Giancarlo
We're here for the second episode of the mangu.tv podcast. Today we have Jorge Ferrer who's an author and has a PhD in clinical psychology at the Institute of Integral Studies California in San Francisco. Where he was the chair of east-west psychology. And now he's written his fourth book on love and relationship.
Hello, Jorge. Thank you for coming.
Jorge
Hello, pleasure to be here.
Giancarlo
Why don't we jump straight in with your fourth book called Love and Freedom. Love and Freedom deals with romantic relationships. Why don't we first have a quick look at the current state of affairs of relationships? I mean from my perspective, I'm now 52, and my childhood friends have been married for 20, 30, 35 years. I would say that there is a general discontent in monogamy. Some of my friends have completely eliminated sexuality from their life and you can see that, you can see to what extent the lack of sexuality; reduced vitality, reduced creativity, for certain people, but I've been speaking with some of my friends and this is a little bit of a problem.
Many other friends have divorced, in America, 50% of marriages end up in divorce. So why don't you tell me a little bit, what do you see around you?
Jorge
Thank you. Well, I think the first thing to say is that cheating is no longer a thing that only men do. It's a thing that more and more women are also doing, and that's a shift from previous decades. In the last decades, the amount of women who are going to cheat first has really increased, almost switching to the levels of men. So that's an important factor here. As cheating was something that our blessed grandmothers used to say ‘that's just what men do’ no longer is so. For me I always like to look at the deeper reasons or deeper motivations, underlying people's behaviors that could be damaging for others.
And in my own research, both through study and through talking with a number of people who have committed high infidelity or affairs. I see two things. One is that of course there are certain people, especially men, who cheat for very self-centered, selfish reasons, sometimes narcissistic reasons, sometimes they need a boost in their self-esteem as men. But ultimately I think increasing or even perhaps most people who cheat these days, they are cheating because they are lacking something really vital in their lives.
And normally cheating of course happens after quite a number of years of partnership in a monogamous structure in which, as you mentioned, their vitality and the regeneration powers of sexuality has decreased, and then monotony has entered, and the routine has entered. One of the things that most people who cheat tell couples therapists, is that ultimately when they go deep down, they say I did it to feel alive again.
So this is very important, there's something very vital behind cheating. The other thing to understand is that people cheat, not because they don't love their partners. If they don't love their partners, they would leave them. But they cheat because they want to stay with them at the same time they don't want to sacrifice that vitality and that energy in their lives. That's like a paradox. They cheat because they love their partners and they know, or they suspect that their partners would not support that openness. We could talk much more. But let's, let's flow to see where you want to go with all this.
Giancarlo
Yes. I'm thinking about Christopher Ryan. We produced a documentary called Monogamish, which is available on mangu.tv. Christopher has a background in anthropology and with his wife at the time, they spent 20 years researching the animal kingdom, looking for monogamous species. He says that they're not monogamous species. They sometimes mate for life, but there is no monogamous species. Is that true?
Jorge
I think he's right. I mean, it was not just his research but many others’ work who established this fact. Many species that were thought to be biologically monogamous are actually only socially monogamous, but actually, behind the bushes, they have a lot of lovers. Especially all those little birds, the epitome, the symbol of romantic love. Definitely, also in mammals, there are very few species that are monogamous. There are some mice that are seemingly monogamous, but it is very very rare I think, that's completely right.
Giancarlo
What do you think about this idea? That reciprocal monogamy is a very recent concept. Someone in the documentary was arguing that men impose monogamy on women for most of the history of humankind, but it's only with women's rights in the sixties, that reciprocal monogamy really became a thing.
Jorge
Without generalizing or universalizing I think that's completely right. I'm sure there were exceptions throughout the history of couples who stayed together and men who were loyal to their wives. But I think it's completely right. I think it's only in the fifties and sixties in particular and seventies that Anthony Giddens talks about the democratization of marriage and intimate relationships, intimacy in particular not spirituality.
With the women's revolution, women's rights, and entering the labor market, exactly that changed the rules of the game, that when we see throughout history and throughout the world, with many exceptions, of course, here and there with indigenous tribes and so forth. What we see is men having many women and controlling the female sexuality of their wives, that's very sad, but that's a thing and a great assessment of our history in larger strokes.
Giancarlo
How do you explain that we have this concept of monogamy, which is not working, is not natural and it's very recent, but yet we take it as the default mode system and we beat ourselves down if we're not good at it. How do you explain that contradiction?
Jorge
Well, I think the roots of the system and I elaborate in the book about them, in some places is that patriarchy plays a huge role in the control of female sexuality, especially in the concern of many men, of raising kids from your neighbor beside your own kids and giving children from another man your inheritance.
And that was probably the origin of a lot of cultures, of the men in control of women's sexuality. That reaches delirium proportions in the medieval ages with the chastity belt. Right? That was very much reinforced by Judio and especially Christian ethics, especially Christian morality in which women also would've been considered to be embedded, as the archetype of the Madonna and the whore, like your wife and women who are supposed to be pure and non-sexual while at the same time men wanted sex with women. Embedded like this is a split in the men's psyche and in women's psyche as well. So there were many factors actually in the emergence of monogamy in Europe, also economic factors and there were many, many factors, but I think patriarchy and the Christian religion were like two of the major ones.
Giancarlo
I see. This conversation is definitely not a substitution for the book. So the book is coming out
Jorge
July 15th
Giancarlo
Where can our audience look for the book?
Jorge
Giancarlo
It's called Love and Freedom by Jorge Ferrer. Can you discuss a little bit your attempt to depolarize this conversation between monogamy and polyamory?
It's funny because it's such a charged theme, right? You ask hardcore monogamers and they really trash polyamory. And you ask a hardcore polyamorers and they trash monogamy. There's a lot of charge and you call it monophobia.
Jorge
The mono/poly wars, the situation of mutual judgment and condescension between poly and monogamous people. There is monophobia and polyphobia. Some monogamous people have this sense of disgust or moral judgment of poly people. But the other way round happens as well, many poly people think monogamous people are hypocritical, because they really want to do so deep down, but they don't, they are cheating and adulterers that haven't really accessed the essence of love that is non-possessive and inclusive. It's fascinating, monogamers will say the same to poly people. No, you have not accessed true love, if you access true love with someone, you will become monogamous. So it's just fascinating how they charge each other with the same issues.
Giancarlo
So what you're suggesting, as you might agree, any conversation that is so polarized, is not really constructive.
I think that you're trying to depolarize this conversation, a little bit like what's happening with gender. There is now a movement that talks about gender fluidity, can you explain a little bit, this concept of novogamy?
Jorge
Yes. It's like in the same way that the transgender movement deconstructed the gender binary or dichotomy a few years ago. One decade ago most people thought of themselves as a man or a woman and now we can see through the life experiences of many, many people that there is a lot in between.
What I'm doing is something very similar to the binary or the dichotomy between monogamy and polyamory, really opening a field of possibilities in between, which I call novogamy. Novo from new, new forms of relationships around the 21st century, and that kind of force of novogamy can take different types, different pathways. One, for example, is more what I call a fluid form of novogamy, which for example would realize different moments of lives who have different developmental pools or circumstances, for ourselves or as couples, that may call us to be monogamous or be poly.
So it's not that we are one thing or the other, it's that at different moments of our lives, we are one or the other, therefore essentially it isn't that we are mono or poly it really depends. And also this fluid monogamy translates into geographical, like some people today they're monogamous at home, they are monogamous when they're in their country, but when he or she in the partnership travels they give each other free passes. Like monogamous relationships in the documentary. So some people are just monogamous in normal life, but they are more poly when they go to festivals like Burning Man or Boom or clubs, so whether you are monogamous or poly really depends on where you are. The second one would be more hybrid, like the coexistence of mono and poly values. And one of the things that for me was more clear and I've seen it in so many people is like people say, for example, I am monogamous, but some people can say that because they believe in monogamy or even the feeling their hearts, but sometimes sexually they're actually desiring polyamory, and there are other people who are sexually more monogamous, but emotionally or intellectually believe in polyamory.
Are these people monogamous or polyamorous, they are both, I'm trying to deconstruct that binary in many different ways. The last example is one I call more transcendent, which lets some people leverage their identity as the transgender people did.
That transcends being polyamorous, and that can be called nogovamous or not. Some people may just reject a kind of category, like more anarchic forms, or take it as kind of like an existential Zen Koan. ‘I don't care about our terms. I am just living in this space of freedom to relate to different people in different ways according to circumstances and the level of mental pools’. Also, of course, something that is important is that because this can degenerate into a very kind of narcissistic, ‘I do whatever I want'. In my book, I take pains in emphasizing that this needs to be done with a lot of mindfulness of our social oppression, social privilege, and also the impact of our actions on others.
I think that there are ways in which we can walk any path, monogamous, polyamorous or novogamous with ethics and mindfulness or from a very selfish and careless way.
Giancarlo
Yes. It's incredible how you see couples in love that would say things like, I will take a bullet for him or for her. But then when there is maybe a slip of a sexual encounter on a business trip, that becomes ground for divorce, which is destroying families. And of course, I can't say the name, but we have a couple of friends that after she was not feeling very sexual for quite a long period of time, she discovered that the man saw a call girl, and now they're divorcing. She felt betrayed. I think there is a little bit of schizophrenic behavior around this topic, and there's so much charge. I agree with you that, especially in long-term relationships, there are moments where monogamy is needed for a certain spiritual path or for dealing with certain issues. But then, in a long, 20, 30, 40 year relationship, I think with this conversation in your book, try to de-stigmatize this idea that a sexual encounter can be done outside the couple with permission. I feel it's still a big stigma in our society, both Jorge and I live in Ibiza which is famous for sexual liberation, but even in the most open circle, this idea of being open or non-monogamous, it's still a little bit judged. What advice do you have for people that are intrigued and might want to consider non-emotional polyamory but as a first step they decide to be emotionally monogamous, but sexually non-monogamous? Is there a workshop, I definitely would recommend your book, but how can a couple go about starting a process of opening out?
Jorge
I think it really depends on their circumstances. It really also depends on if, for example, the husband in that situation of infidelity is catalyzing the discussion between them or is something more hypothetical, it really changes. There are definitely two clear ways, one is to gain support from a relationship counselor that is really neutral. That is really open to both monogamy and polyamory and to have no agenda, I offer some of these counseling practices myself, but there are many other talented people in the world today.
The problem is that most couples' psychotherapists are polyphobic and they do microaggressions. There have been stories to us poly people, when poly people come to their practice, their room, they start looking at them like ‘wow you have a problem’. They pathologize poly people, so it is very, very important that you find a couples therapist or fellowship consular that is really educated and understands both polyamory and monogamy as very valid options.
So that's one thing. And then the other of course, is to really connect to the tribe, the community of poly people. Because if you are coupled up in your relationship and all your friends who are couples are monogamous and have judgment towards what you're doing and perhaps fear that what you're doing is going to spread into their relationships. It's going to be very hard.
If you surround yourself with people who are living that, who have had more experience than you, I think that could be really, really helpful.
Giancarlo
Yes. There is a community in Portugal called Tamera. That one of their founding principles is non-monogamy, I mean you can be monogamous and live in Tamera, polyamory is accepted and it's actually integrated into the way of living.
Of course, like-minded peers is definitely the safest way to go about a non-Orthodox practice. But so the common case, just to be a little bit more realistic, is that men would love to open up, men would love sexual diversity, but they are afraid to give it to their wife or to the girlfriend. So what is it about women's sexuality that terrifies men so much?
Jorge
I have some thoughts on this, the first one is us changing as well, I think even framing it is a bit problematic in the sense that it's still a stereotype of men being sexual and women being coy. And I don't buy that, I think women are super sexual and actually, they also love sexual diversity as much as, or even more than men. The problem is the culture, they have been more repressed of their sexual desire and they would be called sluts or whores if they show desire whereas a man would be called super macho, a guy. This is the double patriarchal, double standard. How hard is that? Men in particular with the whole history of the weight of the patriarchy of control of female sexuality, in the background and at the same time, many men cheat because they don't want their wives to know because they're afraid they would do the same.
They would be with other men and that's something that many who are really good friends of mine who have worked on a lot of spiritual work, couldn't relate. I think that's something for many who are on a path of self-growth to look at deeply, to know, what are my fears, am I afraid of being compared, am I afraid of being abandoned for a better lover, I'm afraid that my wife and my love would like someone better than me? These are understandable concerns, but that can happen and is happening actually all the time without dopamine. In a way, some people think by glossing the relationship they're securing their wives, and I’m talking about men as well as women when at the same time, this is sometimes like a clock bomb because it can sometimes really explode, and it does.
At the same time, there are all sorts of risks in the opening, life is a risk, relationships are risks, there's no security. The Buddha told us ‘trying to live in certainty, is a pathway to our suffering’. So we really need to be more spacious. And of course, have deep trust with your partner, that's the deeper roots. The woman I was in love within my life, we had an open relationship and there was such a big trust in our communion, in our love that we didn't experience any threat. And of course, clear communication and so forth, but definitely there is not a relationship that is not complicated in some way.
Giancarlo
Do you think one of the main obstacles for a successful opening up, is this fear of abandonment, fear of not being enough? And this is something that is deeply rooted in our Western materialistic culture. Most of us have trauma from our childhoods where our parents lost interest in us. Like most parents do, well not most, and we internalize that it's our fault. It's not that they got distracted because they have a lot on their plate, we think when we're like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, that they got distracted because we're not worthy of their love. So we internalize, and of course, I'm simplifying, we internalize this feeling that we're not enough. And then we project in our relationship, this fear, and we are terrified about opening up. Maybe the recommendation is to work on this fear, work on this trauma. I want to take this opportunity to maybe move to another topic, which I think it's very important and what I love about you is this workshop you're doing called Embodied Spirituality. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jorge
Thank you. Embodied Spirituality is a notion that's becoming more and more popular in some ways, but not always as well understood. Basically, the historical background where you could say simply is that most religions, of a more spirituality, contemplative traditions, like Buddhism and many others. They have developed what they call a heart chakra spirituality. Spirituality is mostly based on cultivating the more subtle dimensions of the heart, equanimity, compassion, love, and a sense of consciousness. And very often this has been done to the detriment of other equally important and vital, and for me sacred dimensions of the human being, that is our bodies, our instincts, and even other more passionate emotions in the heart. I think this gives us like a very dissociated spiritual life that translates, for example, in what we're seeing now, like the ‘me too’ movement, in which even so many highly accomplished Lamaze and highly accomplished psychic healers, indigenous elders they're going into sexually harassing and abusing many women and even children at times.
I think it is very important that we try to cultivate spiritualism that includes the whole person and resexulalise the entire human being, versus seeing the body and sexuality or something less sacred or something we need to control or regulate in order to develop spiritually.
Giancarlo
This is so important. Margot Anand, a tantra teacher would say, ‘all these spiritual traditions, they just tell you not to look below the waist because it's dangerous’. I just want to give the audience a little bit more of a sense of what's happening in those workshops, because I did the first one and for me, it was one of the most powerful experiences. Can we describe a little bit the type of exercises and what you've seen? You've done this workshop for a long time, what is the empirical outcome?
Jorge
I'm a Scorpio; I like to be intriguing and mysterious. So I normally don't like the description of the practices because they are very simple practices. What I can say is they are respectful, mindful, and have physical contact among participants.
We call them interactive embodied meditations. A Lot of meditation practices take place without contact from other people, most of it, so this is bringing contemplative practice with the body and also tapping into the vital energies of the human being.
This is part of what I start integrating the two polarities that have been more dissociated in our culture; consciousness and instinct, or spirituality and sexuality. It's a world that is very integrative that does not involve necessarily nudity or sexual activation, like some Neotantra workshops for others. It's much more subtle, and in a way, it's extremely deep and can go very very deep and there is something that clicks in people's energies and that sometimes it stays.
I've been fascinated by that world for almost 20 years. We used to have an Institute in California and many other places. It's very collaborative, that's another dimension that is very important. Normally at the beginning of the workshop, we offer some tools, about physical contact, boundaries, things like this. And then it'll be quick by the second day, people start co-creating their own contracts or collaborating, choosing from a variety of exercises, which is the one that they want to do, and with who, and that's very important because when a work is taking everybody to the same places, it could be very growthful, but it's much more worthwhile when each person can choose where they need to go. I'll say that for now, I don't know if you want to elaborate or add something?
Giancarlo
Maybe I will quickly share my experience. For me, this idea of using another person's body to create a mystical moment where the receiver and the giver are a hundred percent present and just using their body energy in an act of love really is an act of support. There is this moment where you gently touch each other on this vital part in the chest and the heart. I felt there were two aspects for me. One was the idea of being in service physically in service, where you sometimes stay in an uncomfortable position for 20 minutes on your knee, just for the wellbeing of the other person. And that feels great. And then there is this energetic work that is very subtle but you can feel the energy.
We're not going to be able to explain it properly. So where can the audience find info for the next, the Embodied Spirituality workshop?
Jorge
I post info on my website Jorgenferrer.com
We can also offer a 30% discount code for my new book to your listeners Giancarlo.
Discount Code: 4S21PA available for use at Rowman & Littlefield
Giancarlo
Thank you very much! I'm fascinated by this work because one of my issues, like many I think, is I'm too much in my mind. Too much intellectualization, and sometimes that creates this disconnection with your body and results in a nonharmonious living.
We're obsessed with the intellect, because we needed it, with the enlightenment and the sovereignty of reason, we needed it to get out from the darkness of the middle age. But don't you think we went too far?
Jorge
Yes. In the sense if you look at most education, except in the kindergarten, focuses on the mind, basically in order to get an emotional education we went to a therapist. It's not in the schools, it's now starting to change little by little, in order to get a spiritual education we have to go to the monastery or to Buddhist retreats or whatever.
Now the education we receive is very parcial, very biased towards the mind and not only towards the mind but to the mind's analytic rational powers because the mind is beautiful. The mind also has very symbolic and imaginal, visionary as aesthetic dimensions. But the education you would receive in part because of the great success in our instrumental reason and science, this is how we get free from dogma, and enlightenment project and this is how, how we get things done that matter like science. I know it's really beautiful and valuable, but it's far from a holistic knowledge that not only involves the mind, but also involves the knowing of the heart or more primordialistic knowing and the knowledge of the body, and this has been important because for our minds, when they don't value all these other types of knowledge, that's where they get this stress because they believe that the thing they have been told is they have to do all the work by themselves, they have to know everything by themselves. They start getting this like pride, it's like mental pride in a way. And I think it's important for the mind to start to root itself in the body of its own home. When the mind is rooted in the body, it stops looking for universal truths outside in big theories of everything because of its compensation.
Just looking for something in the abstract world that you can only get inside of you, and when your mind is connected to the heart becomes more warmer, and connected to the vital energy is not only more erotic, but also is connected to the deepest source of creativity that is not in the brain, they are not in the rain, they are not in the right hemisphere, they are in their life energy that can create another human being and also is an entity that is like the deepest creativity of life flowing through us. So that's what true, genuine captivity comes from in my understanding and my experience. I differentiate between two types of creativity, a permutation, mental permutation of already known ideas. That's the most normal, but what about genuine creative developments emerging from your guts? I think when we start situating the mind as a member of a team player with the rest of who we are, we start accessing those deep layers of connectivity and the mind can also become less anxious and more at peace that I think we all need that including myself.
Giancarlo
Yes. Because the mind, for some reason, manages to always make you feel you're in danger. Right. We inherited that from a prehistoric time where we needed to be aware of the sabertooth tiger. But now that we lost this physical danger the mind seems to have a tendency of telling you what is wrong with you, what can go wrong, and so I like this saying that ‘the master is a terrible master, but the beautiful servant’. To go on to the next topic about this mind-body-spirit discussion, I know you're also a practitioner of plant medicine. Would you like to talk a little bit about that?
Jorge
Sure. I've worked with many plant medicines for many, many decades, in particular ayahuasca, mushrooms, and some synthetics, although I have always been drawn to more natural plants. I think there is a deeper way that intelligence beyond yourself and deep self and cosmos that guides you, that protects you. For the last 16 years, I found San Pedro Wachuma a cactus from Peru and that is the plant medicine I felt called to work with and after seven, eight years I was given a recipe and authorization from a lineage in the sacred body of Peru to offer ceremonies. That's also what I do.
I have to say for me, each plant, each medicine has its own... It's like with monogamy and polyamory, I don't believe one is better than the other in the absolute universal way, you'll find the same in the plant world. Some people say ayahuasca is the deepest plant, it's the most transforming. People in Mexico, on mushrooms, there's nothing like mushrooms. Well, all of the plants have their own areas of expertise and depending on your moment one of them could be more appropriate than others. And I think that's probably one of the things, one of the new jobs, new professional careers of people who have all this deep knowledge of different plants and can advise people, depending on where they are and what they need, which one.
I don't want to generalize but for me ayahuasca was amazing, to put you on a path with integrity when you are out of integrity ayahuasca is really, really helpful. And of course one of the other things mushrooms are for me the kings of death and rebirth, to experience, death of your ego and being reborn. But for people that are so different, for me san pedro teaches this deep lesson that is against our Judeo-Christian baggage, that in order to grow spiritually and deeply you do not need to suffer.
You can do so in celebration and community and joy and in harmony. So each of the plants has its own expertise. And depending on your moment, one or the other could be better and also depending on your psychological conditions. I know many people have done ayahuasca and even mushrooms, and they can be destabilized psychologically because maybe they have some previous positions, psychological positions, and those experiences were too much to integrate.
There's a challenge of integration with many of these plants and that's also why San Pedro is far easier to integrate. And the construction of your functional ego, it's not really bad trips or fragmentation possible, and it's much easier to integrate into everyday life.
Giancarlo
This is so interesting. I'm fascinated by this topic, but can you elaborate a little bit more? I completely understand why you say that ayahuasca is more like an integrity referee, that slaps your butt if you're out of integration. And that happened to me many times. And I totally understand the mushroom, the death, rebirth, but when you mentioned San Pedro and this idea of growing, not in suffering, can you elaborate a little bit about it?
Jorge
Yes, we have received from the Judeo-Christian tradition a deeply ingrained assumption that we are occurring in our unconscious, even consciousness depends on the people that in order to grow spiritually, to be serious of spirituality, needs to be a path of discipline and the suffering and the suffering, that archetype of christ on the cross. It's like pain and suffering leads to the resurrection. I'm going to heaven and salvation, redemption is through suffering. That's the archetype here, there is of course a time in our lives in which it's important to face our shit, it's important to face their deepest fears, in psychosis or death or meaninglessness, but those experiences can also help you and force you on, and it helps you to also help others when they are there.
But I think there is also a moment in life in which you don't need to go through this experience again. Sometimes mushrooms, depending on the dosage, can go there very often, ayahuasca can go to many different places and with San Pedro, we have found that is not the case. And that's why I say instead you can grow spiritually very deeply, but without the concern of what is called a bad trip, that's a fragmentation of the psyche of the ego, people lose their center, they think there is a lot of work or there's no way out. I mean, how is the eternal now a shadow of cosmic consciousness and hearing you have for eternity and I've experienced that. It's fruitful in some ways, I don't want to go back again. I don't think I need to. I think with San Pedro there's no danger of going there and at the same time, at some point in our development, it could be necessary or important to go to these places.
Giancarlo
Yes. I just wanted to clarify for the listener that those plants are not legal in most countries and also can be very disorienting. You have to really choose the right facilitator or guide or Sharman, that you feel comfortable with, who you know a little bit, you really need to feel safe. I would really do very deep research, if and when you decide to approach the substance. I remember one Sharman, which I worked with for many years, would use this phrase, ‘you receive, you integrate, and then you apply’.
Can you elaborate a little bit? I think that in some of these practitioners of this medicine, there is not much guidance in the integration and definitely no guidance on the application.
Jorge
Yeah. That's part of the problem. When these plants were taken in their traditional sites, mostly indigenous, the integration was happening more organically because the whole culture was geared towards a whole mission to help people. Going through the right of passages and being integrated into society in a different way, won't give you a different role.
For example, when they are adults when they went through that experience and of course how the younger person integrates, but in the modern world many people have these experiences and then later, they don't know what to do with them. More definitively traditional healers are not trained to help Western people to integrate the experiences. Maybe a few, a little. But they are not, and they don't care. They say no, no just drink more medicine. I mean, that's what they tell you. No, just come back and drink more medicine. But gratefully and fortunately there are all the time more centers in Peru where they practice with more traditional healers, they come together with Western psychologists and Western people and they are studying more integrative work.
I think that's the future, that's the power and possibility for Western people. When there is that kind of both in theory work.
For me integration it’s super important, definitely, I always recommend time in nature and also recommend after these experiences, but time in nature, is not just going for a walk, but this is like a mindful sensuous connection with nature because nature is a first, an organic reference of harmonious integration.
So spending a lot of time in nature, after some of these experiences by yourself, touching and smelling, hugging, that's really, really helpful. And of course, this connects with Embodied Spirituality work. Many of those practices you did like the rooting are in the feet and legs, practices that help the routing of the experience, that's really helpful to do, and actually, on the next retreat, we may do that in the morning for integration practice. Feet and legs to help people to come into the body from what they have experienced. And ultimately the application piece, I really like that. It really depends on each case that needs to be seen case by case.
But for example, let's say that this person lives in the city and then has this vision with mushrooms and is like I just really need to live in nature. It's a very common experience that I just need to live in nature, I need to leave the city, and then come back to the reality; the structures of their lives, their work is in the city. And it's like, well, this is not something I can do now, but perhaps there is one step you can take in that direction. For example, become a member of a local garden in the city. For me it is important, it's not like to make the radical change brought by the vision, that in some cases could be the way to go, especially when you're at a crossroad in an existential crisis, but just get just one step in the direction after this practice. And if you do that, there's something that gets integrated into your real-life through action.
Giancarlo
Yes. This is very clear and very useful. Let me touch on the last topic. You almost did a second PhD in neuroscience. I think there is a scientific consensus on this idea of plasticity, neuroplasticity.
You can rewire your brain. Our parents would say things like, oh your grandmother was neurotic. She is never going to change. But now we know, there's been some studies with neuroplasticity and the monk, a long-term meditator that we see with the brain scans a change in their brain. So how is this knowledge that you can rewire your brain? To what extent it's important every day to rewire the brain because the brain rewiring requires work. I remember a neuropsychopharmacologist from London said that our neurocircuitry in our brain is like the deep truck of cross-country skiing. You have these little skis that are deep, stuck in these tracks.
And so you're stuck in there. And if you want to create a new neurocircuitry, you have to have the strength to get out of those tracks and stay out long enough to start digging the new tracks. But unfortunately, the old tracks are deeper and they pull you back. So this is a good metaphor that I like to share because, every day you need to do either your meditation or your visualization or concrete stuff, like you were saying, connecting with nature. Do you agree that it's daily work that is not going to happen by itself?
Jorge
Yes. I think so. A colleague of mine from California Integral Studies wrote a book called Neurogenesis. If you want to check it out and maybe interview him it is great, Brant Cortright - Neurogenesis.
It is a very practical book, diet, it covers neurogenesis. I read the book, I haven't done experiments on my brain to see what has happened since then after starting practices. But I would add to what you say about meditation and visualization and that kind of work we can do really at home. I think things could also be like not just so about discipline, it could be very playful and enjoyable.
We're here in Ibiza, for example, like going to swim in the waters of the Mediterranean every day. And shit like that has an effect on your brain or people who love to dance, there is now research of movement impact on the brain.
Because we used to move so much more, as a species, for hundreds of thousands of years, hung from the trees and running all the time. And now life is much more stagnant and static. People are even doing in places like Ibiza a lot of ecstatic dance, for example, the movement I think all those things were really enjoyable. Also can have an impact on your brain. And this just connects with one last thing I wanted to tie with the San Pedro we have in our culture because of again this heavy Judeo-Christian tradition. And when I say that, I'm just talking about the more dogmatic forms of Christianity that we've received as children, not about the mystical core of the tradition which is very beautiful and realistic in many ways.
But we have a split in our psyche between the sacred and the ludic, the sacred and the playful. I think that's like another discipline that we need to put together because the sacred can be very reverent and be very humorous, kind of very light as well as many masters know. And some of these crazy wisdom teachers also know that even if some of them are real rascals, I would take some distance from them.
Giancarlo
That's very interesting. We're now in July and so you should follow Jorge's recommendation, go dancing and go swimming. Let me allow, if you don't mind, where are you now personally, on your, on your life journey? How old are you now?
Jorge
I'm 52.
Giancarlo
You finished your teaching career. I mean, you are still a teacher very much so, tell us a little bit, how did you go from all those years as a professor at the university and now living in Ibiza?
Jorge
Yeah. I spent like 20 years teaching in the university in San Francisco, California, and it's a beautiful university also connected to the spiritual dimension at the same time it's very mental work. So there's no way, even in that university, that your life doesn't get imbalanced. Too many hours on the computer, too many hours doing dissertations, student papers, it's like nonstop. So for a while now, these last years me and my partner, then partner in California had this dream of really moving away from academic work to focus more closely and more directly on the healing and transformation of people. She was a very talented psychotherapist unfortunately she passed away a year and a half ago.
And that was one of the most transformative times of my life. It was sudden, it was unexpected. Since then that was part of the catalyst for me, dropping everything, dropping my university, dropping the academic life. And following that dream, that was a shared dream. I don't think I'm following her dream. It was my dream too, of doing only things that are more directly working with people like workshops and ceremonies. I still write books of course, the next book apart from this one that is coming out, it's going to be in Spanish, a popular version of this Love and Freedom, it has a major publisher interested in the book in Spain. So I'm very excited about that. Reaching more and more people and working more closely also through constantly in practice in people's healing and transformation. That's what coming to Ibiza also was part of that new chapter of my life, like starting from scratch, a new life. Thanks for asking.
Giancarlo
And do you want to start a family? Have children? Is this something on the agenda?
Jorge
I don't think that's my calling, you need to be open to life and mystery, so I never say never, whenever people say I will never do that I always kind of like have half a smile, because I've seen the people who are really determined, life kind of plays with you, but at the same time, it wasn't even my calling in the sense, I felt my call was to try to transform this world as much as possible. With my grain of my contribution, little contribution, with children of other people who'd come find a better world or finer world or more healthier world, from this crazy world that we live in.
For me, if I had a kid I would want to be a really good father and that means to focus a lot of energy and time on this one individual because it has your DNA. I totally respect and admire parents very deeply, and I love children, but I feel like more of a universal uncle. I have many Godsons and Goddaughters and I love children, but I don't think that's on my path, but who knows!
Giancarlo
So if you close your eyes and you visualize yourself in 20 years' time, what would you like to see?
Jorge
That's a beautiful question. I think I see myself living, even more deeply embedded in nature than I live now a bit further away from the city, could be in Ibiza could be somewhere else.
I see myself living in a more contemplative life and still working with people, but maybe more selectively. I enjoy living in a community, absolutely, I'm a big proponent and big supporter of living in communities for all sorts of reasons; emotional, ecological. Talking about relationships before there is a huge difference when a couple who are monogamous or whatever and they live in a community than when they're living by themselves there is just so much emotional support from different people, they have a lot of mediators in conflict, it's much much easier to navigate. So community, nature, more contemplation, and fun.
Giancarlo
I'm not going to let you go yet. You mentioned community, this is a big topic now. I don't know if you agree, but I read somewhere that the ideal number is 150 people, because you can intimately know 150 people more than that, it becomes complicated. And then recently I heard Yuval Harari saying that the problem is that when you try to have hundreds of thousands/ millions of people live together, then inevitably you develop power structure and with power structure and hierarchy, then that's where things start to get complicated.
So you are living in a community, but it's like a big house, it's like 10/15 of us, 8, 9, 10.
Do you see in the future, on this planet a more nucleus of a hundred people? Do you see an exodus from the cities? Do you think this is something welcome and encouraged?
Jorge
Absolutely. Yes. I think there was a trend already in our culture and the COVID crisis has accelerated tremendously. I was in Barcelona during the COVID crisis. I was one of the people in the Diaspora, but I was not the first but I wasn't the last; so many of my friends, so many people I know left in Barcelona. They went to the countryside, many of them living in the community or looking for community. So it's a really strong trend in many parts of the world. Like you, I've been very interested in communities as people, communities in particular and spending time in Auroville in India, in Damanhur in Italy, and all the other places, I have never been like Tamera, I was invited, I wanted to go, I have friends who went there and spoke highly about what's happening there.
I think the size is important, but Auroville is like 5000 people, Damanhur is less, but they were living in small communities, so when I spent a month there, I was living with this beautiful community called Adventure. There were 18 people within the larger structure so that's what I see, probably why I see me moving towards a lot of communities. And there could be some point kind of more moving to federations and of small communities, like networks of people, a new way of life can be emerging from the grassroots, from this kind of networks of communities.
And of course what I see with my visionary hat on. I see a big polarization still before integration in our culture in the world between great technologically driven communities and people, with a beautiful reality and nanotechnology.
I mean, that's huge today, huge and this is going to be like going back to nature, back to the tribe. It will get polarized for a while, and my hope is that they will somehow integrate in the future, but I think it's going to take some time.
Giancarlo
Yes, so since you have your visionary hat on. I'm having so much fun having you here.
My friend, Daniel Pinchbeck, when we had Trump in America and the country was getting really polarized. I was like, Daniel, we're reaching the bottom, this is like a cup of Ayahuasca, we're now going to try to look at the new American dream. And he said, no, I think we need another cup.
And I think the other cup was COVID. So with COVID, we know what happened. The question now to you is. You seem to mention a third cup because you said that maybe before the integration, there's going to be more polarization between nanotechnology and the technological believer's / singularity, so how do we see this planet of ours in the next 50-100 years?
Jorge
Wow, that's a great mystery. Because things are moving so fast and whenever we think, or we feel that we have a sense of what's happening, then COVID shows up, and turns everything upside down. I think that's very humbling. I think we need to develop this sense of uncertainty and humbleness. Wow; we really think we have things together here as homosapians, who are very smart and have all these technological things. And then suddenly life is like bomba and instead 3 million people, I mean, it's unbelievable, and all the major minds in the world are trying to figure it out, and it has taken a year or more, to start making sense and find remedies.
I'm an optimist by nature, I always believe there's a deeper meaning, in terms of evolutionary history of unfolding of life, when in this deep crisis, there is something better around the corner and coming in. An example of this is the race of Donald Trump in the states. For me, it was very clear, that was horrible, what I mean, I was living in California, and we were horrified. And what the fuck, this feels like the surrealist movie. We don't want it to be here, but at the same time, after one or two years, you start realizing that without Donald Trump in power, all those grassroots organizations, Latino, and black and women, wouldn't have raised up with such a force.
And now we have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, who might well become the first real woman American President. And thanks to Trump. I have hopes for even when things got really dystopian, with the trauma in the Administration. And hope that there is some deeper historical logic to it.
I don't feel arrogant about that, I feel confident because I've seen it through history and I believe it is like an impulse towards a greater consciousness with interconnectedness. Even with many of these values that before, even a few years ago they were considered ‘New Age bullshit’, and now it is poking and spreading like high cultures, like mindfulness and yoga and altruism and compassion and they are reaching those levels in a few years. I feel very excited about our moment. I want to close and to finish our interview with a really hopeful note, that we want to change to be faster, of course, the first one, and it feels low at first because we're impatient. But if you look historically at our history and what has happened in the last decade, two decades, it's unbelievable. So I think we need to look at that side too, and don't get overwhelmed or undermined by all the media that gives us only bad news.
Giancarlo
Yes! Things like regenerative agriculture, that incredible project, creating life, creating water.
So this is great past the one-hour mark. I think we're going to wrap it up. I'm going to try to maybe have you back and try to do the same thing in Spanish with your new book. If I'm going to be able to! We have also started a conversation on Instagram, on @mangu.TV. I would like to hear from the audience, what are the topics you are more interested in?
Jorge really encapsulates most of the themes that are dear to Mangustars Production. The slogan sex, drugs, and regeneration. So Jorge is an expert on those three topics. And so we'll have him back. Thank you very much for listening. Is there anything else you want to share? We've covered a lot of ground.
Jorge
I am just grateful for an invitation and I just hope that whatever Giancarlo and I have said here is a bit of value for the listeners, for many of you. I thank you for your attention.
Giancarlo
Thank you. Thank you guys. Bye.
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