Author and system theorist Rory Spowers joined our mangu.tv podcast to share his proposition for an alternative non-dual paradigm. 

Travels to India and Southeast Asia at the age of eighteen lead Rory to reevaluate his notions of progress and development, away from what we are taught and conditioned to believe.

This is where his fascination with the idea that an ecological crisis is in fact a much deeper ideological crisis was born.

Rory goes on to explain that reductive materialism is a methodology that reduces matter down to its most basic scientific components. Anything which can't be empirically quantified and measured is therefore removed from the equation and dismissed as irrelevant. 

However, taking complex biological systems and oversimplifying them could potentially lead to erroneous conclusions. Examples of this include the use of fertilizers/insecticides etc on topsoil, saturated fats, antibiotics, bacteria, and potentially even viruses. Carbon is another great example of something which has been vilified, however is the building block of all organic life.

Our current paradigm doesn't like to deal with complexity and uncertainty although biological life is very complex and uncertain. Eventually, the weight of empirical evidence becomes so great that it's impossible for the prevailing paradigm not to go through some kind of shift of integration.

There exists a great potential for regenerative agriculture to play a pivotal role in correcting the climate crisis and carbon cycle. We can apply the same terminology to other areas such as health, economics, culture, and community. It can be applied to consciousness itself and the role psychedelics may play in facilitating a new understanding.

There is a need to look at all human activity and establish whether it is linear and degenerative. We have economics built on an extractive growth paradigm. We're taking resources and turning them into waste, at an ever-accelerating speed. A solution is to close those loops and turn these linear systems back into cyclical systems.

Reforming the food system is probably the single most effective way out of our current predicament. The design of new bottom-up, decentralized, and distributed systems is needed. It is imperative to create resilient communities that have a high degree of control over their essential needs in order to secure a future for humanity. To listen to the full podcast of Rory’s 6 silos of regeneration; food, health, economy, consciousness, community, and culture please click here.