Startup Geometry Podcast

Hello and welcome back to the Startup Geometry Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Windcastle Press, where a new pair of hardbacks of my translation of Giordano Bruno's On The Shadows Of Ideas will soon be available. We're back after a long break to talk to Greg Kaminsky, host of the Occult of Personality Podcast, and author of two new books: Pronaos, dealing with the ngondro or preliminary practices of Vajrayana Buddhism, and Celestial Intelligences, dealing with the esoteric writings of Renaissance philosopher and magus Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, best known for his manifesto Oration on the Dignity of Man.   Download the episode here, or find us on your favorite podcatcher.

I am, by temperament and experience, more sanguine about all of this than he is. I tend to think things will eventually work themselves out over time. My enlightenment experiences have been mild and pleasant; if mine had been as harrowing as his, I would probably feel as he does. As a technical note, there were some sound issues on our Transatlantic Skype call, which occasionally made it sound as though one of us was conducting the call while having a bath or as if we had ghost hunter-style EVPs from beyond the grave on the line. I apologize for these and hope they do not interfere with your listening enjoyment. Photo: Robin Hood Co-op   Photo: Robin Grane-McCalla Show Notes and Links Vinay Gupta @leashless on twitter Mattereum Internet of Agreements The Gupta State Failure Management Archive Hexayurt re.silience Paul Wilson, The Calm Technique Ethereum Scott Nelson, Sweetbridge Healing Earth Resources Rocky Mountain Institute BKS Iyengar, Light on Yoga Nath tradition Gurkhas Yogiraj Gu

Camelia Elias holds a PhD and DPhil and spent the last twenty years as a professor of literature, most recently at Roskilde University in Denmark. Recently, she escaped academia to start an online school, Aradia Academy, where she teaches cartomancy (card reading); that is, how to read—yourself, someone else, books, pictures, films, the situation, the problem, or anything else—without belief, emotion, preconceptions or other obscurations getting in the way.   She recently said, "Why is reading cards fascinating? Because their visual language allows us to bypass everything we know or think we know."   Boiling our conversation down to the keywords, we talk about: interesting—curiosity—dullness—belief—vastness—strategy—one cut—the present circumstances—"and yet"—concrete—psychomagic—Jodorowsky—Freud—Boom! (L to R) Dr. Camelia Elias, Freya  

Today, I talk with Gary Lachman about his latest book, The Lost Knowledge of the Imagination. We discuss the need to balance the analytic "survival mode" consciousness of the external world with an older way of thinking that prioritizes the inner landscape and the imagination. We also discuss the necessity of creative outlets to regulate how much of the sensory world we take in and process, to open the valve all the way for peak experience and dial it down so we remember to do the dishes. I spend a good bit of the interview groping toward, but never reaching, the concept of a gestalt as a shorthand mental representation of external or internal objects. Some events do not pack down well to a gestalt representation, while others form new gestalts on close examination. This process of gestalt analysis and synthesis runs behind the conversation we have here. Gary Lachman is the author of twenty-one books on topics ranging from the evolution of consciousness to literary suicides, popular culture and the history o

I used to see some amazing obituaries, often in British newspapers, detailing a remarkable life lived by someone who had worked undercover during WWII, escaped from Nazis, and gone on to live to a great old age. Frequently, these people were forgotten or never spoke of their adventures. Elizabeth Smith Friedman, the subject of Jason Fagone's new biography, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, is one of those rare people, though her story begins with a search for the true author of Shakespeare, runs through two world wars, includes a stint fighting gangsters and rumrunners (and the jealousy of J. Edgar Hoover) and the foundation of the NSA, and ends with more Shakespeare. It sounds like a whole series of detective novels rolled into one, yet Elizabeth was a real person with an amazing story.  

Daniel Ingram has a successful career as an ER doctor, but he's best known on the Internet for being a meditator and meditation teacher. He's the author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: an Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book, which I first read about over on Scott Alexander's blog Slate Star Codex here and here. Daniel made some waves in the dharma community by claiming to have attained enlightenment as an arahat. On today's podcast, we talk about the different ways to assess that claim, what states and insights may occur on the way to enlightenment, and what to do if you get yourself into a spiritual crisis of one sort or another. We also talk about some of my meditative experiences and how to use a candle flame as a focus for meditative practice.

Lynne Kelly is a teacher, science writer and anthropologist of oral and pre-literate cultures. Her most recent book is The Memory Code, which deals with the use of memory techniques including rituals, songs, dances, portable devices, and large-scale geographic features and built structures as memory aids.   She has conducted a series of experiments to replicate memory techniques from the classical memory palace to handheld memory devices such as the Lukasa to rituals and storytelling. Today, we talk about how several early and modern cultures have used these memory techniques, why Stonehenge and Chaco Canyon may have been used as memory palaces, and why they were almost certainly centers for an oral culture's knowledge economy.   As with our other conversations with anthropologists, it's helpful to remember the following guidelines: Do not confuse industrial technological advancement with intelligence. "Primitive" people, whether distant from you in space or time, were and are at least as smart as you.

This is an unpodcast episode, consisting of a transcript only. Read the full interview over at bottlerocketscience.net. Today on Startup Geometry, we're talking with Phil Stutz and Barry Michels, authors of the new book Coming Alive. Since we last talked to them, they've been keeping busy with their highly successful psychotherapy practices, where much of their clientele consists of Hollywood creative professionals; running multiday retreats and seminars; and writing their second book, which deals with Part X, the self-sabotaging part of ourselves, the devil inside. When we're able to overcome Part X, we become more engaged with life, more creative, and happier. As one might expect with a discussion about inner sabotage, we experienced technical difficulties with the audio version of this interview. We were able to recover almost all of the contents of the interview in the print version below. Special thanks go out to the members of The Tools Facebook Group, who asked some amazing questions about how the T

Eric Obenauf founded Two Dollar Radio to publish daring, experimental fiction that wouldn't otherwise find its audience. On this episode, we talk about how indy and small press publishing works, the importance of having your own taste, and the art of branching out (Two Dollar Radio now makes films, and they're opening their new Headquarters store to be a hub for literature in the city and a cool place to hang out.

Stephen Buranyi writes about science and the socioeconomic structure of the scientific research system in place today. We talk about the joys and sorrows of being a scientist who has escaped the academy, how to pitch ideas for articles for general audience news publications, intentional and unintentional bad data, and the incentive structures surrounding scientific publication. My apologies for the delay effect on Stephen's end of the conversation. I like to think that it's because we were using Mr. Bell's original transatlantic cable. Show Notes and Links Stephen on Twitter Stephen at The Guardian "The High Tech War on Science Fraud" "Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?" Podcasts associated with both of these articles are available through The Guardian site. The Metaresearch Center at Tillburg University   

Jonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. he was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016. Taplin's areas of specialization are in international communication management and the field of digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. (via jontaplin.com) Today, Jon talks about his new book, Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. It tells the s

Public Service Announcement: This week, the Senate released their version of the AHCA, which would cause 25 million people to lose their health insurance. Access to individual health insurance markets enables entrepreneurs, among others, to take the risk of leaving full time jobs with large corporations to build companies of their own. Without full funding for Medicaid, the cost of delivering healthcare to everyone rises. Please contact your Senators and representatives to tell them your position on this important issue. Today on the podcast, Shava Nerad returns to talk about the ins and outs of political activism in the 21st century, how to make an impact as a technologically savvy organizer, and what you need to learn to be an effective citizen. Previously, Shava visited us to talk about her career as the founding Executive Director of the Tor Project and privacy activist.  

Frederick Schilling loves chocolate. He is the founder of Dagoba Chocolate, AMMA Chocolate and Big Tree Farms. He's made a career out of launching products that are not only delicious and luxurious, but also environmentally and socially responsible. When he founded Dagoba, he launched the organic chocolate category. When he founded Big Tree Farms and AMMA Chocolate, he changed the lives of farmers on two continents.     Today, we talk about: How he got interested in chocolate while a religion major at Ohio Wesleyan University. His first big breaks in product development, distribution, suppliers and media. Why cash and people are the scarce resources needed by any founder. Visionary experiences with the chocolate goddess. (The plants have an agenda, as Michael Pollan and Gordon White like to say.) Terroir of chocolate. Subtypes of cacao plants. Impact of witch's broom disease on the chocolate industry in Brazil. (see also the phylloxera pandemic that hit the wine industry) Breeds of cacao tree

Sid Kemp is a coach, consultant and the author of ten books on business success published by McGraw-Hill and Entrepreneur Press. Until a decade ago, Sid worked with top Fortune 500 companies, government agencies like the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and think tanks such as McKinsey Consulting and Deloitte Touche. Then he took their best practices and wrote the best seller, Entpreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Project Management for Small Business.     Today, we talk about the ins and outs of the consulting business, working with the inner and outer goals of the client, and planning for the equally challenging crises of wild success and disaster.

Ben Joffe is a scholar of Vajrayana Buddhism, currently finishing his PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder. On this episode, we talk about his first career as a teenaged tarot reader, the question of how Vajrayana and tantra have been impacted by the Tibetan diaspora and encounter with the global monoculture, the role of the ngakpa (non-celibate yogi), and Ben's translation of Dr. Nida Chenagtsang's books on traditional Tibetan medicine. We experienced some technical difficulties during the recording of this episode. While the quality of the sound may be poor in some places, it is more than compensated for by the high quality of the guest.    

B. Alan Wallace Today, I talk with B. Alan Wallace about his multiple careers as Buddhist contemplative and teacher, physicist and cognitive scientist, writer and translator. We discuss his road to becoming a monk and returning to laity, the meditative practices of Dzogchen, how to tell a good teacher (by the quality of their students), the remarkable career of Dudjom Lingpa, and how Buddhist contemplatives and neuroscientists can collaborate to effect a revolution in our understanding of the mind. Bio Dynamic lecturer, progressive scholar, and one of the most prolific writers and translators of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D., continually seeks innovative ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices with Western science to advance the study of the mind.  Dr. Wallace, a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, has taught Buddhist theory and meditation worldwide since 1976. Having devoted fourteen years to training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, ordained by H. H. the Dalai L

Max Gladstone Today, I talk with Max Gladstone, author of The Craft Sequence, in which a magical post-Apocalyptic society turns out to be not a terribly bad place to live, thank you very much. He describes his novels differently depending on who he's talking to. For businesspeople, lawyers, and consultants, he says, "It's just like your job, only with wizards." Like many writers, he's held a number of interesting and out-of-the-way jobs, as you can see from his bio below. Bio Max Gladstone is a two-time finalist for the John W Campbell Best New Writer Award, and a one-time finalist for the XYZZY Award. In July 2016 Tor Books published his most recent novel, FOUR ROADS CROSS. Other novels in the CRAFT SEQUENCE include, LAST FIRST SNOW, a tale of zoning politics, human sacrifice, and parenthood.  LAST FIRST SNOW is  the fourth Craft Sequence novel, preceded by THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO SERPENTS RISE, and FULL FATHOM FIVE. Max studied Chan poetry and late Ming dynasty fantasy at Yale; he lived and taught for two

Mitch Horowitz Today on Startup Geometry, I talk with Mitch Horowitz, editor, voiceover artist, historian of alternative religion and the occult, and author of Occult America and One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life. We discuss the influence of experimental religions have had on American history, our favorite uncanny tourism sites, how the belief that "thoughts are causative" has affected the real world, and why having a Definite Chief Aim can help you achieve it.  

Gordon White This week I talk to Gordon White, former "weird kid", proprietor of the popular Rune Soup podcast and blog. Gordon is also a documentarian, world traveler, digital strategist and practicing magician. He's the author of three books that came out in the last year or so: Star.Ships, which we discuss in this podcast; The Chaos Protocols, which takes a heterodox view of how to handle the post-financial crash economy; and Pieces of Eight, a personal history of the Chaos Magic movement.       This interview has a twin over on Gordon's podcast, where he interviews me about the Bruno books.You can listen to that over on Rune Soup or on iTunes.     Episode Outline, Notes and Links     Being part of a traveling family, returning home to Australia "You don't go to London for the snorkeling." "A lot of people recycling Seth Godin's slides at conferences." Why podcasting is the new blogging: "It's a return to the real." Why "Were you a weird kid?" is a great first interview question. Bei

Robert Pool is a mathematician, science writer, and, together with Anders Ericsson, the author of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Today, we talk about the use of deliberate practice to improve physical and mental performance, why the 10,000 hour rule isn't what you think it is, the relationship between talent and success (it's less important than you think, what good mental representations will do for you, and why taste is essential to the development of expert skills.