In this episode of Mind Shift, Russell Brand and playwright Eve Ensler share their insights on spirituality. Find more on Gaia.com.

We are facing a unique crisis as our renewed vigor for attaining enlightenment clashes with our materialist based economy and fear-based politics. Is there a way we can reconcile our current systems with the new spiritual paradigms? If not, how can we reform them? Daniel Pinchbeck explores the cultural benefits of enlightenment with comedian Russell Brand and playwright Eve Ensler in this interview – Russell Brand offers his insightful perspectives on spirituality, economics and politics without abandoning his unique zeal and sense of humor. It is an entertaining and informative account on the profound benefits of individual enlightenment.

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Johnnie Ray sings “Cry” and another song on this excerpt from a 1957 episode of the short-lived variety series “The Big Record”.

by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman

Robert Lanza is one of the most respected scientists in the world—a US News & World Report cover story called him a “genius” and a “renegade thinker,” even likening him to Einstein. Lanza has teamed with Bob Berman, the most widely read astronomer in the world, to produce Biocentrism, a revolutionary new view of the universe.

Every now and then a simple yet radical idea shakes the very foundations of knowledge. The startling discovery that the world was not flat challenged and ultimately changed the way people perceived themselves and their relationship with the world. For most humans of the 15th century, the notion of Earth as ball of rock was nonsense. The whole of Western, natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change again, increasingly being forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory, and at the same time, towards doubt and uncertainty in the physical explanations of the universe’s genesis and structure. Biocentrism completes this shift in worldview, turning the planet upside down again with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around.

In this paradigm, life is not an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics.Biocentrism takes the reader on a seemingly improbable but ultimately inescapable journey through a foreign universe—our own—from the viewpoints of an acclaimed biologist and a leading astronomer. Switching perspective from physics to biology unlocks the cages in which Western science has unwittingly managed to confine itself. Biocentrism will shatter the reader’s ideas of life—time and space, and even death. At the same time it will release us from the dull worldview of life being merely the activity of an admixture of carbon and a few other elements; it suggests the exhilarating possibility that life is fundamentally immortal.

The 21st century is predicted to be the Century of Biology, a shift from the previous century dominated by physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turning the universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science with a simple idea discovered by one of the leading life-scientists of our age. Biocentrism awakens in readers a new sense of possibility, and is full of so many shocking new perspectives that the reader will never see reality the same way again.

(Amazon.com)

“Sex at Dawn irrefutably shows that what is obvious—that human beings, both male and female, are lustful—is true, and has always been so…. The more dubious its evidentiary basis and lack of connection with current reality, the more ardently the scientific inevitability of monogamy is maintained—even as it falls away around us.” — Stanton Peele, Ph.D.

A controversial, idea-driven book that challenges everything you (think you) know about sex, monogamy, marriage, and family. In the words of Steve Taylor (The Fall, Waking From Sleep), Sex at Dawn is “a wonderfully provocative and well-written book which completely re-evaluates human sexual behavior and gets to the root of many of our social and psychological ills.”

(Amazon.com)

Russell Brand is an English comedian, actor, radio host, author, and activist. Jim Breuer is a stand up comedian, actor, author, singer and host.

The group talks about everything from consciousness to group dynamics.

Thane of Hawaii

Got an email from Prosperos docent Brian Wallenstein, who is holding down the fort in Mt. Shasta, California. He mentioned Thane’s 1970ish pamphlet “Old Wine in New Bottles” which I didn’t have in my “library.” So I ordered the last one available on Amazon and read through it. It is a compilation of several letters from Thane to his students posted from various West Coast cities, all dated in the year 1936, twenty years before The Prosperos even began and ten years before I began (in my present form).

Royce Mann, 8th grader from Atlanta, GA, USA, wrote and performed this slam poem as part of a school competition. He ended up taking home first place.

Qadar (Arabic: قدر‎‎, transliterated qadar, meaning “fate”, “divine fore-ordainment”, “predestination”) is the concept of divine destiny in Islam. It is one of Islam’s six articles of faith, along with belief in the Oneness of Allah, the Revealed Books, the Prophets of Islam, the Day of Resurrection andAngels. This concept has also been mentioned in the Quran as Allah’s “Decree”.

Definition

In Islam, “predestination” is the usual English language rendering of a belief that Muslims call al-qaḍāʾ wa al-qadr. The phrase means “the divine decree and the predestination”; al-qadr derives from a root that means to measure out.

(Wikipedia.org)

The Tempest hit theaters on December 10th, 2010.

Cast: Helen Mirren, Felicity Jones, Djimon Hounsou, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Ben Wishaw, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, David Strathairn, Reeve Carney

In her big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s mystical thriller “The Tempest,” Academy Award-nominated Julie Taymor (“Across the Universe,” “Frida,” “Titus”) brings an original dynamic to the story by changing the gender of the sorcerer Prospero into the sorceress Prospera, portrayed by Oscar winner Helen Mirren (“The Queen”). Prospera’s journey spirals through vengeance to forgiveness as she reigns over a magical island, cares for her young daughter, Miranda, and unleashes her powers against shipwrecked enemies in this exciting, masterly mix of romance, tragicomedy and the supernatural.

The Tempest trailer courtesy Touchstone Pictures.