Social Sciences

The “awe-full” qualities of horror and terror may share essential roots with those underlying transformative states such as flow, awe, presence, timelessness and ecstasy.

Why Materialism is a Dead-End

How misunderstanding matter has led us astray

Returning to Ourselves: The Wisdom of Trauma

Jul 16–19, 2020

17:00 – FREE

SAND18 US - Mind, Matter, and Life

With Fritjof Capra

Cognition, or mind, is the very process of life itself, which requires neither a brain nor a nervous system

FREE

The Deep Heart

With John Prendergast • Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 10am PST

Our Portal to Presence: A Free Online Community Conversation facilitated by Vera de Chalambert

46:00 – FREE

SAND18 US — Breaking the Cycle of Collective Trauma

With Thomas Hübl

How we can uncover the traumas embedded in our social body and work together to heal these wounds

22:00 – FREE

SAND18 US — Wild Mercy: The Wisdom of the Feminine

With Mirabai Starr

Women mystics and wisdom beings across the spiritual traditions

$49

Postactivism: The World is Alive and that Changes Everything

With Bayo Akomolafe • Sundays, Feb 9, 16, 23, 2020 9am PST

A 3-Part Webinar Series

FREE

In Order to Find Our Way, We Must Become Lost

With Bayo Akomolafe and Vera de Chalambert • Sunday, January 12, 2020 9am PST

A Free, Online Conversation Facilitated by Vera de Chalambert

The Geography Of Sorrow

By Francis Weller

On Navigating Our Losses: Interview by Tim McKee

34:00 – FREE

Understanding the Creative Portal

With Isa Gucciardi

The mystery and power of the creative process can perhaps be best understood through the lens of the birthing process.

40:00 – FREE

Healing Developmental Trauma

With Julie Brown Yau

Developmental trauma deeply affects and limits how we connect with ourselves

20:00 – FREE

Love Beyond Trauma

With Julie Brown Yau

A clear introduction to developmental trauma

$49

Trauma as a Path to Embodied Wisdom

With Julie Brown Yau • Sundays, November 10, 17, 24, 2019

A 3-part Live Webinar Series

Can Neuroscience Understand Free Will?

By Brian Gallagher

“Of course we do. We have no choice.”

Bypassing Spiritual Bypass: Re-Association as a Spiritual Practice

By Brent Morton

The purpose of therapy is to help the client acknowledge, experience, and bear reality

By Donation

Returning to Ourselves: Integration

With Gabor Maté and Betsy Polatin • September 12, 9AM to 12PM PDT

A follow-up session for online retreat participants only

A secular way

By Emer Gentway

Can one understand nonduality without naming it?

Grief is Healing in Motion

By Toko-pa Turner

Grief is the response to a broken bond of belonging

Trauma as a Pathway to Spiritual Surrender

By Shawn Radcliffe

Trauma and spirituality share a profound connection, according to psychologist Peter Levine.

31:00 – FREE

Working with Collective Trauma

With Thomas Hübl and Gabor Maté

Thomas Hübl talks about his understanding that trauma is not just an individual but a collective experience

Relationship is the Fundamental Truth

By Rabindranath Tagore

Light as the radiant energy of creation started the ring-dance of atoms

17:00 – FREE

Gently Dusting Off The Mind

With Gabor Maté

Gabor Mate describes his work as an archaeology of the mind, a gentle dusting off to discover the treasure within.

The Ego and the Universe

By Maria Popova

Alan Watts on Becoming Who You Really Are

$49

Living the Embodiment of Grace

With Miranda Macpherson • Saturdays August 17, 24, & 31, 2019, 10am–12pm PDT

Practicing Ego Relaxation within Relationships, Work and these Wild Times
a 3-Part Webinar Series

Can the Effects of Trauma Pass Down Generations?

By Shawn Radcliffe

New research shows that the physical effects of trauma can be passed down to children and even to grandchildren

FREE

The Root of All Illness

With Ruediger Dahlke • Sunday 16 June 2019

a Free online Conversation with Dr. Ruediger Dahlke, hosted by Zaya Benazzo

46:00 – $0.99

SAND18 - Spirituality, Archetypes, and Trauma

With Peter Levine

42:00 – $0.99

Brain Biases Prevent Action on Climate Change … But Can Help, Too

By Shawn Radcliffe

Climate change is one of the biggest and toughest problems facing human society. Unless the rise in average global temperates is stopped soon

$35

Trauma and the Unbound Body

With Judith Blackstone • Saturdays 8, 22, & 29th June 2019

A 3-Part Webinar Series

$35

The Spread Mind: How to experience myself and the world as one

With Riccardo Manzotti • Feb 9–23, 2019

A 3-part Webinar Series

$35

Attachment, Trauma and Sexuality—Coming Home to the True Self

With Ariel Giarretto • Mar 22–23, 2019

A 2-part Webinar Series

FREE

It's Not Your Money: Living from Divine Source and Waking from the Trance of Grasping

With Tosha Silver • Mar 9, 2019

A FREE live online community conversation with Tosha Silver facilitated by Vera de Chalambert

26:00 – FREE

SAND18 US — What is a Healthy Mind?

With Daniel Siegel

Daniel Siegel introduces the Wheel of Awareness, a representation of the structure of mind. Research…

Near-Death Experiences are Real: A Rebuttal

By Lynn K. Russell

Just as artists are driven to create, scientists need to prove that something is as it seems. Their mantra is, don’t tell me, show me through repeated tests that arrive at the same results every time.

26:00 – FREE

SAND18 US - Reclaiming Emotion

With Zhen Dao

In a passionate presentation in praise of emotion, Zhen Dao offers a reframe of the traditional dichotomy…

Book Review: The Fellowship of the River, by Joseph Tafur

As far as I know, this is a first: a book about ayahuasca and plant medicine and shamanism...

The Neurobiology of Love

By Shawn Radcliffe

For anyone who has watched a friend fall in love, Nietzsche’s words from Thus Spoke Zarathustra might…

22:00 – FREE

SAND18 US — You are the One you've Been Waiting for

With Jean Houston

Philosopher, scholar and longtime observer of culture and behavior the world over, Jean Houston shares…

Everything is Self

By Nick Roach

Many great masters have said “Everything is Self,” and this phrase is repeated regularly during spiritual…

The Brain-Heart Connection: Emotions, Feelings and Health

By Shawn Radcliffe

The heart is essential to our life, pumping oxygenated blood throughout our body. But it’s also the…

New Theory Says We Are All Multiple Personalities of a Cosmic Consciousness

By Shawn Radcliffe

From the comfortable seat of our bodies (and built-in brains), it’s easy to think that consciousness…

It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

By Mark Wolynn

A well-documented feature of trauma, one familiar to many, is our inability to articulate what happens to us.

The Paradox of Free Will

By Peter Russell

One of my earliest ventures into philosophy, back in high school, concerned the question of “free will versus determinism.”

Illusions and the Mind’s Reality

When it comes to the world around us, what we perceive is not always what is actually there.

The Bread Crumb Trail of Inherited Family Trauma

Although we might believe that our suffering is a private affair, this haunting, background agony could…

22:00 – FREE

SAND18 US — Healing Collective Trauma

With Thomas Hübl

The Historic Einstein-Tagore Meeting: Is Truth Independent of us?

By Shawn Radcliffe

It was on the edge of Berlin on July 14, 1930, that science and spirituality came together in one of the most intellectually stimulating conversations in history

You Are Not Your Thoughts

By Shawn Radcliffe

In the quest for our true identity, what could be more authentic than our own thoughts?…

The Flow of Time in a Timeless Universe

By Shawn Radcliffe

If you were to stand outside the universe—outside both space and time—and look at your life, you would see your birth, your death and every moment in between laid out as distinct points.

Embracing Existential Loneliness and Waking Up To Non-dual Aloneness

By Nic Higham

At 3:03 a.m. on August 8, 1983, I was born into isolation—I spent the first two weeks of my life in an incubator,

The Holographic Future: From Science Fiction to Reality

Since childhood I have been fascinated by holograms. The reason was the science fiction movie Star Wars and in 1984 I watched it for the first time.

Falsifiability: How to Distinguish Between Science and Nonscience

By Sean Carroll

In a world where scientific theories often sound bizarre and counter to everyday intuition, and where a wide variety of...

Nondual Psychotherapy

By Chuck Hillig and Chuck Hillig

Although I’ve been an ardent devotee of Ramana Maharshi since 1970, I’ve also worked as a state-licensed psychotherapist in California since 1978.

How Can Wholeness Be In Crisis? Inquiring into the Human Predicament

By Terry Patten

The most radical understanding of reality points first to radical wholeness, to the prior unity of all opposites and conditional experiences.

Emotions as Energy Flow and Information

By Matt Licata

There is such a deeply rooted belief that we must do something with intense surges of feeling and emotion as they wash through: understand them, determine their cause, link them to some life circumstance or person, transform them, transmute them...

The Dalai Lama and the Atlas of Emotions

Emotions are tricky entities. They confuse the mind and disturb perception, isolating an individual in a private sense of reality. So what to do with them?

Don't Follow your Feelings

By Gail Brenner

I know what it’s like to live a life driven by emotion, and believe me, it won’t make you happy.

Emotions Shape Our Physical Reality

By Shawn Radcliffe

In recent years scientists have been exploring the effects that stress and emotions have on our cells — in particular, on our chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA.

The Greatest Contradiction of Common Sense

This essay is about a shocking contradiction in our common sense about the nature of reality; a contradiction that you are probably totally unaware of. Becoming aware of this contradiction has the potential to change your life.

Where Does Pain Exist in the Mind?

By Shawn Radcliffe

We live in a reality generated by our brain. From the euphoria of falling in love to the beauty of a newly blossomed flower, what we experience with our senses is a representation of the world, not the world itself.

Epigenetics: What Are We Really Handing Down to Our Children?

With new discoveries in epigenetics now making headlines, many of us are asking an important question: What are my children really inheriting? Can my baggage, the unfinished business I don’t deal with, pass on to my kids?

Homeostasis, Feelings, and the Rise of Culture

By Shawn Radcliffe

When people talk about the evolution and development of all that makes humans “unique,” one thing that often gets overlooked is our feelings.

An Examination of Ethics and Spiritual Teaching

By Rick Archer

It’s a safe bet that everyone reading this article has read accounts of spiritual teachers engaging in questionable behavior. Many of you may have been on the receiving end of such behavior.

Krishnamurti on Love

The demand to be safe in a relationship inevitably breeds sorrow and fear. The seeking for security invites insecurity.

Infective Heredity: You Are Not Who You Think You Are

By Shawn Radcliffe

According to Charles Darwin, you are the product of your biological mother and father, just as they were the product of their biological mother and father, and so on back to the earliest days of humans and to all the species that came before.

The Myth of Good and Bad Emotions

By June Gruber

One idea in the study of emotion and its impact on psychological health is overdue for retirement: that negative emotions (like sadness or fear) are inherently bad or maladaptive for our psychological well-being, and positive emotions (like happiness...

The Fiction of Being

By Mark Matousek

Every life is a work of fiction. That’s what I tell my memoir students. People come to me wanting to tell their life story, the narrative that sums them up, the myth that captures their essence.

The Mirror of Relationship

The mystics of all traditions have taught us that love is not to be sought; love is what we are. Love is what is here in each and every moment.

The Many Ways We Deceive Ourselves

By Shawn Radcliffe

One of the central goals of yoga is seeing the world clearly. But when it comes to knowing ourselves, we often lack self-awareness about our real nature.

FREE

There Is No Moon If We Close Our Eyes: Chris Fields and Riccardo Manzotti

Adverse Childhood Experiences

By Donna Thomas

Its great that ACEs are high on the agenda for organizations that support adults, children & young people.

Nondual Logic

By Andrew Lohrey

By Andrew Lohrey In first year philosophy I was never taught there was more than one kind of logic.…

Protesting From Inner Peace

"Deep acceptance of the way things are is the source of all creative change. The perfect paradox." Being…

Can Gut Bacteria Control Your Mood?

By Shawn Radcliffe

You are never truly alone. Everywhere you go, you carry trillions of microbes inside your gut. These…

If Thoughts and Feelings Could Speak

By Dhyana Stanley

I remember the moment the teaching to “see” rather than ignore thoughts and feelings became real for…

FREE

From Lust to Love: A Research Perspective: Justin Garcia

Speaking at the 2018 Radiant Intimacy gathering, Justin Garcia, evolutionary biologist at the Kinsey…

Subjectivity of Perception: Using Illusions to Alter Pain

By Shawn Radcliffe

“There is no truth. There is only perception.” ~ Gustave Flaubert Many people with chronic pain have…

A Higher Perspective on Climate Change

By Thomas Hübl

The answer to climate change is embedded in the problem, says spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl. But to…

FREE

A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul: Stephen Jenkinson

In a wide-ranging and moving talk, spiritual activist and author Stephen Jenkinson advocates for dying…

Wishing well? The Practice: Bless.

By Rick Hanson

Why? Lately, I've been wondering what would be on my personal list of top five practices (all tied for…

FREE

The Global Coherence Initiative: Rollin McCraty

Rollin McCraty summarizes recent research and findings of his work as Research Director of the HeartMath…

Emotional Sentience: Katherine Peil

Katherine Peil reveals some of the fascinating discoveries of her lengthy inquiry into the nature of…

Heart Transplant

By Sunil Mehrotra

“The Caterpillar is the first character who really makes an effort to guide Alice on her journey. Since…

Is Social Media Addiction Real?

By Shawn Radcliffe

The internet has given us many amazing things — easy access to vast amounts of information, the ability…

Political Roots and Genetic Evidence for the Indian Caste System

By Gerard D.C. Kuiken

Photo by Zaya In this extract from his book svābhāvikasūtra: The Roots of the Bhagavadgītā, Gerard Kuiken…

FREE

The Medicine of Poetry and Music: Kim Rosen

Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem, reminds us that the rhythms and sounds of the spoken word can…

Grand Narratives: Unplugging from the Big Story

By Donna Thomas and PhD

Our personal stories tend to become entangled with the grand narratives that shape and crystallize our…

Are Emotions Hard-Wired or Constructed?

By Shawn Radcliffe

There’s a scene in the movie Star Trek III where Spock, a logical and rational Vulcan, is relearning…

FREE

Sacred Space And Conscious Community: Kabir Helminski

Kabir Helminski asks, What is our moral obligation if we recognize that all is one? - and describes…

FREE

All Science Is Intuitive: Chris Fields

Chris Fields brings the worlds of science and art together through the surprising thing they share and…

The Feeling of Safety in Relationship

A Primer on Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, By Ron Manley, Ph.D. Although his first book on Polyvagal Theory…

Balancing the Material and Transcendent in Our Lives

By Shawn Radcliffe

Science enables us to study the world with precision and order, breaking it down into its component…

Expecting It All: An Honest Look at Modern Love

An interviewed with Esther Perel by Kate Green Tripp, Managing Editor for 1440 Multiversity. 1440: You…

FREE

Our Intuitive Capacity for Spiritual Wisdom: Helen Palmer

$35

Love After Death - Exploring Grief

With Unmani • May 4–18, 2018

A 3-part Webinar Series

FREE

Sacred Activism: The SAND17 Panel Discussion

Vera de Chalambert chairs a panel with four sacred activists: Caverly Morgan, Charles Eisenstein, Rev.…

$35

The Enneagram: Type and Inner Witness

With Helen Palmer • Apr 7–14, 2018

A 2-part Webinar Series Recorded in April 2018

FREE

Can Teens Help Us Collectively Awaken? Caverly Morgan

Caverly Morgan is the founder and guiding teacher of Peace in Schools and Presence Collective. Peace…

Shame—Dissolving This Driving Force Behind Addiction Through Mindfulness

By Scott Kiloby

Scott Kiloby begins a 4-part Webinar Series on Sunday March 11. Here’s a short article to introduce…

A Better Answer to Chronic Stress

By Deepak Chopra, MD and Rudolph E. Tanzi, PhD If an epidemic is defined as a disease that affects…

FREE

God Is A Fact About Ourselves: Nancy Abrams

Philosopher Nancy Abrams presents a radical rethinking of God for the global scientific community, ideas…

Of Phantom Limbs and Mental Maps

by V. S. Ramachandran How Ramachandran Fooled the Brain into Easing Pain Ninety percent of amputees…

Escaping the Observer Trap

Are you feeling stuck in your practice? Did meditation lead to big, positive life changes early on,…

Meditation, Cosmology and Human Society

by Amrit Srecko Sorli As meditators we have experience of timelessness. At the beginning, timelessness…

FREE

Family Illness is a Myth, Mario Martinez

Mario Martinez proposes that longevity is learned, and we have the capacity to change how our genes…

A Tale of Cells and Cities: Our Human Evolutionary Agenda

By Elisabet Sahtouris Dedicated to the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative. Looking…

FREE

Beyond the Obsession with Numbers, Charles Eisenstein

Has the time come to move beyond our obsession with measurement? Charles Eisenstein, author of several…

FREE

Die Wise: Stephen Jenkinson

Stephen Jenkinson's book Die Wise is for everyone who is not going to pull off eternity after all. It…

A Call for Ethics in Nonduality Teachings

by Scott Kiloby Is it ok for a teacher to yell or curse at a student to free him from his own ego? What…

The Idealist Symbolism of the Christmas Archetype

As we experience the afterglow of Christmas — the date that symbolically commemorates the birth of the…

Follow Your Emotion

By Eric Baret Translated from the French by Mary Mann from his book, De l’Abandon. Fear, rage, love,…

The Danger Of Inadvertently Praising Zygomatic Arches

by Robert Sapolsky Neuroscientist, Stanford University; Author, Behave I don't think that there is Free…

Story Structure, Logic, and the Meaning of Life

By PJ Reece If you’re lucky at some point in your life you’ll come to a complete dead-end. I confess,…

The Holographic Principle and the Shadows That Bind

In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave,” prisoners are chained inside a cave, able to look at only shadows cast on the wall by puppeteers standing in front of a fire behind them. For these prisoners, the shadows—not the real objects that cast those shadows—