Thinking Ahead with Carter Phipps

Last year, in episode 3 of this podcast, I interviewed Eric Wargo, author of Time Loops . I had gotten to know Eric at a conference a few years earlier at the Esalen Center for Theory and Research. I was impressed by him and his ideas, and spent many hours talking with him. I find his theories about precognition, retrocausation, the nature of the brain, and the role of dreaming fascinating. They e...

What if the ethical challenge of our own time is not to have the courage to be a combatant for the last century's great causes, but to negotiate a much more complex set of moral issues, values, and worldviews? In this unique episode of Thinking Ahead, Carter reads his latest essay, written for The Post Progressive Post . Inspired by the recent movie A Call to Spy, Carter shares his reflection...

Misinformation. Disinformation. Fake news. Conspiracy theories. These viruses of the information age proliferate with frightening speed on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, sometimes with serious consequences. Over the past few years, as the scope of the problem has become unavoidable, there has been much debate over how to deal with it, and increasing pressure to do so. S...

There are few people in the world of writers, musicians, artists, and celebrities who are instantly recognizable by just a single name. Oprah, Sting, Bruce, Beyonce—to name a few. Deepak falls into that rarefied category. Ever since he burst onto the progressive spiritual scene in the late eighties with his unique mix of health, wellness, science, spirituality, and celebrity, Deepak Chopra has bee...

There is something about the American Southwest—long home to the Navajo (Diné) and the Utes and many other Native American tribes over the years—that stirs the soul, evoking our deep, mythopoetic imagination.  It is to this spiritually charged corner of the world that author Bill Plotkin, founder of the Animas Valley Institute , invites people to travel on unique and powerful journeys of what he c...

Every day, Americans use oil and gas. We heat our homes, we drive our cars, we power our technology and our lives. And yet, due to climate concerns, we know we need to move toward carbon-free sources of energy as fast as possible. But changing our national infrastructure is a challenge, not to mention international infrastructure—even with the ongoing push for renewables. So the questions loom: Ho...

Are you one person? One self? A singular personality? Or, as the poet said, do you “contain multitudes”? In the new book Your Symphony of Selves , authors Jordan Gruber and James Fadiman argue that each one of us is composed of many distinct selves that make up the totality of who and what we are. They attempt to rescue this notion from the realm of mental illness and schizophrenia, and show how t...

MBS. Those three letters may not mean much to many Americans, but in the Middle East, they are instantly recognizable. They are the initials of Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Royal House of Saud—the most powerful person in Saudi Arabia and one of the more influential figures in world politics at the moment. When Mohammed bin Salman became next in line to the throne a few years ago, there...

Jeffrey Kripal has carved out a unique place in American culture. He’s a professor of Religious Studies at Rice university, with an unparalleled range of knowledge in mysticism, philosophy, esoteric thought, gnosticicm, spirituality, human potential, and so much more. Kripal’s work extends beyond academia as well. He spent a number of years as chairman of the Board at the renowned Esalen Institute...

America is more politically and culturally divided than it has been at any time since the Civil War. At least, that's what many political scientists tell us, and I see no reason to argue. Polarization is a truly “wicked problem” as some say, meaning a problem that involves so many interconnected and entangled issues—politically, culturally, economically—that solving it seems near impossible....

QAnon. The hidden dangers of 5G. The nefarious secret plans of Bill Gates. The global cabal of pedophiles. Massive election fraud. Jewish space lasers. Conspiracy theories have grown like weeds during the pandemic and everyone, it seems, is trying to understand why. And this is not just a phenomenon on the Right. We also see it spreading widely in the alternative health and wellness movements and...

When you think of psychedelics, what comes to mind? Probably not the ancient Greeks. Most people associate these mind-altering substances with the hippies of the sixties and seventies, or perhaps with some shamanic traditions. Yet new research suggests that psychedelics may be more deeply entwined in the roots of Western civilization than we realize. My guest today, classics scholar Brain Muraresk...

What is the purpose of a corporation? In 2019, the Business Roundtable, which represents almost 200 of America’s leading CEOs, published an answer to this question, committing to lead their companies “for the benefit of all stakeholders,” by which they meant customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders. The media jumped on this idea, and it made headlines around the world for its...

Following Joe Biden's inauguration, I reflect on the extraordinary but easy-to-miss significance of the peaceful transfer of power, and the evolutionary vision of American politics contained in poet Amanda Gorman's description of our country as "a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished."

Once upon a time, Henri Bergson had the world at his feet. In the early part of the 20th century, he was the philosopher du jour —celebrated in popular culture, his advice trusted by powerful figures of the day, his lectures attended by thousands, and his writings studied in the salons for which Paris was famed. Yet today, people hardly remember him. And the reason for his diminishment in the anna...

What are the causes of political populism? How and why has it manifested so strongly in America? This country is often considered a society in which class is less important, but is that really true? In this episode of Thinking Ahead, Carter speaks to Michael Lind, professor at The University of Texas, about his book The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite. Lind suggests that...

Netflix’s popular documentary The Social Dilemma is causing millions of viewers to rethink the influence of big tech on our society and ourselves. But does it go too far? In this inaugural "Rants & Reflections" episode of Thinking Ahead, Carter discusses the film and the provocative questions it raises. How do we develop a more conscious relationship with social media and the “attent...

Why is America so polarized? Today everyone wants to know. Explanations abound—money in politics, gerrymandering, cronyism in Washington, the two-party system, the electoral college, the primary system, or even the structure of Constitution. While these issues are each worthy of real concern, many are effects rather than causes. In this episode of Thinking Ahead, Carter interviews Steve McIntosh,...

In the second part of this two-part series with Steve McIntosh, author of Developmental Politics and co-founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, Carter and Steve discuss the conflicts between worldviews in American politics. Can we defend the strengths of one worldview without being shackled to its pathologies? How do we protect liberal values that are increasingly under attack? With the r...

Deflation, inflation, debt, interest rates, QE, Federal Reserve policy—for many, words and ideas like these that come from the world of economics might as well be a foreign language. And sometimes, they seem like one. But they are important. In this episode of Thinking Ahead, Carter dives into technology and economics with Jeff Booth, author of The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is Key to an Abu...

Trauma. It’s a term we hear everywhere today, or so it seems. In our psychologically informed age, the idea that many of us—if not all of us—carry around some psychological and even physiological effects from troubled events in our history is commonplace. But what if all trauma was not the same? In this episode of Thinking Ahead, Carter interviews Dr. Mark Forman, author of The Monster’s Journey:...

Have you ever had a dream that seemed to come true? You are not alone. Some of the most famous people in history have reported having precognitive dreams. Are they just imagining it? Or is there something more interesting going on? In this episode of Thinking Ahead , Carter interviews Eric Wargo, author of the book, Time Loops . Wargo has deeply studied the nature of time and precognition and has...

Energy and power is fundamental to the information age, and few people bring as much insight and knowledge to the table as Robert Bryce, author of A Question of Power and creator of the new documentary Juice: How Electricity Explains the World . They discuss the future of energy, the role of new technology, Climate Change challenges, and the increasing global demand for electricity. Beginning with...

Have you ever looked at the world through the lens of “deep time”? Carter speaks to Marcia Bjornerud, author of Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World . They discuss why the title of her new book is a play on “mindfulness,” and the importance of being able to appreciate the perspective of geological time. Bjornerud suggests that our species tends to have a “temporal ill...