about gathering. It is also about discernment. We begin to see what is nourishing, what is ready, what still needs care, and what will not come with us into the next season.
This solar eclipse may not give you all the answers. But it may show you the next honest thing.
How to Work With This Solar Eclipse Gently
You do not need to do anything dramatic for this eclipse. You do not need to make a huge decision, force a breakthrough, or understand everything immediately. In fact, this may be a better time for quiet attention than decisive action.
Let the eclipse be a sacred pause before the harvest.
Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Light a candle if you would like, or simply close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Let this be your way of saying: This moment matters. I’m here for it.
Use these prompts as a gentle way to work with the solar eclipse. You do not need perfect answers. Let your responses be honest, unfinished, and alive.
Ask yourself:
What is coming up for me right now? What feels like it is trying to get my attention?
Where do I feel annoyed, tender, restless, or unusually activated? What might this be showing me?
Have any old stories, habits, or ways of operating been revealing themselves lately?
What new seed would I like to plant in the dark?
A Quiet Seed in the Dark
If you would like to close your reflection with a simple act, write down one word or phrase that captures what you are ready to grow into. Fold it up and place it somewhere meaningful — on your altar, in your journal, under your pillow, or somewhere you will come across it again.
Let it be a quiet seed of something new beginning.
You do not have to know how it will grow. You do not have to understand the whole path yet.
This is the work right now: to honor what is beginning in the dark, to listen for what is trying to emerge, and to trust that transformation can begin long before you can fully see it.
Late summer reminds us that growth does not always arrive as certainty. Sometimes it begins as a subtle shift. A shadowed knowing. A quiet return to yourself.
And beneath the surface, something sacred may already be taking root.
What This Solar Eclipse Might Mean for You
If there is one message this eclipse carries, it is this:
You do not need to become someone new. You only need to recognize who you have become.
The growth of summer has already been happening. The lessons have already been unfolding. The seeds have already been planted.
This eclipse offers a brief pause in the brightness — a chance to gather yourself before the season turns. A chance to notice what is ripening, honor your growth, and begin the next chapter with greater intention.
As late summer slowly gives way to harvest season, trust that you do not need to force what comes next.
Ralston College and Jonathan Pageau Jul 23, 2026 The Ralston College Podcast Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this second lecture from our recent symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, theologian and iconographer Jonathan Pageau asks: Who, or what, does AI serve? By drawing on mythology, scripture, symbolism, and poetry, he argues that the questions raised by AI directly concern human purpose and meaning. Through the stories of Prometheus, the Holy Grail, Moloch, and the Tower of Babel, Pageau unpacks the deepest questions raised by AI, calling on us to recognize what technology reveals about ourselves and the civilization we are building. Recorded at Ralston College in May 2026, this event brought together leading thinkers including Iain McGilchrist, Jonathan Pageau, and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself. If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy The Holy Grail (Arthurian Legend) Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene Scott Alexander’s Meditations on Moloch Allen Ginsberg’s Howl Alfred North Whitehead Simone Weil Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning – Chapters — 00:00:00 – Opening Remarks 00:01:06 – What AI Founders are Saying 00:08:12 – The Holy Grail 00:14:10 – What Ends is Technology Serving? 00:18:52 – AI is not Self-Organizing 00:21:04 – Moloch 00:29:37 – Why Does AI Have a Personality? 00:34:01 – Prometheus 00:40:20 – Closing Remarks: Sacrifice as Preparation 00:43:12 – Will AI Effectively Model the Right Hemisphere of the Brain? 00:45:44 – Should We Be Pessimists or Optimists? 00:49:06 – Can We Learn From Examples of De-escalation? 00:54:45 – Are There Uses of AI That Expand Our Humanity? 00:58:38 – The State of Non-Propositional Knowledge 01:06:04 – Concluding Remarks
Humor has quite a lot to do with play . . . The Latin root of “humor” is “umor,” meaning liquid or fluid. Humor is something that flows [and therefore] resembles water itself . . . Another important part of play is a sense of wonder . . . Play offers the leeway to let images, thoughts, and ideas turn things upside down, inside out . . . Play is, I hold, an attitude, not only an activity. (Joan Erickson, “The Importance of Play in Adulthood,” 51-64)
Hasidic tales about in which individuals who felt lost, alone, or abandoned spiritually were able to regain hope and direction through personal guidance conveyed in a dream. Such guidance could be highly specific: a directive to travel to an unfamiliar locale and there wait for an epiphany to break stagnation and reenergize one’s soul. Or the advice could be broad and temporally open-ended.
“In my own notes, I had at first labeled this defense the ‘fear of one’s own greatness’ or the ‘evasion of one’s destiny’ or the ‘running away from one’s own ‘best talents.’ So often we run away from the responsibilities dictated (or rather suggested) by nature, by fate, even sometimes by accident, just as Jonah tried–in vain–to run away from his fate.” (Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 37)
[A]s adults, we likewise forged close friendships with those committed to helping new generations acquire the knowledge, skills, and wisdom necessary for building a better world. In contemporary psychology, this trait is called generativity, first identified by the Danish-Jewish psychologist Erik Erikson in the early 1950s.
Developed through his close association with the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli in the 1940s to 1950s, Jung suggested that in such occurrences [synchronicities], the very forces of time and space lose their boundaries or become relativistic–that is, causality disappears.
Forming Your Kvittel
Take a sheet of paper and write the names of the following persons if applicable–and they are alive:
Your mother Your father Each grandparent Your spouse (or current spouse if previously married) Each of your children Each of your grandchildren Each of your siblings Each of your closest friends–romantic or otherwise Each extended family member to whom you feel close (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.) Yourself
Now next to each name, write one sentence on what this person currently needs the most–in your opinion. The need can be material (financial, occupational), emotional-social, health-physical, or spiritual. . . .
Ralston College Jul 21, 2026 The Ralston College Podcast Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this opening lecture from Ralston College’s symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, Dr Iain McGilchrist traces a line of questions concerning the nature of intelligence, embodiment, wisdom, and the soul in an age increasingly defined by mechanistic thinking and the rise of large language models. Drawing on neuroscience, literature, theology, music, and myth, he explores what it means to understand beyond the constraints of reductionist accounts that view the human being as a computational information processor. In this wide-ranging and dynamic talk, he invites us to consider, as deeply as we can, the essence of our humanity. Recorded at Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, this event brought together leading thinkers including Jonathan Pageau and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself. At 23:34, listen to this music, which was appreciated during the live event by Dr McGilchrist: • J.S. Bach: Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Chris… If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: E. M. Forster: The Machine Stops Isaiah Berlin Plato David Bohm Ludwig Wittgenstein Gabriel Marcel Homer William Shakespeare: Othello William Ernest Henley: Invictus Nelson Mandela William Wordsworth: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey Thomas Tallis Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Tomás Luis de Victoria William Byrd Emil Cioran Johann Sebastian Bach Eugene Gendlin George Gaylord Simpson Galileo Galilei Peter Medawar Niels Bohr Joseph Pieper V. S. Ramachandran D. H. Lawrence Laozi: Tao Te Ching George Steiner Martin Heidegger Hannah Arendt John Milton: Paradise Lost Saint Paul: Epistle to the Ephesians Onondaga Nation Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning – Chapters — 00:00 – Introduction 08:56 – Lecture Begins: What is AI? 13:10 – Propositional Knowledge vs Experiential Knowledge 16:16 – Body vs Soul 19:44 – The Soul 28:07 – The Limitations of Scientific Cognition 32:38 – Wisdom 35:12 – Non-Doing and Surrender 45:00 – Lucifer and 49:49 – Transhumanism 53:23 – Closing Remarks
Me: What did David Bohm say about the the endarkenment?
Google AI Overview
In his 1980 lecture and writings on “Knowledge as Endarkenment,” the physicist and philosopher David Bohm argued that accumulated human knowledge is frequently an active form of “misenarking” or self-deception. Instead of bringing clarity, our rigid collective thoughts and memory-driven assumptions lock us into cycles of fragmentation, conflict, and psychological blindness. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The Core Idea of Endarkenment
Active Misinformation: Bohm proposed that our pool of collective knowledge is thoroughly infected with unexamined assumptions, biases, and a false sense of separation between the observer and the observed. [1, 2]
The Trap of the Ego: When people make mistakes driven by these fractured frameworks, they do not question the underlying thought process; instead, they blame others or double down on the error, which compounds human suffering. [, 2]
Accumulated Memory vs. Living Insight: Real understanding requires breaking free from habitual mental patterns. True perception cannot happen when the mind merely reacts mechanically from dead memory and old information. [1]
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Jul 25, 2026 James Tunney, LLM, is an Irish barrister who has lectured on legal matters throughout the world. He is a poet, a scholar, and author of The Mystery of the Trapped Light: Mystical Thoughts in the Dark Age of Scientism plus The Mystical Accord: Sutras to Suit Our Times, Lines for Spiritual Evolution. His paintings have been shown in galleries in Scandinavia and London.His website is http://www.jamestunney.com. Here he describes the history of the transhumanist movement, with a particular focus on its development in the 1920s – and a view to understanding both proponents and critics. On the positive side, the movement seeks to enhance the human lifespan and human capacities. On the negative side it sometimes treats humans as machines, perhaps even inferior to machines, or perhaps as cogs in a greater machine – denying conscious sovereignty and spirituality. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on January 30, 2021)
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