Hey folks,
This here's an announcement and an invitation to the project we've been working on for all of quarantine, and really, our whole lives.
So if you're itching to bust out of the ruts of the last year and be a part of something joyful, playful and courageous in the coming two months––read on (or just skip straight to the end and click on the link if you're antsy to get on the list).
But first, a segue from Now to Next...
We said back in the late spring that we had three dates to make it past with our fingers crossed––July 4th, November the 3rd, and January 20th. And if we could do that in one piece, there was hope for us yet.
Here's hoping!
But as anyone who's been paying attention to more than Twitter in these past months probably realizes, we're not out of the woods.
Frying pans and fires come to mind. It's time to pick our heads up out of collective reactive outrage, catch our breath and assess the scene. This is a lull between set waves. But we're not out of the Storm (not that Storm, the actual one ;)
Our recent civil pyrotechnics, after all, are being called the Culture Wars, not the Water Wars. In other words, they're largely made up. To paraphrase Noam Chomsky, it's "Manufactured Dissent," and not the real issue at all. Seriously.
Our primal animal Spidey Senses are screaming at us that something's up, but we're latching onto all the wrong signs and signifiers to explain our dis-ease.
Migrant caravans got drummed up as an issue for the mid-term elections, for example, then mysteriously "disappeared" the following week. But the UN reports there will be over one billion climate refugees by 2055. For perspective, one million Syrian refugees broke the European Union. That is real, and not manufactured at all.
Meanwhile, ice sheets continue to slip into the seas. Fires keep firing. The geopolitical chess board has been totally and permanently reshuffled while we were distracted with our domestic squabbles.
Wealth is bifurcating into extreme concentration and extreme deprivation. I didn't realize how much how quickly until going back to fact check my latest book where 12 months ago I had written the line "when 68 people, who could all fit in a bus (not that they'd ever ride one) own more than the bottom half of the world's population, you know we're in a weird spot." Two weeks ago, I had to rewrite that sentence. It now reads, when 27 people...They could fit in a stretch limo now.
We are, as the Chinese curse suggests, living in interesting times.
All while at the same time, we're still gamely attempting to live our #bestlives. The notion that anyone can grow up to be an astronaut or the president, that we can pursue health, healing, happiness and wholeness, that we can (and should) "manifest abundance" and enjoy All The Things that a WEIRD (Western, educated, industrial, rich and democractic) society can offer––these stories are fraying at the edges.
Intermittent fasting! Keto? Is Paleo even still a thing? How 'bout psychedelic therapies or the recent crypto boom? Or did you hear about the Pentagon's pending alien disclosure or that Harvard professor claiming Oumuamua is a space ship!
Coming Alive vs. Staying Alive. One is about pursuing limitless opportunities for personal and collective growth and meaning. The other is about prioritizing limited choices for personal and collective survival. And trying to navigate both at the same time is crazy-making.
It's no wonder that we're undergoing what amounts to collective schizophrenia.
So...(segue back to point of this week's letter and what we can all do to get from Now to Next).
Before Stealing Fire came out in 2017 I knew what that book was (and what it wasn't). What is was, wasa stepping stone in the middle of the river from Consensus Reality on the near shore to Co-creative Reality on the Far Shore. It gave permission for Ecstatics in the closet to come out, to redeem and reconcile their searching for something more, and to invite others along for the ride.
It struck more of a chord than I could've imagined––got translated into a dozen languages, got nominated for a Pulitzer and spawned over thirty companies that used it for a blueprint for everything from smart-tech wearables to VR meditation apps to conscious venture funds.
But the moment I opened the box and held the first hard copy in my hands, I knew that I would never write another book bridging that same river. It was time to push ahead and start scouting Advanced Base Camp on the Far Shore.
Because where we're going, we don't need roads...
So I just finished the sequel Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind.
Really, it's three books in one. But bundled together they do something critical––they help us reclaim our courage and conviction to do what we must, at the end of time, on behalf of us all.
Tall order, but holding back at this point seemed cowardly.
The first section is called Choose Your Own Apocalypse and it maps out the collapse in Meaning––of both traditional religion and the American Dream––why that's happened, why it's so hard to make sense of, how it's sparking identity politics and tribalism and how essential it is to address.
If you are freaked out yourself, or broken hearted seeing friends and family members get lost in conspiracies and delusions, or find yourself lying awake at night torn between planning bugout-bags or vacations––this section walks you through making a plan that's right for you.
The middle section is scandalous, outrageous and imminently reasonable––The Alchemist Cookbook. It offers the toolkit for anyone anywhere to reclaim their inspiration, discharge their trauma, and reconnect to passionate purposeful relationships––with their partners, and with their people. In other words, how to blow yourself sky high using household materials. If Aleister Crowley hired Malcolm Gladwell as his ghostwriter, this is the book they'd pen.
The final section is Ethical Cult Building. If you haven't noticed, whether documentaries on past debacles like Wild Wild Country, or Heaven's Gate, or real-time trainwrecks like NXIVM (to say nothing of emergent Conspirituality strangeness of Plandemic and Q), culty movements are having a bit of a moment. And it's only going to get worse from here.
The more freaked out we all become, the more tempting it is to latch onto someone, anyone offering certainty in a sea of chaos. This section offers a Culty Cult checklist––what to watch out for in your own leading and following, as well as an open-source toolkit for Meaning 3.0––including everything from ethics to metaphysics to sacraments and scriptures. Think of it like blockchain––open-source, flexible and scalable––but for transformational culture, not finance.
While the book bursting at the seams, and littered with signposts and Easter Eggs––it is a lot to wrap one's head around. And even more to try and put into practice in your own life, and into action more broadly.
So we've developed Recapture the Rapture: The User Manual course to go along with it. Once the book comes out in late April it's going to be available broadly, but now, before anyone has access we're inviting you to join us for the live session.
>> Apply for the course and future proof your life
We're not going to announce this anywhere else––we want a core group of Homegrown Humans from our community who are fired up to dive deeply into this content, with us and each other. Every week will be live and we will have the chance to go into the content, its implications and ramifications. And share off-script and unfiltered stories, outtakes and behind the scenes that won't be making it onto the podcast circuit or book reviews.
We will also have Cdr Curt Cronin teaching a special session on Leading in VUCA conditions (from the guy who ran Joint Special Operations Command in a few dozen countries and was a partner at the McChrystal Group––you're getting intel and insights that simply aren't publicly available).
And for folks that have been interested in connecting directly with me but aren't up for the 1:1 Executive Advisory program we offer, this is the one shot for us to connect directly for the rest of 2021.
So that's it––we're going to be announcing the rest of our mission, our annual calendar for trainings, and a host of ridiculously amazing projects that we can't talk about yet––but consider this a call to arms and a call to adventure.
>> Apply for the course
The hour is late, the time is now, and we are, as always, the ones we've been waiting for.
Jamie
We share what's happening on the leading edge of peak performance and culture. Connect with us and stay in the know.