27: Jorge Ferrer on Transpersonal Psychology, Community Living, and the Sexual Revolution

Jorge Ferrer
Jorge Ferrer Podcast

California Institute of Integral Studies
Esalen Institute
Participation and The Mystery, Transpersonal Essay In Psychology, Education and Religion
Love and Freedom: Transcending Monogamy and Polyamory
Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines
2012: Time for Change
Charles Eisenstein
Transpersonal Psychology
Jung
Mahesh Maharishi
Chogyam Trungpa
Freud
Maslow
Descartes
Michelangelo
Krishmurti
Biomimetics
Susan Bordo
Esperide Ananas
Damanhur
Auroville
Tamera
Dunbar Number
Johan Hari
Chris Williamson
Louise Perry
Mary Harrington
Nina Power
Cheap Sex
Aldous Huxley
Ken Wilbur
Joseph Cambell
Ramana Maharishi
Gangaji
Anton Bilton
Arrival
Stan Grof
Christian Jochnick

Giancarlo: [00:00:00] Hello, hi, welcome to this new episode of the Mango TV podcast. Today we have Jorge Ferrer. Jorge Ferrer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, author, and educator. He was a professor of psychology for more than 20 years at California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, where he also served as chair of the Department of East West Psychology.

Jorge is the author of dozens of articles and several books on psychology, education, religious studies, and [00:01:00] intimate relationship, including Participation and the Mystery, transpersonal essay in psychology, education, and religion. and love and freedom, transcending monogamy and polyamory. Jorge was a member of the Esalen Institute Center for Theory and Research, where he also taught workshops and embodied spirituality.

Jorge received the Fetzder Presidential Award for his seminal work on consciousness studies and was selected as an advisor to the Religions for Peace Organization of the United Nations. Learn more at dot, dot, dot, Jorge Ferrer dot com. Welcome Jorge. So Jorge is the, um, is a friend of mine and it’s a little bit my go to person for anything academic.

And I like to call him like a scholar in residence at Mango TV podcast, because as some of you might know, Mangusa production started, you know, maybe 20 years ago now with exploring psychedelics [00:02:00] and personal transformation. With the two documentary, Neurons to Nirvana and 2012 Time for Change, exploring personal transformation and how global transformation come from personal transformation.

So that was 20 years ago. And since then, this two topic has evolved in more interest, but all around this idea of personal development, psychology, the integration between mind, body and psyche. how to live a more harmonious life, how to live in society, how to prepare for a third millennium, for a more beautiful world that our heart knows is possible as Charles Eisenstein says.

So as you heard from her bio, Jorge is the perfect candidate to elaborate on all the topics dear to Mango TV. But first, let me ask you a very personal question. So who is Jorge Ferrer today? What turns you on, what upsets you, what are your beliefs, what, who are you today? 

Jorge: Thank you Giancarlo for the [00:03:00] invitation and for being here with me.

And what I would say to like what’s unfolding in my life in the last few years is a big shift in the sense that for many years I was in academia and my intention these days is to reach more people. When you’re at academic Books you just read, academics, librarians, and a few students, but most people in the world, you know, don’t read academic books.

So in my last books I’ve been trying to be more, more personal, more down to earth, especially as writing our topics that’s an intimate relationships and and so forth. So that’s one shift. And the other shift also that is happening is like, you not been working more also from, from the bottom up, so to speak, in trends of catalyzing transformation through workshops through.

Teachings through podcasts, but also there is like a big shift to also start trying to work, having an impact in like a higher levels of influence and powers have been associated recently with the Mobius executive leadership that works with governments and corporations who are also trying to effect change at that [00:04:00] level, top down.

Giancarlo: Amazing. But so. You know, forgive me for asking you something a little bit like basic because, you know, my goal with the podcast is to try to, you know, simplify and popularize, you know, difficult concepts. So especially here in Ibiza, there’s a lot of talk about, you know, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, other type of psychedelic, transpersonal, transpersonal psychology.

personal development, life coaching. Can you try to put a little bit of order in all these terms, even from, you know, from an historical point of view, to give us a little bit of a history of, you know, how, when psychology started, how is it changing due to recent scientific discovery, like with the fMRI machine, the full moon network, how is transpersonal psychology been, how was it born, how was pretty much ignored, how it might have a comeback as, as a put your professor hat on now [00:05:00] for 10 minutes to clarify all these terms.

Jorge: Sure. Well, transpersonal psychology was born in the late sixties in 1968. And the transpersonal psychology was born of the influence of three different currents. On the one hand was like some currents in Western psychology, especially that psychology Jungian and humanistic psychology and human potential movement that had started before in a silent Institute.

and other areas. That’s one. And then the other was like the coming into the West of the Eastern gurus, uh, Harish Mahesh Yogi and the Beatles, Yogi and Trumpa, especially kind of Advaita, Hindu and Buddhists. But the third one that is very important is connected to your interest is the whole counter cultural movement and their own psychedelic experimentation.

Giancarlo: Yeah. So, because you know, you, you took for granted a lot of things that, you know, maybe go back to the three origin of transpersonal. Maybe we just explain a little bit what that’s Jungian means. What does, you know, the Eastern guru, where abouts, like you were talking with [00:06:00] an audience of 10 years old, or maybe 14.

Jorge: Okay. Jungian psychology was born from the, depth psychological tradition. Jung was a disciple of Freud, but he expanded the understanding of like the psyche into the more collective unconscious. So that’s in itself like a transpersonal movement going beyond individual psychology to a more collective psychology and how that collective psychology and what he called the archetypes influence personal psychology.

So that was one of his key Key insights. And then the, you know, in the 60s, you know, we, we witnessed like this proliferation of like many Eastern gurus, like teachers from India, teachers, Tibetan lamas, and that coming into the West and, and became really popular also with the counterculture. Something very key here is that many of the hippies, and I see this You know, in a positive way, because this term today is kind of has other connotations.

Many of the hippies in the sixties that were experimenting with psychedelics, they were already reading Eastern philosophy and they start [00:07:00] making the connections, start realizing, wow, some of the states of contemplative states that are described in this literature are very similar, if not identical, of things who are experimenting ourselves with LSD, for example.

So transpersonal psychology is in a way like, like. took all that confluence and kind of systematized that confluence developing theoretical frameworks to understand all how all that happened in a developmental continuum like transpersonal psychology is like what is telling us bottom line is like you can grow more than what’s Culture and society have told you.

Culture and society tell us, you know, you become like a rational, egoic personality and, and so forth. But transpersonal psychology tells you you’re also a spiritual being and it’s a developmental thing. You can really, if you continue growth, growing, you move towards self realization, as our Han Maslow, one of the founders of transpersonal psychology stated.

And self realization is like what happened or the that happened when you have all other [00:08:00] basic needs covered. physiological needs, belonging needs, self esteem. He realized that people move towards self actualization and also they start having also what he called peak experiences that also he associated with some of those states in the eastern tradition like Satori and Zen.

In a way Maslow also was one of the persons who also started making this kind of universalist claims that we’re gonna, I think, talk later about. 

Giancarlo: I see, I see. My, where does this, you know, pressure for this, you know, rational, detached, problem solving approach to life, it comes from competition and private property and neoliberal capitalism, or is more rooted in Descartes, the glorification of mind?

How did we get into this very, uh, intellectual states. 

Jorge: Yes. My sense that there are many different kind of like causes or factors involved in this, but I would say that one of the main ones is like the great success of science, the great success of [00:09:00] technological science and rational science, like in a way it has such a liberating impact in the modern Western world that was kind of like constrained by this very dogmatic religious approaches that, that prevented people from, from having developing like free inquiry into the world.

And also free art, Michelangelo was kind of censored as well. So in a way like a science kind of like help so many people over the many centuries, like to free themselves from those constraints. And that was extremely liberating. And that’s why like science is very enthroned today. You know, we go to scientific experts all the time.

And of course, It’s a good thing that they are there, helping us with their expert knowledge. But at the same time, it’s like if you go to, if you see kind of any curriculum of any kind of university, it’s very, it’s all the, all the teachings, all the education is very cognizantric. It’s just, you know, tuned to develop the rational mind of the students and the critical mind of the students.

So there is not much education for the [00:10:00] heart. There is not much education for differences of consciousness. There is not much education for the body. And that’s a problem. Why? Well, it’s a problem because we start living in our heads. We start living in our heads in a disembodied human beings. And that is what kind of loss capitalists pray from.

Because whenever you’re living in your heads, you disconnect yourself from from just embodiment, your sensual embodiment. You just conserve your disconnect yourself from a sense of being fully alive here. And therefore you forget yourself. And you need more things and then you’re going to self indulgence and not towards nobility.

Giancarlo: Yes, but let’s, let’s stay on this a little bit longer because I can hear a lot of, you know, secular, materialistic, you know, Newtonian, Cartesian, which is basically pretty much our paradigm today saying, you know, what is nonsense about this? I live in my mind, which, you know, I’m a thinking being and And, and I’m very, and I’m very happy and it’s very important [00:11:00] and, you know, my body is fine.

I do sport, I go running. But so what would you argue to this, this objection? 

Jorge: Well, my sense is there is something very different from like, um, you know, like deciding from a mental perspective, what’s good for my body, what’s good for, than to living yourself as a multidimensional being with your heart, your instincts and your sexuality and your body and your mind.

are like same partners co creating your life. And that’s what we have not been able to do because we haven’t not received education to do so. In a way, if you, if you, if you notice like a most Western psychotherapy, it’s not much done emotional education. People learn to identify their emotions, to express them, to receive them.

So there is that there. And of course, today we are, you already are seeing like, you know, developments towards a more holistic education, even in children, you know, there is mindfulness, there’s emotional intelligence in the schools. There’s mindfulness practices, uh, starting to become, uh, part of [00:12:00] education.

So I think that even from a more missing perspectives, people are already recognizing that there is much more than the rational mind and that fulfilling human life and a caring human life. And that’s what we see as well needs more care requires more than just being super smart. 

Giancarlo: And also I feel that the problem with the mind and the intellect is that it gets conditioned and shaped by your environment, your biography.

And sometimes You get conditioned by unpleasant event or even traumatic event and, and, and, and they stay there. 

Jorge: Exactly. 

Giancarlo: And so, and so, you know, people are not, most people are not aware, but you start developing some sort of like, you know, like some neurological knots or neurological triggers. That, that get reinforced in your life and it’s very subliminal, [00:13:00] you know, you’ll get this first traumatic event and then you, you know, you put yourself in a situation to relieve it again.

And don’t, Krishnamurti was talking about the constellation of the trauma. It’s not just one, it’s the predisposition. And then you end up finding yourself at age 30, 40, 50, and you realize that you lived all this life with some sort of a, an egoic armor that has prevented to feel those notes. 

Jorge: Yes. 

Giancarlo: So to what extent.

Going out and then some people get get, you know, really enslaved by the mind. You know, they say that the mind is a great master is a great servant, but a terrible must. But so to what extent getting out of the mind into your heart into your gut and maybe took a little bit of the science now about the heart and the gut.

to be able to give this intellect a break in a way. 

Jorge: Well, as modern neuroscience has taught us that the heart has its own brain, there’s [00:14:00] plenty, like thousands and thousands of like neurons are connected to the heart that are connected to the brain. And also philosophers of mind has also made that connection, Damasio and many others The heart and the mind are like really interconnected and that many of the supposedly rational decisions that we think we take are also very influenced by our emotions.

So in a way, like this new movement towards a greater awareness and greater integration is also both making us more aware. phenomenologically experientially of all these connections, but also to give us like the tools to start like in the world, not only as like disembodied heads, but as whole human beings who also have different ways of knowing.

And the knowledge of the heart is different than the knowledge of the mind. different than the knowledge of the body. So why don’t we, you know, approach problems, both in our personal life, but also in a global scale, not only from this kind of rational mind, but with all those sorts of wisdom that we have, our instinctive [00:15:00] world, our sexuality, and that life energy contains the wisdom of the instinctive life, that kind of wisdom that spawn, um, the fauna and flora in all its diversity before the emergence of self conscious human beings.

We can connect with that wisdom as well that has like the codes of life and apply it also to many of the problems in many ways. Like you can see this tendency out of the, in like the disciplines of by mimetics today, you know, as an, if you’re familiar with it, like by mimetics is like a, it’s like a new tendency in different kind of life sciences, but also sciences and robotics and everything like to, to look at nature as a referent.

to solve problems that we haven’t been able to solve. Nice. That was a little bit back. Mr. Fuller idea, right? Yeah. He was the origin of 

Giancarlo: that. Studying nature operating principle and try to copy them. Exactly. The problem when you live in, you know, contemporary societies, mostly in the West, but everywhere now is that the tendency, you know, I grew up with my [00:16:00] father saying that, you know, real men don’t cry and, you know, never explain, never complain this glorification of.

The insensitive man really, and, and, and to a certain extent, now there’s been also passed to the woman because the woman in career, but so how do you, you know, first question is, do you think that, you know, this. Paradigm is changing. And two, we can start talking maybe off of community. To what extent do you believe that implementation of a new paradigm where there is a more harmonious integration between the mind, the heart and the gut is possible?

maybe through 

Jorge: like minded group of individual. Yes. Two comments there. Like the first one would be like that shift of paradigm that we are speaking about. We need to also understand that this is a shift from a very patriarchal paradigm into a more egalitarian paradigm. And that needs to go through [00:17:00] several ways of feminists to compensate thousands of years.

Probably even more of a patriarchal culture around the world, even in indigenous culture. So this is important. Like there was this philosopher called Susan Bordeaux wrote this book, the flight from objectivity, like, uh, unveiling revealing, like the patriarchal underpinnings of the car thinking, no. So this is one part, no.

And then coming back to the second part about community, my sense that community is one of, it’s a category. Growth Catalyst. I’ve lived in community for 10 years in Berkeley, California. Now I’m here living in community. So conscious communities in which people are really trying to work together for different things, but also Live together in conscious ways, you learn so much.

I mean, you can have blind spots and your partner or your wife can point them to them and you are like, well, whatever. But when like one, two, three, four, five people in your community who live with you and knows you well, mirror that blind spot, it’s [00:18:00] like that has like a force and you cannot like say, no, you are all wrong.

Giancarlo: Yes. But so the precondition is that you develop a sense of trust and love among the community because then you don’t feel to be exposed by exactly 

Jorge: stranger. Absolutely. That’s important is like respect, love, loving, mirroring. It’s not, it’s not like really like going after people like a nightmare. No. And the other part of the community, there are many dimensions.

One is ecological. Of course, it’s much more sustainable. You spend less things, you share a washing machine, you know, like, you know, the whole nuclear family that is also coming together with capitalistic ethos and also patriarchal ethos, you know, the wife at home, the man is working out there and also doing their own things, but also in the nuclear family situation.

Every single unit has the TV, has the washing machine, has, you know, it’s like, and this of course has benefited tremendously the industries [00:19:00] that are producing those products. If you look at this, like some studies like in the States, looking at the industry of advertisement from the 1930s and 40s into the 80s and you can see like the shift, you know, all this advertisement had like the mother, the father and the two kids and the Behind it was like a powerful message like going into the unconscious of people that that was the way to live And it’s not the way we have lived for millennia So no wonder people feel isolated and also no wonder people also have a lot of problems Like even even when there is genuine love like living together And we can also raise questions, is this the best for children?

Because children, when they’re growing up, like to be in contact with many different adults and other children, they develop more emotional intelligence. They have to guess the mental states of more people. So they develop empathy, more and more intelligence, are more effective people later in the world.

Giancarlo: Yeah. This is so interesting. But so again, can you put up your [00:20:00] teacher’s head for a second? So when did we start to leave community, the tribal setting, and start going in individual housing? We started with, uh, probably with agriculture and private property. We start accumulating. When, when in the world we start?

Jorge: Well, I think there were different waves, different stages of that. Definitively with the advent of agriculture and then settlements, there was a surplus of production, and then it’s for first time, because before we’re nomads, like many indigenous people today, and they were like hunters. And so for first time, like men started to realize, well, I have all these things now, I want to leave them with, to my children, not to the neighbor’s children.

Many feminist analysis and historical analysis point out that it’s connected also with the rise of monogamy, as you know, and the control of women’s sexuality, to really make sure that, you know The properties get passed through my hair. Exactly, and this has been a very important economic, political drive in all this, you [00:21:00] know.

But the shift, the real shift from the kind of more community living to the nuclear family happened in the 20th century. Actually, people think that it was like far, far away. It was in the 20th century. Like my mom, for example, in Spain, she grew up in a house with like 13 cousins, uncles, and grandmothers.

It was very normal even in the States, like to have like this extended family situations, like, but that kind of like. Pressure to have your own, and it was advertised as freedom and autonomy, and there was something to it, but the toll was very, has been very expensive. Yeah, 

Giancarlo: and also, and also there was the pressure of competing with the neighbors.

This idea of like, you know, keeping with the Jones, have the bigger car, the bigger house. I remember someone was telling me that. His great grandmother was living in Brooklyn and in the neighborhood, there was like, you know, every weekend the neighborhood barbecue and everybody brought things. And, and now they put fences and guard dogs and barbed [00:22:00] wire.

And, and, and, but so, okay, this is, I think it’s, it’s important, even if, for example, for me, if you tell my wife about living in community, she would like, you know, divorce me immediately. Because some people like her, for example, you know, she would say that, you know, I need my privacy, I resource myself in silence and solitude.

So, I mean, that’s, you know, it doesn’t mean that in community you can’t have, you know, the quiet place or the, you know, you can still find your space. But it is a little bit of a different approach. But so just to give some practical advice to our listener. Imagine there are like a group of people that are listening to us, you know, maybe, I don’t know, 10, 20, 30, or maybe, okay, first question is, what is the right number to go and live in community, and then what would you advise people that are listening if they are thinking that, you know, first of all, sometimes it’s not even like a desire, it’s a necessity because They can’t [00:23:00] afford the rent anymore, anywhere.

Many people cannot buy a house nowadays. So some people say, okay, I have to share the rent with 10, 20, 30 people. What practical advice do you have? Would you recommend people to study all the existing community and maybe join one? Or. or maybe join one to learn and then start your own. You know, I had the spirit that your friend has paid that I met through you, the, I call it ambassador of them.

And who are, she was saying that you need in order to live in community, you need to have an impossible dream. But is that true? Can you comment on that? 

Jorge: Go back slightly because I understand and I resonate to a large extent with that like sense of many people, wow, I don’t want to lose my privacy and my autonomy.

I don’t want to lose my privacy and my autonomy. And this is, I think, the difference between the new communities that are emerging now and the communities back in the sixties and the communes. You know, there was no space for [00:24:00] individuality. That was a disaster. We are individual and social beings. It’s very important that this community is like have a space for each person that is your kingdom, is your refuge.

You have your room or perhaps in the model of cohousing that there are different family units or different groups, and there is maybe common areas, common kitchens, so people have their own space. To develop their individuality, that is very important, without the continuous pressure or, I don’t know, influence of the community, and then share all that with the community, that’s very important.

But to have like, so, internalize also all those values, you know, of autonomy and privacy throughout. to an extreme way, you know, like why people need to be so private all the time, I wonder. And something interesting is something, yes, we can raise those questions. And something interesting, of course, and there are studies of that is when nuclear family situation, that conditions of privacies are the perfect conditions for abuse, abuse of children, abuse of women, domestic violence.[00:25:00] 

Of course, because when you are living with more people, it’s much harder. People listen, they stop it, you know? Those households, like, are the perfect conditions for the pandemic for domestic abuse that we’re witnessing these days, and also children abuse and other things. So, so there’s also consequences there.

So to go back to your second question, what to advise impossible dream? That’s, first of all, is that true? Because, you know, in your community, you don’t have an impossible dream. I mean, you have this individual dream. Yeah, there’s not an impossible dream, but it is like some kind of like share values and even share goals and could be very vague and expansive.

Like in our communities, for example, it’s a project here towards aim at healing art and education and the interface. So people engage that. project in different ways. And that’s very enriching. The sad thing or the tragedy of many spiritual communities is when they go into one single ideology. And that happens in many spiritual communities, even communities that are very [00:26:00] healthy.

And for some of them, it works very well. You have that in Auroville, you have that in Damanhur, Beautiful communities that are wholesome in many different ways, and still there is a set of kind of doctrines, dogmas that all of them who live there need to adopt to some extent in order to be accepted in the community.

I think that’s valid for some people if they resonate with those values. I think it’s like, why not find your own tribe? But I think that the most kind of like a meta modern communities that are emerging today are more pluralistic in their values. They share certain kind of, you know, like, you know, basic.

Orientations, like respect, mindful speech, open to hear to the other, no? But they don’t, like in the community in Berkeley, we have like people who are into shamanism, we have Buddhist people, we have like more secular people into dance, and everybody was welcome. And that’s so interesting. 

Giancarlo: You call them meta community?

Metamodern. Metamodern. Yes, we’re going to talk more about that. What about the numbers? Is there [00:27:00] a recommended number that you would advise? 

Jorge: I don’t think so. I wouldn’t go that far because there are different types of community. The communities I’ve been living most of my life, adult life, they were like a small communities, like a normally like, eight, 10 adults, some children and so forth.

Uh, that communities, they create a sense of intimacy, a sense of like, um, being together that much larger communities don’t. And at the same time, much larger communities, they have more resources and they can achieve greater things in terms of transforming the world or transforming the area where they live.

So I would say that it’s good, my sense, uh, In attunement with my pluralistic spirit, it’s good to have different kinds of communities, more larger, more smaller. And then each person can see what’s the pros and cons of each of them. The more people you have, the more complex and the more disagreements and the more difficulties are coming together.

That happened in Auroville. There was a lot of disagreements. At first, I had like [00:28:00] these policies about being taking decisions by consensus. And of course, Anyone could veto any decision. And of course, that was a disaster. They were paralyzed. They couldn’t do anything. 

Giancarlo: Yes. So I guess that there is at the two opposite end, there is the Auroville, the Tamera, the Damanhur, where it’s really the glue is this impossible dream where people need to vote and there’s a consensus.

And then at the completely other spectrum, there is just like sharing the rent in a group of people and in between all kinds of possible. Have you heard this number, the Dunbar number? It’s 140, 150. I heard. Yes. So first of all, let’s explain what it is. 

Jorge: Yes. Do explain it because it’s, 

Giancarlo: it’s simply been a statistic saying that 140 roughly is the right number for people to know everybody intimately.

But because if it’s more than that, you start losing the intimacy with people, [00:29:00] but you still have some anonymity. 

Jorge: I think there is something to it. I think this social reality that when there is more and more people, you get to know less people intimately. And, and that’s, and it brings the sense of anonymity.

I don’t know, like my sense is that even larger communities, they are playing a strong role because they are experimenting with different ways to, you know, political organization. I mean, there are grassroots experiments for, The larger society and larger culture will have to pay attention to at some point as this way we live are kind of like being kind of deconstructed and like is crumbling in many ways.

So in a way they are like I would say they are. Potentially, it could be seen in the future as a vanguard, a vanguard for a new way of life that more and more people are going to be adopting. 

Giancarlo: Yes, yes. I’d love our listeners to really realize that this idea of building communities, not just this new age concept, I think is the root of our.[00:30:00] 

Alienation and depression. You know, I think his name is John. John Harry wrote a book on depression. He spent 20 years researching it. And at the end, he came down to the main cause of depression being the lack of connection with others. You know, we are deeply social animal and the new liberal capitalism and the supremacy of reason has created this, you know, hyper individualized unit in competition with other.

And I think that has brought a lot of a lot of misery. In addition to that, You know, price around the world of housing has become crazy. So some young, you know, in Ibiza specifically in Ibiza, talking about the dream and the purpose of a community in Ibiza, we have, Ibiza is 500 square kilometer and only 6 percent of this land is farmed regeneratively.

So, you know, one model that can, you know, that’s why now [00:31:00] we are in, in, in July, it’s like 40 degree. There is no water. You know, Ibiza needs to have used to have a lot of water in the 14th and 15th. You see this black and white video of like full on river from my sprawl. And then the, the pines came, which are not indigenous from here and took over most, almost half of the Island and the pine.

They don’t allow anything to grow and the pine needle is very acidic and it doesn’t absorb CO2, it doesn’t absorb water. All the rain, which does rain here a few weeks a year, goes washed, mostly washed up in the sea. If we regenerate, let’s start thinking about 10, 20%, you know, 10, 000 hectare of Ibiza, we could change the ecosystem.

We could have a more temperate country. If we regenerate, you know, starting with, I don’t know, 10, 000 hectares, we can, we can, we can absorb CO2, we can absorb more water, you know, by farming regeneratively, we can create a more resilient ecosystem that resists more, [00:32:00] you know, to, to, to the, to the external condition.

And in order to do that, You know, these housing, these things are very expensive because the owners prefer just to rent it three months in the summer for much more than all year round rent. But if you put 15 people together, they can share that rent and they can regenerate the land. So this model is replicable and Ibiza can be an example for the world in terms of like regenerating agriculture by, you know, creating biodiversity and also feeding, feeding the microbiota and, and, and creating health.

Maybe, maybe Ibiza can become the newer, you know, blue zone with a lot of hundred years old. That would be amazing. Yeah, but so why I went in this rant about Ibiza? Yes, because I think that community, it’s, can be a way to, for people to, to find purpose, to find connection, and, and, and to be able to be exposed to [00:33:00] this place.

Permanent sort of like friendly group therapy. 

Jorge: Exactly. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. Very good. So what did we write for the next topic? Yes. Changing completely. I discovered this English podcaster called Chris Williamson and she and he interviewed these three woman writers and he says that those three ladies could maybe represent a new wave of, of a feminist, feminism, a UK new feminist movement.

And there are Louise Perry, Nina Power, and Mary Harrington. So, do you feel comfortable in maybe first trying to explain what they think? You know, Louise, they all came up with a book about how the sexual revolution has failed everybody, both men and women. Do you feel comfortable to first explain their theory?

and then maybe object or comment. Sure. 

Jorge: I’m familiar with Lewis Perry. I don’t know the other authors well to make an informed opinion, but Lewis Perry, I’m familiar with the argument. It’s not a new argument in [00:34:00] some ways, but I mean, the core argument is like an existential revolution is benefiting men and hurting women.

Because, uh, women ultimately, deep down, what they, they don’t want casual sex. They want, like, to have a partner for life, and they want to be traditionally married. She doesn’t say that, but that’s underlying her argument. She’s pro traditional marriage, till death pull us apart. And uh, and then, uh, it’s kind of interesting, because in a way, I find it is like, she makes other points that are, uh, some of them are, you know, has some validity, uh, you know.

So, any, anything in life, any path, any movement has a caste. Light and shadow. So the sexual revolution I think has been a tremendously liberating and empowering force for men, but especially I would say for women in so many different ways that they were like, before the sexual revolution, they were like at home, their sexual autonomy was close to zero.

And now tremendous amounts of women in the West, you know, they have a sexual autonomy and freedom that they was, would have been undreamed by our grandmothers. So that’s something that is very important, [00:35:00] but she’s making really some good points in the sense that, like, in the same way that for some women, this has been a very empowering force.

She comments, for example, on Jan. females, especially in college and even earlier in which in the same way that before there was like some pressure, social pressure to not be promiscuous. If you were a woman and had sex with different guys, you were like a slav, you were like a whore and all that. Now there is some pressure and these ages to, to be sexually free.

So and then women that some of the perhaps younger women who are still not fully forming their own empowerment, they could get lost there. And that’s true, that’s, she’s making a good point there, but we don’t, we don’t need to throw the baby with the bathwater, right? We can identify some areas that are problematic in the sexual revolution, but that doesn’t mean the sexual revolution has failed women.

There is like tremendous amounts of women, I would say most women in the West today, that they would defend the sexual revolution as an empowering force in their lives. In a way, also, the other point she’s making is like, that [00:36:00] we have lost the connection that existed before between sex and commitment, love and commitment.

And, but the connection that exists between those two was because there was no, the, um, contraceptive pill, you know? So for women, for women like to be sexual, it was a very high risk of getting pregnant. Okay? So therefore, they were asking for a deep commitment for men. before going sexual and marriage and all that.

So in a way, it’s like she’s twisting this, she’s twisting this, like saying like, and then we’ll have lost this connection between love and commitment. But well, for many women that has been tremendously liberating, like to, to be able to take the pill and to take autonomy and be able to have sex with whoever they want without that danger, without that danger there.

And, and of course you could say as to say like, well, men has benefited from that because there is more available women. that they would like to have sex with them. That’s true. There is also a book by a conservative sociologist of sex called Cheap Sex, Ragnarus. Maybe you’re familiar with [00:37:00] it. He’s making that case for very conservative places.

He’s saying like sex has become cheap before sex was expensive. You know, men who have to, you know, offer things, commitment and marriage. And now, you know, people can’t have sex. Whatever, you know, even with pornography, pornography is available and then women are more open to that. And I don’t see that as a negative necessarily, even though again, there could be like some in particular cases that it could be like some problematic aspects to it.

Giancarlo: Why? What’s the name of the author you just mentioned? 

Jorge: Regenerus. 

Giancarlo: R E 

Jorge: G N E R 

Giancarlo: U S. We’ll put it on the show note. But why, what was the problem with the more affordable sex according to 

Jorge: Regenerus? Well, he’s saying that sex has been banalized, that now it’s like available and therefore people, men don’t want to commit and they don’t want to get married.

And he’s pro familiar values, pro traditional marriage. He’s against, of course, gay marriage and all those things. He’s a very conservative fellow. [00:38:00] But basically that’s his point is like, because now sex, sex is so available, then men don’t commit and there is something to it. And I do have many female friends actually in the early thirties that actually they would want to have children and they would like to find a man that is available for that.

And it’s true that those numbers are peaking down and decreasing, especially in places like Ibiza. When I hate my friends, I tell, I tell the same to them that I would tell my friends in the same situation in the Bay Area of California. move out. Because here in Ibiza, there is more women than men to begin with.

And also, I would say there is a greater number of non committal men, in part because of the larger number of women and there is more availability. But in other places, it’s different, of course. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, that’s another big topic, right? So, You know, what, what caught my attention from Bruce Perry is that the more available sexuality has created also a lot of pain in the sense that men are not really fulfilled by [00:39:00] casual sex.

They think they are. It’s one of, it’s one of the thing like, it’s a little bit like what, what I understood from, from the interview I heard. It’s a little bit like, you know, neoliberal capitalists subliminally make you think that you need to live in the house alone with better things than your neighbor.

You know, that’s an illusion because that doesn’t bring happiness in the same way. The sexual revolution, I give you this illusion that sex, you know, a lot of sex with different people will give you happiness. But the reality is that it’s not, you know, what brings you really fulfillment is a deeper, more committed.

relationship and this idea of disentangling from love has brought misery. Not just, you know, she says that deep inside, you know, woman are longing for connection, but also also men. And there is now an epidemic of men with erect erectile dysfunction being overstimulated by porn. Yes. So the statistics says that usually there’s a, you know, there’s a quite a widespread sexual [00:40:00] dissatisfaction.

So I know you wrote a book called, you know, Novogamy, where, where you try to depolarize the debate around monogamous and non monogamous, but so can you try to, to tie all this thing up into a cohesive vision? 

Jorge: I’m going to do my best. Okay. So I think there is something to that point. There’s something to that point, but I would, and of course I totally agree that the pool, the longing for deep intimate connection is one of the, is very valid and real.

And to experience that is one of the most fulfilling experiences of life. I also agree that many men are having sex with many women ultimately unconsciously looking for that, and they are not getting it. So I also agree with that, and at the same time would qualify like, well, Because they’re not embodying 

Giancarlo: that desire, right?

Because if it’s only subconsciously that they’re longing, but everything else says that they’re not, it’s not gonna work. 

Jorge: Yes. [00:41:00] And, but I would also add here something very important is that many, even most men in this culture that we live precisely for what we discussed before, that people live in their heads.

They’re not really connected to their heart and their instincts. You know, their sexuality is very mechanical. It’s disembodied. It’s like, uh, they go hypergenital. I’m just going to have my organs. And of course, many of these men have learned sexuality from pornography that is also very patriarchal. And, and of course, That sexuality is going to leave them unfulfilled.

And the shame from the church, yeah. Yeah, but if people engage sexuality, even sexual casual encounters, from a fully embodied perspective that is also open to that energy of life in yourself as arrows, as the creative energy of life, as something sacred, and also like fully conscious and with their heart open, I don’t think they would be so unfulfilled.

Yes. 

Giancarlo: Yes. So let’s talk about that a little bit. This idea of eros, you know, like janitorial orgasm, full body orgasm, how [00:42:00] We misuse the sexual energy, how we were not being educated. Like, you know, Margot Anand, this Tantra teacher says that many spiritual tradition don’t even look below their waist, right?

Because they say it’s dangerous. Yes. They don’t even look. And so how can you elaborate a little bit on that is this when you mentioned the genital roll. orgasm compared to a full body. And maybe since we’re talking about that, we can, you can talk a little bit about your conscious, your embodied spirituality workshop.

Jorge: Well, one of the reasons like most traditions don’t even look from the waist down is like, I was considered dangerous as sexuality. And there were some reasons for that historical. There were some reasons. There was a lot of bestiality. There was a lot of rapes. There was like people were not integrated enough to channel that energy constructively and especially in many cultures in the world.

You lose your mind. You lose your mind. Yeah, exactly. The fear is that animalistic tendencies will take over and it will just become like a rapist animal. And you know, If you [00:43:00] travel around the world, I know you have, you have a world travel, you realize that in some cultures in the world, that’s still quite valid in many ways, like in India, in village, uh, rural India, for example, and, and these sort of sexual taboos and tension and so forth, you know, Muslim countries as well, some of them.

So, so that, that’s that. But I would say that most people in the Western world today. They have already developed the values of the heart, our consciousness, strong enough to be able to channel those energies in a different way. So I think that’s why I’m advocating for, you know, full chakra, a spiritual life that invites all of who we are into the, into spirituality and in our lives, including our sexuality, our instinct and so forth.

So coming back to your question is like, you know, there is like different types of sexuality in the same way that there is different types of spirituality. This is spiritual that is very disembodied. Spirituality is more integrative and sexuality. There is like sexuality that is like mechanical, hypergenitalized, like dissociated from their heart and consciousness.

[00:44:00] Like, and that kind of sexuality, of course, is going to leave people quite unfulfilled. But also it’s a kind of sexuality that is going to be very hard to integrate with a spiritual sense. 

Giancarlo: So when, when you make love and you’re not present and it’s very, what do you mean mechanical? 

Jorge: Well, the kind of sexuality you see in porn and that’s the sexuality that many, many, many, you know, we were witnessing what has been called the pornification of society.

Billions, billions of, you know, the Pornhub has statistics. It’s quite remarkable what you see there. Like every single day, there’s 115 million hits in one page of Pornhub, you know. That’s equivalent of like the populations of like four different countries in the world, like hitting at the same time. And women too.

Yes, and women too, not only, not only men, this 32 percent of women are also watching porn. So they’re also learning, of course, there’s different types of porn. There’s porn that also could be non patriarchal, uh, directed and produced by women with attention to female [00:45:00] organs in a different story. And I would say that I support that kind of thing.

Could be educational, could be liberating for many women, but 99 percent of porn is super patriarchal. It end with male orgasm. And if you see the grading is degrading, it’s like boom, boom, boom, boom, harder and stronger, harder and stronger. I mean, it could have like a place in our sexual encounters at sometimes the passion, the animalistic, sure, but also sexuality needs to move to more also like subtle, tender, Uh, presence, uh, eye gazing, uh, your heart opening, and so forth.

And that’s a different kind of sexuality that opens up into Eros as mystery. And that’s the kind of sexuality that is almost inevitable not to be able to integrate with our spiritual sense. Mystica. Mystica and Eros is two sides of the same mystery. 

Giancarlo: Amazing. But so, so can you talk a little bit about what did you, you created a workshop, you call them embodied spirituality, where, where people touch each other on this, on this [00:46:00] fully closed as nudity, but people touch each other on this vital part of the navel, the heart, the chest, the forehead.

And in a way, transfer, given there’s a transfer of energy, which I experienced, which I think it was like for me, life changing, but can you describe that a little bit? 

Jorge: Well, it’s a word that’s about precisely integrating all those senses. It’s a work about opening our body and our heart and our mind to both energies, the energy of our consciousness and that life energy.

And, and for all those worlds to start becoming like active players in our life, in our sexual lives, then to energize and enlighten, illuminate it. Because it gives an energy to move and direction and discernment. So that’s kind of like one of the overall goals of the work or aims, but it’s particular person, as you know, find their own ways people come from sexual healing, or sometimes like they come because a couple that they are like, Working on the relationship, it’s personal finder on because this is what I love about that [00:47:00] work is it’s a work that, you know, the, the pathways that emerging from your own experience, you have an experience and that kind of leads you to shape through contracts at the next experience.

And we saw a limited version of that in our workshop, but that’s where the strength of the work is. So, uh, and it’s a work also about integrating, like differentiating and integrating, for example, the heart. And, and the vital center, our sexuality. Because, you know, in more men than women, those centers are dissociated.

That’s why so many men can fuck and don’t care. And, but in many women have the opposite problems. Those centers are fused. They are, they are merged. So they make love on the phone in love, the heart and sexuality. They are few, but they are merged. So they make love. And if the good was the sex was good.

Just one day they are falling in love with this person. That’s also a problem. I would say that in the same way life teaches us, you know, water. Water is two different atoms, [00:48:00] oxygen and hydrogen, who are connected but are fully differentiated. And from that we have this magic that we call water emerging into reality.

So those worlds need to be differentiated and then integrated. So people can really be sexual, can be emotional, all the spectrum in between without falling into this dissociation or fusion that leads to attachment that is premature in most cases. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. Very well explained. This is 

Jorge: very good. The 

Giancarlo: metaphor of the water.

So just to continue on the, on the controversial topic, like we did, I think it was It’s useful for, you know, for this conversation to be a little memorable, you know, when to, to try to break down the cliche a little bit. For example, you know, a community don’t have privacy is not true. Sexual relation has brought cheap sex with casual sex is not true.

You can have meaningful casual sex as we discussed. So another debate is this idea of the universal truth, right? Uh, more a [00:49:00] plurality of, of truth. So you told me once that, you know, the, the universality comes more, you know, from the perennial philosophy, people like Aldous Huxley and Ken Wilber and Joseph Campbell were talking about the, the unity and, and then others were talking more about a plurality of truth.

Can you, can you comment a little bit on that? 

Jorge: Yes, yes, yes, yes. In a way, like most of the attempts at. Trying to find a core, a universal experience, universal liberation, or universal ultimate in religious truth come from two different places. On the one hand, it comes from a place of like, uh, ecumenism. You know, there’s so much violence, religious violence in the world.

So many people were motivated, well, if we really find some common truths, I think there could be one less reasons for violence. And it’s much easier to kill your neighbor when you think, um, God is on your side, not on their side, right? So and that’s a very noble ideal, but the problem with that, and this connects with the second [00:50:00] intention that is normally more unconscious in many cases, is apologetics.

It’s like, it’s like apologetics in religious is when you, when you’re trying to argue for the superior truth of your own religion. When you see all the proposals for universal truth and that you see what they are saying, for example, non duality. It’s a very fashionable these days or pure consciousness and so forth.

And you start the history of religious traditions and comparative mysticism. You realize that that’s the goal and aim for a few traditions, but not all. We have over probably 15, 000 different religions in the world, many of which have very different cosmologies and different goals. So 15, 000. Yeah. Well, 20, 20 years ago, they were identified 9, 800 and two or three new religions emerging every single day.

So today, when people set up their own church, that’s how do you determine a religion? Well, that’s this, there are criteria. There are criteria like this is, this was a study by some religious studies. religious [00:51:00] scholars and Christian religious scholars, they were, they were mapping what they call theodiversity.

They were mapping spiritual priorities because they wanted to convert everybody into their own religion. So they wanted to see which were, who are the, who are the rivals there, no? But the problem with that is like, you know, all these, exactly, you know, when you identify that truth, It is the truth of some traditions and not others, so in a way it’s another, it’s a hidden form of exclusivism or inclusivism, uh, that is also reveals a kind of like subtle spiritual narcissism.

It’s like my spiritual truth, my spiritual choice is the superior or the more truth or the more complete or the more encompassing. And you don’t have to be a narcissist for that. Take the Dalai Lama, for example, the Dalai Lama that I very much admire, probably one of the less narcissistic persons in the world, personally speaking.

And I know people who know him, and he’s the real article in so many ways. But he defends that the spiritual truth, the understanding of sunyata, of emptiness, of his own particular school in [00:52:00] Tibetan Buddhism is It’s something that even the other Tibetan schools don’t understand, not to speak about other Buddhist branches or other religions.

And he deeply believed that even though having a diversity of religious choices today is a good thing for psychological reasons, down the line, after many lifetimes, everybody will recognize that truth as the most liberating of all. Which is, which is which one in the case of the Dalai Lama? In the case of the Dalai Lama, it’s an understanding of emptiness, emptiness of emptiness, like more, that’s, that’s, we’ll get more technical here, but.

That’s in the matter. It’s like 

Giancarlo: that space between 

Jorge: thoughts. Yeah. A kind of emptiness. Emptiness understood as in Buddhist emptiness is because depending arising of everything, no, nothing has its own essence, but everything is being created by everything else. And that’s a beautiful understanding, but other traditions.

I have different goals. So I’m a spiritual pragmatist. I go for whatever works. What is helping people to become less self centered, less selfish, [00:53:00] more available, more transformative agents in the world? Is it conscious parenting? Is it Buddhist meditation? Is it Ayahuasca shamanism? I don’t care. What matters is that they’re really like getting more free from narcissists, selfishness, and more open to the mystery, you know, of existence, you know, so, and then also, uh, I’m a spiritual pluralist.

I believe, frankly believe, strongly believe, after, through my own experience, I was in Buddhist for 15 years, in shamanist for another 20 years, I’ve studied many different traditions, And having many dialogues, you know, with monks from different traditions, I strongly believe that there is a beauty and richness in that diversity of spiritual goals, that all the traditions and different people and different mystics are, are telling us, you know, there is all these different possibilities.

It’s like a tree branching in different directions. And some of the branches overlap. So there are, there are some commonalities, but that doesn’t mean that they are all going to the same peak of the mountain. I would say that there are many mountains [00:54:00] and many peaks. 

Giancarlo: Amazing. Beautifully said. Just for our listen, you mentioned that non duality now is fashionable and divine consciousness.

Pure consciousness. Pure consciousness. Can you explain a little bit this two approach? 

Jorge: Yeah. Well, non duality comes, I mean, non duality comes from, normally the kind of non duality that has become fashionable in the West comes from India. I’m a Maharishi and also a lot of different gurus there and many like there is a lot of non dual teachers in the West today, like from Gangaji to Adyashanti to many, many people who have like a dream from that wisdom tradition and have adapted to our modern ways.

And I think it’s a great thing. I’m very supportive of whatever works, you know, but as to make the claim that that’s kind of like the universal thing for human beings. And I’m not saying that, you know, we all have. Consciousness. So can we all access pure consciousness? Sure. Very likely we can all because it’s an area that we all share, like we have a body, we have a heart and so [00:55:00] forth.

But do all the traditions value pure consciousness in the same way? No. For them, for some of them, it’s the goal and it’s the most liberating experience. For all of them, it’s just a step. For example, in the mystical Christian traditions, pure consciousness is encountered with your personal soul as a preparation for encounter with a personal God that loves you, right?

And other traditions don’t care about pure consciousness, and they have different businesses to do, you know, different paths that they’re offering us. 

Giancarlo: Beautiful. Just to change the topic again, you know, I Bilton. He started an institute called the Thieringham Institute, and it’s a think tank To research, to research the nature of the entity that you see, you encounter in the psychedelic experience, mostly DMT, he’s persuaded that these entities, not only they’re not Project of your imagination.

Not only they are independent from us, but they’re also [00:56:00] sentient. They are independent sentient being. You another word for that is alien or spirit or ghost or and then He thinks that maybe they have a superior knowledge than us, and maybe they can help us with the human affair, you know, like in that movie Arrival, but then is Villeneuve, you know, this big octopus looking alien then prevented the world war.

I know you wrote some paper about that, about this. You know, again, this, this different opinion on, on people saying, are there, are there products of our imagination or they’re really people that they are, can might be interdimensional. What’s your take on this? 

Jorge: You have two, two, two comments here. One of the nature of the entities and the second one about how to, how to really better try to find out if they are autonomous.

So the first, the first part is like, [00:57:00] you know, there are different postures and you talk about then this one posture, more materialistic science is like, well, this is just like fears in your dream. You know, sometimes you have in context with fears in your dream that are very wise and they talk to you and they look like autonomous, but they likely are just a part of your unconscious, right?

And that’s a strong argument because, uh, it’s a strong argument because most people, you know, who have not experienced encounters with entities in psychedelic or other, you Technology of consciousness, they will say, of course, that’s what it is, what they’re talking about. And then on the other hand, you have like, of course, the more indigenous and also more noate and also transpersonal understandings like, well, they’re independent entities multidimensional world and, and these entities live there and they can also come and help us to heal us and almost everybody I know who have go deeper into any kind of teacher plan where this is mushrooms or ayahuasca or san pedro sooner or later have some encounter with some of these entities that is very very strong and of course in [00:58:00] between like there’s also this sense like well to what extent is this like a false dichotomy.

Are they purely subjective or purely objective? Maybe they are in between. Maybe in between. Maybe they are subjective objective. They are somehow co created to some extent. Like, and this, I think there is some truth to that in the sense that it’s very likely that some of the beings of light, the astral doctors that some people see in ayahuasca ceremonies, healing people, a Christian person would see this being of light and will say, Oh, I saw an angel.

There’s an interpretive, cultural interpretation of imperception, embedded imperception. So there’s something to there that is true, and at the same time there is other occasions in which, you know, I had an encounter with like what it looked like Daoist teacher, like bring him from his pocket, like gifts from his little bag, and every gift was like a Shaktipan, a direct transmission.

So you’re feeling your whole body, or you experience like very strongly this astral doctor’s healing your heart and doing like an energetic. [00:59:00] laser like surgery on your heart center or your vital center, no? So these are very strong experiences, but at the same time, insofar as we’re studying this, for example, like your friend, like DMT, people, people doing individual journeys or even with their eyes closed by themselves, the critique of Western science is going to stand.

The, the, the way out of this is, and this is what I was trying to do in that article, um, It’s like to say, based on my own experiences with San Pedro and Ayahuasca, it’s like, well, sometimes people, and it’s rare, but it happens. Sometimes people, different people, can see the same entities with their eyes open.

That has happened to them a number of times. And that’s a stronger challenge for scientific materialism. It’s very easy to dismiss, like, something that happens when you take a drug, quotation marks, in your brain. It’s like, of course, an hallucination enhanced by the drug and so forth. But when different people, even sometimes [01:00:00] for 15 minutes, one hour, even two hours, seeing the same entities outside and they’re contrasting and interacting with them, that’s a much harder and you can go to this explanation or condition marks of a collective hallucination.

But collective hallucinations, I studied them in depth and there are different They don’t explain our theories of collective hallucination, like people see a UFO, the virgin in the sky, or tears in the virgin. They’re expecting to see something. There’s a lot of like, or, and this is very different. It’s a different and also has an impact in people who experience them again.

Ultimately, I’ll just the last thing I say, I would go back to my spiritual pragmatism. It’s an interesting discussion. I’m very interested in it, but. Who cares? You know, the most important is the transformation that they bring. If it brings people healing and transformation, that’s great. And of course, some of people like us who are interested in more is like, are they real?

And that’s fascinating inquiry, right? 

Giancarlo: Yeah. I mean, Anton says we should [01:01:00] care because we spend billion trillion NASA spend how much to send rocket and to put speakers that cost billions, where there’s not even funding for you know, more exploration of this DMT states. So if, if our society care about the others, because we’re trying to connect and we spend so much.

So he says, you know, if we just could allocate 1 percent of the budget that we spend and NASA spends to connect with these entities, 

Jorge: but so 

Giancarlo: I 

Jorge: just, I tend to agree with your friend. Uh, some retracting here a little, because there’s two, there’s psychedelics or these plants, how that is the healing dimension.

Yeah. From that perspective, I don’t care. But from the perspective, fact that cognitive inquiry into reality from that is very important. So I agree with him. 

Giancarlo: Exactly. Exactly. That’s a difficult question. But so you said that, you know, from what you said about, you know, when people can see the same entities for a couple of hours, can, where do they come from?

Can you explain, do you have a theory? [01:02:00] of this interdimensional, maybe parallel universe where people travel. Do you have a theory of time and space where this makes sense? 

Jorge: I don’t want, I don’t have a very wealth from theory. I have been kind of like, kind of like I intrigued, no, by different developments in modern science, both in neuroscience and quantum physics, you know, string theory tell us that it is like.

You know, 9, 15, 21 different dimensions of reality. Otherwise, the numbers don’t fit. And neuroscience, like in the last years, also like in nature, there were some articles saying the brain, the human brain is actually made to experience not just three, four dimensions, but seven. That’s from neuroscience, right?

Are we, are we, I really want to witness, that’s like a big question, speculative, I want to witness at some point a convergence of all these developments and what people are experimenting in these inquiries, you know, in contact with this. My sense, from my personal experience, whenever I’ve had like an [01:03:00] encounter with this entities is that the material would materialize in the front of my eyes from, from, from empty space.

And sometimes like it’s a, it’s a way in which like, Some of the plans, San Pedro for example, teaches you to unfocus your eye, to pay attention to, to the, to the spaces in between objects. And it’s there where sometimes things start to open, like even energetic networks, energy fields, you know, the energetic dimension of reality.

That suggests experientially, without going into critical analysis, that the lived experience is There’s something interdimensional that we may live in in this multidimensional cosmos and that this reality that we see and experience every day is the reality that the human brain thinks our evolutionary history has allowed us to see because it’s what we need to survive in this environment.

But that doesn’t mean that there may not be other dimensions. The difference would be that in these dimensions we’re made of like energy, consciousness and matter. My sense of [01:04:00] all these other dimensions is that it’s more energy and consciousness. It’s not the matter, the embodiment that we have here. And I think that’s why this life here is so precious and important because that’s, um, I would say that the greatest experiment is happening here in that integration of energy and consciousness and matter.

Giancarlo: Amazing. Amazing. So we’re a little bit past the hour, but I will, Lisa will forgive me because this is fascinating. I just have the last question for, you know, in Ibiza, especially, but around the world, there’s a big fashion now of the, you know, the retreat, the retreat center, the retreat experience, you know, people says, I remember Richard retreat junkie.

What do you, what, what’s your idea on this, you know, this idea of the retreat to go somewhere else for one week, 10 days, four days with a group of people doing a certain practice. And, uh, and then I know you collaborated with Agilent and yeah, let’s start with that. 

Jorge: Yeah. I think it’s a very important thing because when people are in our culture in everyday life are so busy, [01:05:00] like normally, and also thinking about problems to solve and engaging in making a life and it’s hard to really go, go deeper into ourselves and it’s hard to To really kind of examine ourselves and to, to really even connect with our deepest motivations and longings.

You know? So I would say like those retreats are like a greenhouses, you know, like a greenhouses in, you know, like sometimes we, we protect certain plants who are like really like tender, tender in a greenhouse and later we replant it in the external world. So in the same way, like those are these like greenhouses for our, our inner tender growing seeds and, and, and blooming inside, you know?

And, uh, and then. Once they get stronger and stronger, then we can start kind of materializing them in life and extend it to real life. Beautiful 

Giancarlo: metaphor. The retreat being a greenhouse for psychic insight that need to be preserved in that safe environment that then can blossom and be nurtured outside.

Exactly. Amazing. Amazing. And how was your Esalen [01:06:00] experience? How was Esalen? so successful compared to others? 

Jorge: Well, I had a long history with SESALEN, but I would say that it was so successful to begin with because it was the first, was the first center, retreat center. It was in 1962 that I was created by McMurphy and Dick And it was very successful also because it encountered very quickly the whole climate of the counterculture, the whole experimentation, and also it brought amazing individuals, Altus Huxley, Gregory Bateson, Fritz Perls, Stan Grof.

Many of the innovative wars that we have like now with us, they were born in Esalen, like Fritz Perls developed Deeper, he’s gets an approach. Uh, Stan Grof and Christina develop orthopedic breathwork and so many other developments. So in a way, it was like this mix of being in the right time, in the right moment, California in the sixties and seventies.

And, uh, and also I think it was like, you know, it’s, it’s still ongoing and it’s a complete experimentation of our community life. It’s a community life, and it’s also a [01:07:00] place in which, as I was referring before, there is no single ideology. And this is something that both Mike Murphy and Dick Price were very strong because they both have had contact with gurus and teachers that they value.

Mike Murphy is studying the ashram and so forth. But they were very clear, we don’t want any leader here to become like the boss, you know, Grof, no one. So therefore they’re always like having very different leaders conferences, dialogues like, and I think that’s what. What we need, and we still need, and I’m excited to hear that you’re planning something here in Ibiza in that regard.

Yeah, it’s a 

Giancarlo: bit early stage, but yes, because I, you know, what you said about California in the 60s, that environment and energy of everything is possible of breaking of the old rules in that chaos, new idea can emerge. And Ibiza is becoming, I think, the transformative capital of the world because the local.

And my friend christian was been on the podcast explained that very well he says that. What has [01:08:00] created the magic of Ibiza is the local, the payas, being in the, having the mentality of live and let live. So they, you know, we are here, I have my land, you’re there, you have your land, you do what you want, you don’t bother me, I don’t bother you.

So this. leave and let live mentality has allowed for the, for the freaks to come and the hippie to come. And now the psychology professor like you to come and the tantra teacher and the classic tantra teacher and the five rhythm teacher and the breathing teacher and the embodied spirituality teachers.

And there is so many, it has so much talent here. So my last tip. Tricky question is if you had to help the programming of a retreat in Ibiza, where would you go? What kind of discipline would you focus on at least at the beginning? 

Jorge: Well, I think that I wouldn’t go into like super focus. I would go like more a wide, wider zoom because yeah, like excellent because you want to reach a different people and they are different ways to transform ourselves and different people are gonna [01:09:00] resonate with different things.

So from the more embodied approaches to more contemplative approaches, I think the key thing we would like to really bring like really good people here into the island that that sometimes are not available here. I think from outside and at the same time also pay attention to what’s happening here in the island because there could be very amazing people here in the island as well.

So have some balance, you know, have some balance between that, but definitively bring people from outside to, that could be very enriching. And even like have like, not only just workshop, but like, like selling used to do like conferences, you know, and dialogues and panels. And, and that’s going to be really exciting.

Yeah. They like really exciting to have. We don’t have that in Ibiza. We have a lot of static dances and tantra workshops and all of that is wonderful, but we don’t have that kind of more intellectual, spiritual culture. And I think there is a critical mass rate for that, especially like if you’re doing this in Daldabila, so many foreign people who come here, very sophisticated as well.

And they’re into these things. So I think it would be a great, great success and very, [01:10:00] very good for the island. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. 

Giancarlo: So basically the three pillar, if you want, would be. embodiment practices, contemplative practices, and then intellectual practices. 

Jorge: Yeah. Intellectual events, you know, and of course, at the same time of the embodiment and the contemplative, it’s also very important, like deep personal psychological work, like shadow work, like even trauma work, you know, because if you do all these other things, I mean, the embodiment piece includes a lot of that.

But if you do a lot of the contemplative, for example, and without that deeper layer, the chances for spiritual bypassing are greater, spiritual materialism, if the audience doesn’t understand spiritual bypassing is like to, is to go into spirituality to avoid psychological issues. For example, I become celibate in order to avoid that I’m sexually repressed or have sexual trauma.

For example, so there are greater chances of that. And we have seen this in California, even in the spiritual teachers as well. I’m very advanced practitioners. They were [01:11:00] very advanced in their contemplation, meditation teachers, inter shamans as well. So we have seen that also in California for many years, in very advanced practitioners, meditation teachers, even shamans, of course, you know, that they could be very evolved in their realms, psychic healing or contemplative awareness, but later interpersonally, sexual, emotionally, they were underdeveloped, sometimes have trauma and it goes out of control.

Problems like sexual harassment and abuse. 

Giancarlo: But so the shadow work, that’s part of contemplation or embodiment. 

Jorge: Yeah. I mean, I mean, I would say like, could be like different workshops on different areas, you know, but, but I would say that somehow if it’s like a program that people are going to be taking different models of different, you know, should be an element of that looking, uh, you know, trauma, the wounding, and because otherwise the foundation of the building is shaky.

Of 

Giancarlo: course, of course, of course, very well said. Okay. We did one hour and 20. Thank you so much for coming back. I recommend our listen. Also, if they like this [01:12:00] episode to go back to the first episode where we Horges book, Novogamy, and, and, uh, Just re-listen it, and we cover the, the future, the impact of Trump.

So go back to the first episode also, is there anything you want to add, you want to, you want to leave our listener with? 

Jorge: No. Yes. Yes. Gratitude for the opportunity to dialogue with you and like hopefully whatever, anything, something of what we have said is valuable for the audience and I, I’m gonna be great to hear from them.

Giancarlo: And if people wants to come to one of your workshop, where do they find the info on Jorge Ferrer. com? 

Jorge: Yeah. It’s Jorge N like Nancy, JorgeNFerrer. com. Yeah. I will be advertising that. Perfect. I will put it on the show note. 

Giancarlo: Thank you very much. [01:13:00] Peace.