Author Archive | Talat Jonathan Phillips

Present Shock and The Psychedelic Legacy of Terence McKenna

By on March 6, 2013 in News 1

In this not-to-miss Evolver event, cultural icons and visionary thinkers Douglas Rushkoff and Dennis McKenna will discuss “Time Waves, Present Shock, DMT, & The Psychedelic Legacy of Terence McKenna in NYC, March 14.  They will look back on Terence McKenna’s life’s work — including his theory of increasing novelty — and explore what Rushkoff calls “presentism,” the new ethos of a society that’s always on, in real time, updating live. Dennis McKenna is author of “The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna.” Douglas Rushkoff’s new book is “Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now.”

Presented by Evolver & The C-Realm Podcast…

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What to Do After the End Times

By on December 13, 2012 in News 6

As the hoopla around the Mayan calendar ends after Dec. 21, we will once again be faced with wondering when the next hurricane Sandy may hit the east coast? What happens if the power grid gets knocked out? Or if the economy crashes? If Sandy taught us anything, it’s that the systems we depend on for our survival — for energy, food, clean water — are fragile and the potential for disruption is real. In our era, being prepared for a major crisis isn’t alarmist, it’s common sense.

For nearly three decades, Aton Edwards has been acquiring the skills that make him one of the world’s leading emergency survival experts. A specialist in the fields of self-reliance, emergency preparedness, and sustainable living, Aton is also a social activist and community organizer — the ideal person to teach the Evolver community the basics of disaster preparation. And, as a former stand-up comic, his delivery is far from dry.… Read the rest

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Waxing ‘Sacred Economics’ with Charles Eisenstein

By on October 18, 2012 in News 24

While political pundits and financial analysts fumble on how to transcend the intensifying global financial crisis, author Charles Eisenstein is trailblazing bold new ideas and possibilities for how we overhaul our systems of monetary exchange.

In my four years as an editor and co-founder of the cutting-edge web magazine for transformational culture Reality Sandwich, I have witnessed a rare voice gain a large following due to his staggeringly visionary ideas and heart-felt essays. Charles Eisenstein is a popular teacher, speaker, and author of the recent Evolver Editions release “Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition.”

Spiritual activist Andrew Harvey has called Eisenstein’s book “an indispensable must-read for all those who believe our economic system is terminally sick and in need of radical, sacred rehaul.” While political pundits, financial analysts, and Occupiers fumble on how to transcend the intensifying global financial crisis, Eisenstein is trailblazing bold new ideas and possibilities for how we conduct monetary exchange.… Read the rest

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Nets of Being: Interview with Visionary Artist Alex Grey

By on August 19, 2012 in News 6

Among the many talented visionary artists of today, one name rises to the top of nearly every list: Alex Grey. He and his wife Allyson (who is also a painter) relentlessly travel the world, headlining large-scale festivals, consciousness parties and packed gallery shows. At their most recent appearance in Sao Paulo, Brazil, they painted before an audience of 25,000. Quite famously, the two of them (together for more than 37 years) are more adamant than Johnny Cash about wearing only black in public and private.

Watkins Review listed Alex as one of the top 20 “Most Spiritually Influential Living People” the last two years running, and the band Tool, “America’s #1 cult band,” featured Alex’s art on their most recent platinum album, winning a grammy for its unusual packaging. Grey’s work features a rare alchemy of science and spirituality, where anatomically precise human bodies interweave with profound kaleidoscopic mystical experiences.… Read the rest

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Free Music: The Interzone Mix

By on August 14, 2012 in News 5

Get a free mix download of the mystically eclectic music currently influencing “acid-rave sci-fi punk-funk” maestros Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor-Davis of the Klaxons.

From the symphonic retro sounds of David Axelrod’s “The Mental Traveler” to the psychedelic folk echoes of Robin Scott to Tito la Rosa and Jose Campo’s haunting ayahuasca icaros, Reynold’s and Taylor-Davis’s collection features the kaleidoscopic soundscapes inspiring the Klaxons’ recent work.

The Evolver Network is delighted to offer The Interzone Mix to our community as a gift, although we would like to take this opportunity to ask you to help build — and financially support — our community for a new planetary culture during our summer fundraising drive.

Our forty local Evolver Spore groups meet up in cities and towns around the world, inspiring new connectivity, creative insurrection, and projects that nurture a thriving, healthy world. Accessing the needs of their community, the Spores have cleaned up rivers and beaches, shepherded local alternative currencies and gift circles, hosted city-wide environmental festivals and healing events, kick-started permaculture gardens, orchestrated urban forestry efforts, and more.… Read the rest

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The Rise of the New Spiritual Counterculture

By on May 10, 2012 in News 8

Occupy Wall Street MediationIt’s February 17 and I’m standing in front of a full room at Gatsby Books in Long Beach, CA.  Once again, we’ve filled up the seats and people are standing in the back as I deliver my opening line, “If you told me several years, I’d be here talking about Jesus and ayahuasca, I would have laughed my ass off.”  But perhaps more incredible than tales of spiritual awakening is that here I am on the final night of my Electric Jesus West Coast book tour, knowing we have shattered the odds.

Enthusiastic crowds have greeted me at almost all of my sixteen stops. This shouldn’t be happening as first-time author in a wilting publishing industry. But I’ve had a secret grassroots weapon, one that a lot of mainstream America doesn’t know about — it’s the flourishing new spiritual counterculture.

The audience in Gatsby Books is dressed in hipster vintage printed tees and American Apparel cotton hoodies with esoteric flares of spiral plug earrings and Peruvian indigenous bracelets.… Read the rest

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What Jennifer Aniston May Not Know About Ayahuasca

By on March 2, 2012 in News 20

JenniferAnistonHWoFFeb2012It’s the evening of January 25, 2007, and I’m hosting my first Ayahuasca Monologues storytelling event to a packed room at Eyebeam Atelier in New York City. On stage, Breaking Open the Head author Daniel Pinchbeck, who semi-popularized the hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca within the spiritual counterculture, brushes aside his disheveled hair, asking in a voice barely audible from laryngitis, “How many of you here have tried ayahuasca?” Out of 220 people, only nine hands lift in the air, and they are mostly the featured storytellers (including myself) that I’ve directed for the show that night.

Cut to February 2012, and the mega-celebrity, Jennifer Aniston, best known for playing perky girl-next-door Rachel in Friends, is tipping a bowl of ayahuasca to her lips in Universal’s newest romantic comedy Wanderlust. In just a few years, the once secret “shamans brew” of the Amazon has snaked its way into the popular consciousness, including the entertainment industry with cameos in the TV shows Weeds and Nip/Tuck and now the movie Wanderlust.… Read the rest

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Gnosis: The Not-So-Secret History of Jesus

By on November 2, 2011 in News 37

The Electric JesusThis article, which discusses the Mystery School origins of Christianity, comes from my new memoir, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic through Evolver Editions/North Atlantic Books.

In December 1945, during the tail end of the most devastating war in human history, a peasant named Mohammed Ali of the al-Samman clan stumbled upon an earthenware jar near limestone caves in the deserts of Upper Egypt. He feared an evil djin (genie) resided inside, but hoping for lost riches, he still opened the jar. To his disappointment, twelve ragged leather-bound codices fell onto the ground. He didn’t realize these 1,200 weathered pages contained a priceless treasure with dozens of lost Christian gospels that had been hidden away for 1,600 years. Mohammed carried them home to his mother, who kept warm throughout the night by feeding pages of what we now call The Nag Hammadi Library to her fireplace.

These fifty-two texts, with titles like The Gospel of Thomas, Secret James, The Gospel of Mary, The Origin of the World, The Gospel of Philip, Secret John, and The Sophia of Jesus, showed that first-through-fourth century Christianity was much more varied than previously thought, comprised of diverse sects claiming “secret knowledge” of heavenly realms.… Read the rest

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Dimensional Shift with Graham Hancock & Alex Grey

By on September 30, 2010 in News 6

-2.thumbnailReality Sandwich invites you to embark on a five-day transformative journey into the mystical realms of tomorrow at our RS Fall Retreat, Dimensional Shift. Explore, discuss, and manifest new dimensions of possibilities  with visionary artists and Cosm co-founders Alex and Allyson Grey, renowned “Fingerprints of the Gods” author and “Inter-dimensional Indiana Jones” Graham Hancock, “Heaven’s Mirror” photographer Santha Faila, RS publisher and digital democracy pioneer Ken Jordan, Evolver.net director and Bioenergetic healer Jonathan Talat Phillips, and RS creative director and Universus artist Michael Robinson. Mitch Shultz, director of “DMT: The Spirit Molecule” will host a special screening and Q&A about the film; sculpture artist Harlan Emil Gruber will have us soaking up the “evolving energies” and sacred geometry of the Earth with his Sapphire Portal, and Scott Whitaker will spin electrifying dance beats with his mobile, solar-powered DJ booth and art installation, The Solar Saucer.… Read the rest

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Enter Reality Sandwich’s Dimensional Shift Contest

By on September 14, 2010 in News 0

The web-magazine Reality Sandwich is hosting a contest for inspired “evolutionaries” to win a free ticket to their “Dimensional Shift” Fall Retreat with Supernatural author Graham Hancock and visionary artists Alex and Allyson Grey.

Reality Sandwich "Grok My Shift"

To enter, simply create an Evolver video or blog entry saying why the retreat would be a life-changing, “galactivating” event for you. Entries can be funny, serious, cosmic, or tricksterlicious. Give these posts your own creative swagger, sharing your personal desires, wishes, and gifts for embarking on this transformational journey in one of the most beautiful spots in the American Southwest.

Videos should be under 2 minutes and posted in the blog section of Evolver.net (just look for the “Video” field).  Blogs should be less than 500 words.  Once your video or blog is up on Evolver.net, send the link to all your friends, family members, and community allies to “grok” (vote). The entry with the most groks wins free entry to the retreat (a camping ticket; travel not included).  All entries must be tagged with “Grok My Shift” to qualify.  Contest runs until Monday, September 20th at high noon PST, 3 p.m.… Read the rest

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