Three Universe Stories: Beyond Creationism and Scientism: CosmoErotic Humanism

An Early Version of a White Paper by Dr. Marc Gafni in Conversation with Dr. Zachary Stein and Barbara Marx Hubbard

This is an early draft of an essay written by Dr. Marc Gafni in conversation with Barbara Marx Hubbard and Dr. Zak Stein. It was edited and prepared for publication by Kerstin Tuschik. We welcome substantive feedback as we prepare a later, more advanced version of this essay that will be published in due time.

Download the PDF of this White Paper

The Evolution of Conscious Evolution

CosmoErotic Humanism, as we are describing it here and in other writings, is the next step after what has been described as Conscious Evolution. My (Marc’s) dear friend and evolutionary partner (and co-author of this short book), Barbara Marx Hubbard, has been called the mother of Conscious Evolution.

In our collaboration, she shared so much that was of value and wonder, and we were also able to evolve together the presentation of Conscious Evolution. In the old presentation, as Barbara articulated it over the years, unconscious evolution meant two things:

First, evolution until now has been unaware of itself.

And second, evolution until now has been a primarily random process, or what Barbara called evolution by chance.

In this early articulation, these two points reverse themselves in Conscious Evolution:

First, evolution has only now become conscious of itself through human awareness of evolutionary processes.

And second, we can now move from what Barbara called, evolution by chance to evolution by choice.

This early understanding is important, inspiring in certain ways, and true, but, as we together realized over many conversations, only partial.

So, we must evolve our understanding of Conscious Evolution.

In our new understanding, by Conscious Evolution we do not mean that evolution becomes conscious of itself for the first time through us.

Rather, the new vision expresses itself in at least five distinct ways:

First, from the beginning, evolution possesses its own intrinsic consciousness. In other words, evolution is inherently—at some level of depth—intelligent or conscious.

Second, the consciousness that inheres in evolution is itself evolving. This process has evolved through several stages:

from matter

to life

to mind

—and through each of their sub-stages—

e.g., within matter, the evolution

from elementary particles

to atoms

to molecules.

At each state, as Reality dances into novel becoming, consciousness itself is clearly evolving.

This does not mean that evolution is a linear movement of ever-greater consciousness in all regards, in which the earlier is always lower and the latter always higher.[1] According to a vast literature based on empirical observation, various forms such as bacteria, anthills, and beehives seem to have depths of superorganism consciousness that human beings have not (yet) cultivated.

Indeed, the simple exercise of epistemic humility[2] reminds us that we do not have interior access to the quality of consciousness of any dimension of Reality other than our own.

At the same time, there are dimensions of consciousness that most definitely seem to evolve in some genuine fashion.

For example, there seems to be a clear evolution of the potential for ever-deeper goodness, truth, and beauty. To the best of our knowledge, there are no hospitals caring for the vulnerable animals in the wild, nor is there a general felt sense of kindness, care, or sacrifice for the sake of a stranger who is not of one’s kind.[3]

Moreover, in the worlds of matter and life, there do not seem to be creations of art, drama, music, literature, or the like, as we know them in the human world of value, including the classic triad of goodness, truth, and beauty. There also does not seem to be a process that transmits and evolves truth through bodies of knowledge, like science or moral philosophy.

It is therefore fair to say that not only does evolution possess innate consciousness at the cellular level,[4] but there is also an evolution of consciousness. These first two features significantly evolve the original version of Conscious Evolution, which suggested that evolution suddenly awakens only through human consciousness.

Third, in the evolutionary process, human beings eventually emerge. In specific ways,[5] we are more evolved or advanced expressions of consciousness than anything preceding. As such, we have the capacity to become aware of the entire evolutionary process. Significantly and beautifully, the human being is now, for the first time in history, aware of the entire evolutionary story, with the capacity to tell that great story. Humans are awakening to the realization that we are Conscious Evolution in person. Evolution may have always been intelligent or conscious, but until now, we had no sense that the evolutionary story was being told.[6]

Fourth, as part of that process, human beings have become self-aware to the extent that we consciously realize that we are part of the process. Humans at the leading edge of consciousness self-identify as evolution. And more particularly, as we examine in other writings on CosmoErotic Humanism, we each realize individually that I am an irreducibly unique expression of evolutionary intelligence, desire, and intimacy. In other words, I am not just evolution generically; rather, I am the personal face of the evolutionary impulse.

Fifth, all these uniquely human qualities have together generated the Anthropocene, a global civilization with exponential technologies, in which human choice has virtually unlimited impact on the course of evolution. And humans are becoming increasingly conscious of the power of choice.

This is clearly a new level of Conscious Evolution that is just coming alive in this period of human history. In that sense, it is accurate to say that evolution is becoming aware of itself in what may be a qualitatively different way than ever before.[7] (more…)

Three Universe Stories: Beyond Creationism and Scientism: CosmoErotic Humanism2023-11-28T08:27:32-08:00

The Vision of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

The core mission of the Center for Global Philosophy & Religion is the research, articulation, and writing of the Great Library, a collection of books and media projects to function as a strange attractor toward our memory of the future.

The Great Library is made up of two kinds of books, Foundational books and Impact books. The synergistic introduction of these books into public culture is aimed directly at catalyzing a crucial, pivotal evolution of today’s consciousness and culture. At this phase-shift inflection in human history, without this conscious ’evolving the source code’ of consciousness and culture, humanity will likely not survive the existential risks now threatening our civilization.

The Great Library is an expression of our mission at the Center to evolve the source code of culture and to participate in the Evolution of Love.

Through writing and publishing, we create what we are calling, the Great Library, a body of work written, as our response to the question: What do we need to give “our children” so they can prosper and grow into their highest potential—even though we don’t know what kind of challenges they will face in their lives?

That Great Library provides us with a shared language, a framework, or a context from which we can co-create together a world that works for everyone. To have shared values, a shared framework, or what we call shared memetic structures is one of these conditions.

The Book Categories

The Homo Amor Project

Part of the New Universe Story that can be told today is a new story about what the future of evolution has in store for humanity. Foreshadowed in all the wisdom traditions is an image of humanity fully expressing the plotlines of the universe, manifesting beyond ego as expression of Evolutionary Love in Action. This is Homo amor, the New Human and the New Humanity, emerging from the final crises of Homo sapiens, and ushering in the next stage of evolution.

Click Here to See Our Homo Amor Project Books

The Phenomenology of Eros

The Complete Phenomenology project will be introduced, authored, or co-authored by Dr. Marc Gafni, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and Dr. Kristina Kincaid, with Claire Molinard in various permutations, with several of the volumes having other co-authors who are key thinkers in these arenas. The Abridged Phenomenology is the four-volume abridged version from the complete phenomenology.

Click Here to See Our Eros Books

The Outrageous Love Books

Evolutionary Love is the force that drives Reality forward and emerges through humanity as the outrageous capacity for self-transcendent love.

We also call it Outrageous Love:

“We live in a world of outrageous pain. The only response to outrageous pain is Outrageous Love.” – Dr. Marc Gafni

Out of the Outrageous Love teachings have also emerged the practices of Outrageous Love:

  • Committing Outrageous Acts of Love
  • Writing Outrageous Love Letters
Click Here to See Our Outrageous Love Books

The Unique Self Theory Books

Unique Self is a body of theory and teaching that provides a new model of identity, grounding the ideas of CosmoErotic Humanism in a new conception of personhood. Blending Western psychology with ancient wisdom traditions, Unique Self provides a framework that can orient individuals to their greatest potentials and position them within the large Story of the Universe.

Click Here to See Our Unique Self Books

Impacting the Social Structure & Infrastructure

While most of our books are designed to directly change the superstructures of culture, there are a couple of books directly addressing the infrastructures and social structures – yet, we are doing that in direct response to our formulation of First Principles and First Values (that form the superstructure).

Click Here to See Our Social Impact Books

The First Taste Mini Books

The First Taste Series of shorter Monographs & Mini Books and eBooks are taken from the longer, foundational volumes – to provide the reader with a quick introduction into one of the topics covered in the foundational volumes.

Click Here to See Our First Taste Books

The Introductory Books

These books provide a great overview and starting point to dive into the teachings of CosmoErotic Humanism.

Click Here to See Our Introductory Books

The Hebrew Wisdom Books

These are books by Dr. Marc Gafni that are from deep within the Hebrew Wisdom Tradition.

Click Here to See Our Hebrew Wisdom Books

The Vision of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism2023-06-17T12:11:04-07:00

Video Podcasts 2

Most Recent Video Podcast, Thought Leader Dialogue, Or Lecture In Video Format On CosmoErotic Humanism

The Persian/Hebrew Axis | Alexander Bard, Marc Gafni, and Zak Stein

Alexander Bard of Parallax in a provacative discussion with Dr. Marc Gafni and Zak Stein.

Enjoy this Parallax Dialogue:

A rich and provocative conversation at the crossroads of philosophy, education, and technology, and a bold defense of religion in the modern age. Three intellectual titans — Alexander Bard, Marc Gafni, and Zak Stein — come together in this deep-dive dialogue, discovering surprising points of unity across their metaphysical differences.

Evolution of Love from Quarks to Culture: The Rise of Evolutionary Relationships in Response to the Meta-Crisis

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Author), Dr. Zak Stein(Contributor), Elena Maslova Levin (Contributor)

Story is the source code of culture and consciousness and of all Reality-all the way up and down the evolutionary chain. Story is the attempt to gather information about the nature of Reality and translate it into narrative frameworks bounded by Value.
Stories that organize culture are “Stories of Value, backed by the Universe”.

Postmodernity argues that Reality is just a story, and that all stories are created equal (equally meaningless of inherent value) because value itself is not real. And therefore, all stories of value are but social constructs, fictions, or figments of our imagination.

The postmodernists are wrong.

Story is real. And not all stories are equal. There are better and worse stories. A better story is an eternal and evolving story of Value. Evolving Value backed by the Universe.

A worse story-one with flawed, incomplete, or distorted plotlines of distorted value, like the story we’ve lived in the West for the better part of the last century-can, and will, bring us to the brink of existential risk, the potential end of humanity as we know it.

Value is both real, backed by the Universe, and like everything in the Universe, value evolves. The evolution of value itself is the evolution of love, as Eros and evolution themselves, are inherent plotlines of value in the great story of Cosmos.

The goal of The Evolution of Love, and its companion volume Whole Mate: The Future of Relationships, is to provide a first articulation of a new, better story of Value in the domain of relationship. At the core of this New Story of Value are a new Universe Story and a new narrative of identity, which we have called CosmoErotic Humanism and Homo amor.

If we fail to articulate this New Story of Value, the results will be excruciating for billions of human beings and for the entire life system–as for the trillions of lives that will remain unborn.

All of the past depends on us to fulfill its dreams.
All of the present depends on us to live.
All of the future depends on us to be born.

Order Here

More Video Podcasts, Thought Leader Dialogues, Or Lectures In Video Format On CosmoErotic Humanism

Video Podcasts 22023-09-22T06:37:20-07:00

Activist Think Tank, Leadership, & Partners

The Leadership of the Center

There are different groups of individuals who provide leadership or vision for the organization in different capacities.

Each organization [Center for World Philosophy & Religion, Office for the Future, and Foundation for Conscious Evolution] has a distinct legal board, which makes its decisions. All the decisions are made collectively by the appropriate board and board leadership. The listing below includes present and former board members, research fellows, faculty, and officers of the organization.

We have intentionally not broken them out by designation, as all of these people contribute equally needed value to the overall missions of these distinct organizations. 

We are in the process of changing the name of The Center for Integral Wisdom to Center for World Philosophy and Religion.

The Center is a 501C3.

Our Activist Think Tank

The Center for World Philosophy and Religion is an Activist Think Tank.

It is a group of people who think about the structure of the way things work and how we can make it better.

We are engaging the deep structural issues that affect how society works, how love flows, how compassion unfolds, the way politics unfolds, the way economics are structured.

We are inspiring action.

We are engaged in medicine, secondary school education, business, psychology, the recovery movement, and more…

The vision of the Center is a world united in and through diversity by a New Story of Value that dignifies humanity and welcomes us home to the Universe. We imagine a world that keeps the sacred covenant between generations guided by a memory of the future. Our hope is that our writings and teachings will serve to catalyze a now necessary reweaving of the human story. We call this New Story CosmoErotic Humanism.

CosmoErotic Humanism is a world philosophical movement aimed at reconstructing the collapse of value at the core of global culture. Much like Romanticism or Existentialism, CosmoErotic Humanism is not merely a theory but a movement that changes the very mood of Reality. It is an invitation to participate in evolving the source code of consciousness and culture towards a cosmocentric ethos for a planetary civilization.

CosmoErotic Humanism addresses three core questions: Who? Where? What?

  • Who am I? Who are we? [Narrative of identity]
  • Where are we? [Universe Story]
  • What is there to do? What do we want? What is our deepest heart’s desire—both personally and collectively? [Eros and ethos]

This movement is a strong, fluid, and emergent response to the meta-crisis, fundamentally understanding that existential and catastrophic risks are not just rooted in flawed infrastructure (technological and other systems), social structure (law, education, politics), but primarily in failed superstructurespecifically the collapse of an implicit, shared worldview, what we call a shared Story of Value rooted in evolving First Principles and First Values as a context for our diversity.

The core of CosmoErotic Humanism is therefore a new Story of Value rooted in First Principles and First Values that integrates the validated insights of the interior and exterior sciencesacross premodern, modern, and postmodern thoughtultimately recasting cosmic evolution as a Story of Value, in which our stories are understood to be chapter and verse in the larger narrative arc of Realitythe CosmoErotic Evolutionary Love Story of the Intimate Universe.

These evolving First Principles and First Values embedded in a Story of Value are grounded in a comprehensive set of meta-theories, encompassing psychology (and a theory of self), epistemology, scientific metaphysics, education, ethics, theology, mysticism, sexuality, Eros, and ethos.

CosmoErotic Humanism offers some of the first words on the possible emergence of world philosophies and world religions adequate to our time of civilizational crisis and transformationrooted in a universal grammar of value as a context for our diversity, weaving humanity into a shared story of inherent yet evolving Cosmic Value.

A core set of frameworks guide this work, including:

  • Integral Theory (Wilber)
  • Unique Self Theory (Gafni)
  • meta-psychology (Stein, Gafni)
  • educational theory, developmental theory, and metrics (Stein)
  • classical sciences (Bloom)
  • anthro-ontological value theory (Gafni, Stein, Wilber),
  • metaphysics of Eros (Gafni, Kincaid, Stein)
  • and Conscious Evolution (Hubbard, Gafni)
  • among others.

From these emerge a New Story of Value rooted in First Principles of Cosmos.

It is our mission to offer this New Story into the world during this critical junction of history. The Center is dedicated to the creation of an integral planetary culture, capable of guiding humanity through the current evolutionary crisis. The publication of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism in the coming decades serves this mission by advancing an integral worldview that is truly inclusive of premodern, modern, and postmodern truths.

Make a Donation to the Center for World Philosophy and Religion

The Founders of the Center

The Center was founded in 2011 under its first name, The Center for World Spirituality by Dr. Marc Gafni, Ken Wilber, and Sally Kempton – later joined by Lori Galperin. Later, the name was changed to The Center for Integral Wisdom. Currently, we are in the process of changing the name again to Center for World Philosophy and Religion.

Dr. Marc Gafni serves as its President. Together with co-president Dr. Zak Stein, they are co-leading a team of thinkers, articulating a new vision of meaning for the world.

Previous Chairs of the Board of Advisors of the Center include Barbara Marx Hubbard, Lori Galperin, John P. Mackey, Kate Maloney, Adam Bellow, Shareef Malnik, and Gabrielle Anwar. Our current chair is Carrie Kish.

More about Each of the Founders:

Ken Wilber is a leading voice in Integral Wisdom and the author of more than 25 books which have explored the frontiers of enlightened living in the 21st century. He is also the most widely translated academic writer in America, with some 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages. His works have been the most influential in defining Integral Theory, which is an emerging discourse striving for the coherent organization, coordination, and harmonization of all of the relevant practices, methodologies, and experiences available to human beings. His latest work is The Religion of Tomorrow: A Vision for the Future of the Great Traditions, which is provocative examination of how the great religious traditions can remain relevant in modern times by incorporating scientific truths learned about human nature over the last century. Ken Wilber is–next to Marc Gafni–the initiating Thought Leader and Co-Founder of the Center for Integral Wisdom. He has served as the Leading Voice on the Wisdom Council of the Center and has helped to shape the emerging Activist Think Tank.

Sally Kempton is one of the great teachers of meditation, who developed a system called Awakened Heart Meditation. One of her books is Meditation for the Love of It, about which her publisher, Tami Simon, said, it was the best meditation book she ever read. A more recent book, Awakening Shakti, carries the deep lineage energies of her main tradition, Kashmir Shaivism. Sally has been a central key co-conspirator to animate the Eros of this vision.

Lori Galperin is one of the leading trauma therapists in the world. Together with her colleague Mark Schwartz, she has done deep work in the field of sex therapy, eating disorders, and other areas. They have taught about 75,000 therapists and started a trauma clinic. Mark and Lori are masters of several interdisciplinary areas that they have integrated. Lori has been the Co-Chair of the Board of Advisors. She is also joining with Marc and others in writing about the new field of Unique Self Recovery.

Explore the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

The core mission of the Center for World Philosophy & Religion is the research, articulation, and writing of the Great Library, a collection of books and media projects to function as a strange attractor toward our memory of the future.

The Great Library is made up of two kinds of books, Foundational books and Impact books. The synergistic introduction of these books into public culture is aimed directly at catalyzing a crucial, pivotal evolution of today’s consciousness and culture. At this phase-shift inflection in human history, without this conscious ’evolving the source code’ of consciousness and culture, humanity will likely not survive the existential risks now threatening our civilization.

The Great Library is an expression of our mission at the Center to evolve the source code of culture and to participate in the evolution of love.

Through writing and publishing, we create what we are calling the Great Library, a body of work written as our response to the question: What do we need to give “our children” so they can prosper and grow into their highest potential—even though we don’t know what kind of challenges they will face in their lives?

That Great Library provides us with a shared language, a framework, or a context, from which we can co-create together a world that works for everyone. To have shared values, a shared framework, or what we call shared memetic structures is one of these conditions.

Learn More About Our Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

Our Partners

Our Events Are Our Dharma Labs

At the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, we are mainly focused on writing the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism. Our Events are a place where these new source-code-changing First Values and First Principles get clarified by being spoken into our shared Evolutionary We-Space. That is one way how we each participate in the creation of this New Story of Value.

Our partners participate with our think tank in evolving a global ethics for a global civilization. Together, they are gathered under the umbrella of the Office for the Future.

Last but not least, our events foster our Live Community by offering a beautiful and caring environment for us to meet, study together, celebrate, and practice. As one participant put it, they give us “a taste of an enlightened society.”

Learn More about Our Featured Broadcasts & Live Events

Activist Think Tank, Leadership, & Partners2024-11-01T06:28:30-07:00

Featured Broadcasts & Live Events

Our Events Are Our Dharma Labs

At the Center for Global Philosophy & Religion, we are mainly focused on writing the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism. Our Events are a place where these new source code changing First Values and First Principles get clarified by being spoken into our shared Evolutionary We-Space. That is how we each participate in the creation of this New Story of Value.

Our partners participate with our think tank in evolving a global ethics for a global civilization. Together, they are gathered under the umbrella of the Office for the Future. Last but not least, they foster our Live Community by offering a beautiful and caring environment for us to meet, study together, celebrate, and practice. As one participant put it, they give us “a taste of an enlightened society.”

Eros Mystery School

We are coming together to experience the future…

We live in a world of outrageous pain, and the only response to outrageous pain is Outrageous Love.

At Eros Mystery School, you learn how to become an Outrageous Lover, live from your Unique Self, and contribute to a better world, evolving the source code of culture. Become a world innovator and serve the emergence of a new humanity. Prepare for a radical shift. Change your life. Change our world.

Mystery School: 21 – 25 August 2023

Mystery School at the royal castle in Belgium in 2023: a live five-day sacred retreat to taste, know and embody Eros as the experience of radical aliveness!

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This year’s theme:

The Erotic and the Holy

The Twelve Faces of Eros

The Twelve Gates of the Erotic and the Holy

&

Become the CosmoErotic Universe in person!

Both an online international community as an in-person retreat at the royal castle in Belgium, Europe

Experience the pulsing heart of Kosmos in this alive, passionate Band of Outrageous Lovers, a community of pioneering likeminded souls ready to participate in the evolution of love!

A group of powerful people coming together to take their seats at the table of history and make the radical shift to awaken as Homo amor, the fulfilment of Homo sapiens.

We offer both an offline in-person retreat, as well as a hybrid online experience. If you are unable to travel to Europe, the online experience will provide you with the same deep, radical field of connection and Outrageous Love.

The offline in-person retreat will be held at our Belgium Castle De Heerlijckyt!

The Mystery School is an evolutionary educational platform, that acts as a source of both renewal and inspiration, as we combine our individual transformation with taking an active stand in the world, for the healing and transformation of the collective whole. It is intellectually challenging and spiritually incorrect. It stands out from the spiritual clichés and speaks truth to power with laughter, delight, integrity, and “Outrageous Love”, a core term in Unique Self Theory and in CosmoErotic Humanism as developed by Dr. Marc Gafni.

Learn More and Register for Eros Mystery School

Watch a Featured Clip from Our Weekly Podcast One Mountain, Many Paths:

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One Mountain, Many Paths is a weekly transmission of timeless and evolutionary wisdom, aggregated through the ages, distilled for today’s great, and terrible realities.

We must drink deeply from the most relevant sacred insights about our human and spiritual nature in order to wake up and grow up into our own maturation and greatness as individuals. From here we can show up collectively to embody the new era of humanity and unlock our most thriving future.

Dr. Marc Gafni and the late Barbara Marx Hubbard have devoted their lives to articulating the most precise, impactful integrations of sacred teachings throughout history so we can each show up to One Mountain and leave enthralled by our oneness, purpose and potential!

While there are many paths up ‘the Mountain’, ‘One Mountain, Many Paths’ is devoted to revealing the mountain itself, and this leads to profound, transformational insights that will leave you more empowered to step into your personal purpose as a creator.

That’s why we always say in our services:

We are a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a zendo…we’re all of it. No one is excluded, everyone is included… and we come together to attune to the evolutionary impulse awakening within us… WELCOME HOME!!

Your first step of engagement is to opt-in with your name and email to receive access to join our interactive One Mountain LIVE broadcast weekly, as well as receive the weekly message by email when you are not able to attend live.

Every ​SUNDAY 10:00 AM PT

Register to receive the Zoom link and the replays afterwards.

Learn More About Our Weekly Sensemaking Podcasts on One Mountain, Many Paths
Evolutionary Spirituality: Towards an Engaged Evolutionary Mysticism
Watch the Replays of the First Episodes HERE

Evolutionary Spirituality: Towards an Engaged Evolutionary Mysticism

Arguably our most significant interpretive framework for the nature of reality is the modern scientific discovery that the world and the universe are not, as the ancients believed, static or cyclical. The universe, and everything in it, is evolving. Cosmic and biological evolution are foundational truths of existence, and the implications are profound and multi-dimensional, extending outwards in every direction. In the 21st century, the context for any path or practice of enlightenment must surely embrace this knowledge and perspective. It is perhaps the most important shift in our understanding of enlightenment in the 2500 years since the Buddha first attained it.

Andrew Cohen and Dr. Marc Gafni are pioneers in the field of evolutionary spirituality, each with their own unique perspective on this newly emergent tradition. They share a strong foundation in an evolutionary approach to spiritual awakening, while emphasising distinctly different but intersecting dimensions of the path and practice. Both Marc and Andrew have produced pioneering bodies of work in this field, and formulated many of its core tenets. Their teachings uphold and demystify the foundational principles of traditional, modern and postmodern wisdom streams, weaving them together into an integral whole, and ultimately pointing toward a new evolutionary mysticism – what might even be considered a “religion of tomorrow”.

The aim of these dialogues is to celebrate the creative and dynamic evolutionary tension between these two perspectives – to catalyse awakening to higher states and stages of consciousness, giving rise to liberating insights and life-affirming perspectives in a unique tapestry of coherence and meaning, and an inspiring example of emergent spirituality in action.

Featured Broadcasts & Live Events2023-11-02T06:10:32-07:00

Foundation for Conscious Evolution

Foundation for Conscious Evolution2023-06-22T08:14:24-07:00

Great Library Books

Our Latest Release of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

To find these books organized by topic, please visit our Topics page on the Top Menu.

Whole Mate: The Relationship of the Future -- by Dr. Marc Gafni and Barbara Marx Hubbard with Aubrey Marcus

Whole Mate: The Future of Relationships

by Dr. Marc Gafni and Barbara Marx Hubbard

A revolution in relationships is taking place across the western world. It is happening in different ways for all people in all classes of society, and it is breathing life into a new vision of relationship and self. The product of this revolution—a third, higher level of connection called the ‘whole mate relationship’—promises to have a far more powerful effect on the quality, joy, and potency of our lives than any other single shift in culture since the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

In Whole Mate: The Future of Relationships (the first of two volumes on the evolution of relationship), Marc Gafni and Barbara Marx Hubbard define and explore three primary levels of relationship (role mate, soul mate, whole mate) and describe for the first time how the evolution of relationship will change the world as we know it.

Each of us wants to live well and love fully. We want not just to survive or thrive, but to experience real purpose and meaning. We want a new vision of success, of what it means to be a real man and a true woman. We will find these things on the other side of the revolution.

Order Here
Download Introduction & Chapter 1

Evolution of Love from Quarks to Culture: The Rise of Evolutionary Relationships in Response to the Meta-Crisis

by Dr. Marc Gafni 

Story is the source code of culture and consciousness and of all Reality-all the way up and down the evolutionary chain. Story is the attempt to gather information about the nature of Reality and translate it into narrative frameworks bounded by Value.
Stories that organize culture are “Stories of Value, backed by the Universe”.

Postmodernity argues that Reality is just a story, and that all stories are created equal (equally meaningless of inherent value) because value itself is not real. And therefore, all stories of value are but social constructs, fictions, or figments of our imagination.

The postmodernists are wrong.

Story is real. And not all stories are equal. There are better and worse stories. A better story is an eternal and evolving story of Value. Evolving Value backed by the Universe.

A worse story-one with flawed, incomplete, or distorted plotlines of distorted value, like the story we’ve lived in the West for the better part of the last century-can, and will, bring us to the brink of existential risk, the potential end of humanity as we know it.

Value is both real, backed by the Universe, and like everything in the Universe, value evolves. The evolution of value itself is the evolution of love, as Eros and evolution themselves, are inherent plotlines of value in the great story of Cosmos.

The goal of The Evolution of Love, and its companion volume Whole Mate: The Future of Relationships, is to provide a first articulation of a new, better story of Value in the domain of relationship. At the core of this New Story of Value are a new Universe Story and a new narrative of identity, which we have called CosmoErotic Humanism and Homo amor.

If we fail to articulate this New Story of Value, the results will be excruciating for billions of human beings and for the entire life system–as for the trillions of lives that will remain unborn.

All of the past depends on us to fulfill its dreams.
All of the present depends on us to live.
All of the future depends on us to be born.

Order Here

Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come

by David J. Temple

AS THE META-CRISIS DEEPENS, THE FATE OF CIVILIZATION AND HUMANITY HANGS IN THE BALANCE.

First Principles and First Values is the tip of the spear in the fight for a humane future. Establishing frameworks for a new school of thought called CosmoErotic Humanism, the book is built around forty-two propositions that provide new source code for the future of planetary culture.

Like Europe in the early Renaissance, humanity is in a time between worlds, at a time between stories. First Principles and First Values contains blueprints for the bridge needed to cross from this world to the next.


“The position argued for in this book is of vital importance . . . it needs urgently to be read.”
IAIN McGILCHRIST, author of The Master and His Emissary


David J. Temple is a pseudonym created for enabling ongoing collaborative authorship at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, a leading international think tank whose mission is to address existential risk by articulating a shared universal Story of Value for global intimacy and global coordination. The Center focuses its work on a world philosophy, CosmoErotic Humanism, as the ground for a global vision of value, economics, politics, and spiritual coherence. The two primary authors behind David J. Temple are Marc Gafni and Zak Stein. For different projects specific writers will be named as part of the collaboration. In this volume Ken Wilber joins Dr. Gafni and Dr. Stein.

Order Here
Download Chapter 1-5
Read a Book Review by David Nicol

One Mountain Oral Essays Books

The Oral Essays library is a series of lightly edited, compiled transcripts of oral teachings given by Dr. Marc Gafni and the late Barbara Marx Hubbard in their weekly online broadcast, One Mountain, Many Paths, which they co-founded in 2017. Originally called an “Evolutionary Church,” One Mountain, Many Paths became a key venue for the articulation of an inspired and deeply grounded new Story of Value in response to the meta-crisis. Marc and Barbara—together with Zak Stein, Kristina Kincaid, Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, Lori Galperin, Aubrey Marcus, and dozens of other thought leaders over the years—began to articulate what they call a World Philosophy and World Religion as a context for our diversity.

Until Barbara’s passing in 2019, she and Marc transmitted teachings together as evolutionary partners and “whole mates,” weaving together insights and transmissions from their decades of practice, study, teaching, and activism into a synergy of wisdom, a grounded vision for future policy across all sectors of society.

We are joyfully grateful to Marc for the clarity of his Dharma, the elegance and “second simplicity” of this language, and the mad, Outrageous Love with which he transmits his teachings.

Barbara and Marc called the mission of One Mountain “a Planetary Awakening in Evolutionary Love Through Unique Self Symphonies.” We are an evolutionary community with a deeply grounded, radically alive, and “post-tragic” revolutionary spirit. We are activating a new humanity and awakening as a new species: Homo amor, the fulfillment of Homo sapiens.

One Mountain is committed to articulating a Story of Value that can become the ground for the new society that must be birthed in response to the meta-crisis. We recognize that we are living at a pivotal moment in history. In this “time between stories,” the great moral imperative is to tell the new Story of Value. It is ours to do, personally and collectively, with great trembling and ecstatic joy.

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Eros Mystery School Oral Essays Books

These oral essays are based on talks delivered by Marc at the Eros Mystery School. Thus, the style of these books is spoken word and not formally written text.

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Explore the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

The core mission of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion is the research, articulation, and writing of the Great Library, a collection of books and media projects to function as a strange attractor toward our memory of the future.

The Great Library is made up of two kinds of books, foundational books and impact books. The synergistic introduction of these books into public culture is aimed directly at catalyzing a crucial, pivotal evolution of today’s consciousness and culture. At this phase-shift inflection in human history, without this conscious evolving the source code of consciousness and culture, humanity will likely not survive the existential risks now threatening our civilization.

The Great Library is an expression of our mission at the Center to evolve the source code of culture and to participate in the evolution of love.

Through writing and publishing, we create what we are calling the Great Library, a body of work written as our response to the question: What do we need to give “our children” so they can prosper and grow into their highest potential—even though we don’t know what kind of challenges they will face in their lives?

That Great Library provides us with a shared language, a framework, or a context, from which we can co-create together a world that works for everyone. To have shared values, a shared framework, or what we call shared memetic structures is one of these conditions.

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni Unfold the Vision of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

Foundational Books by Our Founders & Co-Presidents Published

See the Bibliography of Dr. Marc Gafni

Your Unique Self

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

Underlying the vision behind democracy is the recognition that every individual has dignity, adequacy, and worth. This democratic understanding of the worth and standing of the individual lies at the core of what the West calls enlightenment. The Western idea of enlightenment, rooted in the great vision of the Biblical prophets, is generally understood to have entered mainstream consciousness through the political democratic movements of the mid-18th century. Western enlightenment is primarily concerned with the democratization of political power.
Classical enlightenment, sometimes called Eastern enlightenment, because it was greatly emphasized in the East, is about the individual merging into the greater one. The appearance of separate self is an illusion, which must be overcome as the individual realizes that one is really not separate at all but part of the one. The goal of Eastern enlightenment is moving beyond the grasping ego and the desperately seeking separate self by attaining a state of consciousness in which the illusion of separateness is dissolved in the greater one. This path of classical enlightenment is seen as the path beyond suffering.
Unique Self enlightenment brings the Eastern and Western understandings about enlightenment together into a higher Integral World-Spirituality embrace. Unique Self enlightenment is based on your commitment to transcend separate self into the one essence, even as you realize that this essence sees through your unique perspective. Unique Self opens the door to the potential democratization of enlightenment. To awaken to your Unique Self is to be lived as God, which, in truth, means to be lived as Love.
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A Return to Eros

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank) & Dr. Kristina Kincaid

Discover the hidden relationship between Erotic, the Sexual and the Sacred.

None of the four old philosophies about sex are sufficient to inspire us or even hold us in our sexuality. Sex is not merely negative or positive. Sex is not just neutral, nor is it merely sacred because it creates babies.

Erotic Mystics from the hidden tradition of Solomon’s temple taught a secret doctrine. Sex is the source of all wisdom. Sex is an expression of the erotic impulse of existence itself alive in us-the yearning for contact, pleasure, and aliveness. The Sexual however is not the sum total of the erotic. Rather, the sexual models the Erotic. The sexual teaches us how to live an Erotic life in all dimension of our existence.

It is these secret doctrines that were later taught by Mary Magdalene and that sparked excitement around bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code.

Deep understanding of the sexual becomes the portal to accessing aliveness in every dimension of our reality. This realization demands that you live sexually without shame and shows you how to re-eroticize all areas of your life.

A Return to Eros: On Sex, Love, and Eroticism in Every Dimension of Life, from Drs. Marc Gafni and Kristina Kincaid, reveals the radical secret tenets of relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the holy. They reveal what Eros actually means and share the ten core qualities of the Erotic, which are modeled by the sexual. These include being on the inside, fullness of presence, yearning, allurement, fantasy, surrender, creativity, pleasure, and more.

A Return to Eros shows why these qualities of the erotic modeled by the sexual are actually the same core qualities of the sacred. The relationship between the sexual and the erotic becomes clear, teaching you how to live an erotically suffused existence charged with purpose, potency and power.

To be an Outrageous Lover–not just in sex but also in all facets of your life–you must listen deeply to the simple yet elegant whisperings of the sexual. This book will forever transform your understanding and experience of love, sex, and Eros.

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Self

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

Two major works have been written within the framework of Integral Wisdom about the nature of Self and God. While they share important features, namely the evolutionary context of the conversation and a vision of Self beyond Ego, their interior visions of the quality of the Self beyond Ego are profoundly different.

Both of these visions of Self, or key dimensions of the two versions, have been adopted, directly and indirectly by many spiritual teachers. In Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism, Marc Gafni articulates the two models, their shared features and their differences, and as we seek to articulate an Integral Wisdom, why these differences matter so desperately.

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Radical Kabbalah (2-Volume Set)

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

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Education in a Time Between Worlds

by Dr. Zachary Stein (Co-President of the Think Tank)

Our world is currently undergoing major transformations, from climate change and politics to agriculture and economics. The world we have known is disappearing and a new world is being born. The subjects taught in schools and universities today are becoming irrelevant at faster and faster rates. Not only are we facing complex challenges of unprecedented size and scope, we’re also facing a learning and capacity deficit that threatens the future of civilization.

Education in a Time Between Worlds seeks to reframe this historical moment as an opportunity to create a global society of educational abundance. Educational systems must be transformed beyond recognition if humanity is to survive the planetary crises currently underway. Human development and learning must be understood as the Earth’s most valuable resources, with human potential serving as the open frontier into which energy and hope can begin to flow.

The expansive essays within this book cover a diverse array of topics, including social justice, the neuroscience of learning, deschooling, educational technology, standardized testing, the future of spirituality, basic income guarantees, and integral meta-theory. As an invitation to re-vision the future of schools, technology, and society, Education in a Time Between Worlds replaces apathy and despair with agency, transformation, and hope.

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Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

by Ken Wilber (Co-Founder of the Think Tank)

Hailed as “one of the most significant books ever published,” this work of far-reaching vision is a comprehensive exploration of the evolution of human consciousness

In this tour de force of scholarship and vision, Ken Wilber traces the course of evolution from matter to life to mind and describes the common patterns that evolution takes in all three of these domains. From the emergence of mind, he traces the evolution of human consciousness through its major stages of growth and development.

Wilber particularly focuses on modernity and postmodernity: what they mean; how they impact gender issues, psychotherapy, ecological concerns, and various liberation movements; and how the modern and postmodern world conceive of Spirit. This second edition features forty pages of new material, new diagrams, and extensively revised notes.

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Integral Spirituality

by Ken Wilber (Co-Founder of the Think Tank)

This cutting-edge theory of spirituality for today’s global society honors the truths of modern science and postmodern culture while incorporating the wisdom of the great world religions

Applying his highly acclaimed integral approach, Ken Wilber formulates a theory of spirituality that honors the truths of modernity and postmodernity—including the revolutions in science and culture—while incorporating the essential insights of the great religions. He shows how spirituality today combines the enlightenment of the East, which excels at cultivating higher states of consciousness, with the enlightenment of the West, which offers developmental and psychodynamic psychology. Each contributes key components to a more integral spirituality.

On the basis of this integral framework, a radically new role for the world’s religions is proposed. Because these religions have such a tremendous influence on the worldview of the majority of the earth’s population, they are in a privileged position to address some of the biggest conflicts we face. By adopting a more integral view, the great religions can act as facilitators of human development: from magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral—and to a global society that honors and includes all the stations of life along the way.

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Social Justice and Educational Measurement

by Dr. Zachary Stein (Co-President of the Think Tank)

Social Justice and Educational Measurement addresses foundational concerns at the interface of standardized testing and social justice in American schools. Following John Rawls’s philosophical methods, Stein builds and justifies an ethical framework for guiding practices involving educational measurement. This framework demonstrates that educational measurement can both inhibit and ensure just educational arrangements. It also clarifies a principled distinction between efficiency-oriented testing and justice-oriented testing.

Through analysis of several historical case studies that exemplify ethical issues related to testing, this book explores and propounds speculative design principles and arguments in favour of radically democratic school reforms, which address how the future of testing might be shaped to ensure justice for all. These case studies cover the widespread use of IQ-style testing in schools during the early decades of the 20th century; the founding of the Educational Testing Service; and the recent history of test-based accountability associated with No Child Left Behind.

Social Justice and Educational Measurement will be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in education, testing and assessment, and the philosophy of education. It will also be of interest to policymakers and educational administrators.

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Tears

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

This is a book about tears. It is about the dance of tears in our lives. Tears are not of one texture. There are many forms of holy tears. And there are also, or so it appears from the perspective of one level of consciousness, unholy tears. This book is about learning to discern between these different forms of tears. To learn the language of tears is to discern between the different forms of sacred tears.

Ultimately, however, from a higher level of consciousness all tears are holy in their root. Part of what it means to wake up is to identify the nature of your tears, and to give your tears voice. To wake up is to know the language of tears. When you are awake, you hear and hearken to the melody and message of your tears.

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Religion of Tomorrow

Ken Wilber (Co-Founder of the Think Tank)

A provocative examination of how the great religious traditions can remain relevant in modern times by incorporating scientific truths learned about human nature over the last century

A single purpose lies at the heart of all the great religious traditions: awakening to the astonishing reality of the true nature of ourselves and the universe. At the same time, through centuries of cultural accretion and focus on myth and ritual as ends in themselves, this core insight has become obscured.

Here, Ken Wilber provides a path for re-envisioning a religion of the future that acknowledges the evolution of humanity in every realm while remaining faithful to that original spiritual vision. For the traditions to attract modern men and women, Wilber asserts, they must incorporate the extraordinary number of scientific truths learned about human nature in just the past hundred years—for example, about the mind and brain, emotions, and the growth of consciousness—that the ancients were simply unaware of and thus were unable to include in their meditative systems.

Taking Buddhism as an example, Wilber demonstrates how his comprehensive Integral Approach—which is already being applied to several world religions by some of their adherents—can avert a “cultural disaster of unparalleled proportions”: the utter neglect of the glorious upper reaches of human potential by the materialistic postmodern worldview. Moreover, he shows how we can apply this approach to our own spiritual practice. This, his most sweeping work since Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, is a thrilling call for wholeness, inclusiveness, and unity in the religions of tomorrow.

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Foundational Books by Senior Fellows of the Think Tank Published

Conscious Evolution

by Barbara Marx Hubbard (Former Chair of the Think Tank)

Emergence

by Barbara Marx Hubbard (Former Chair of the Think Tank)

The Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation

by Barbara Marx Hubbard (Former Chair of the Think Tank)

The God Problem

by Howard Bloom (Senior Fellow of the Think Tank)

The Relevance of General Systems Theory

Edited by Ervin Laszlo (Senior Fellow of the Think Tank)

Evolution: The Great Synthesis

by Ervin Laszlo (Senior Fellow of the Think Tank)

Impact Books Published

Loving Your Way to Enlightenment

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

The Mystery of Love

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

Soul Prints

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

Your Unique Self (Success 3.0)

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

Source Books That Inspired Us

Process and Reality

by Alfred North Whitehead

Adventures of Ideas

by Alfred North Whitehead

The Lights of Penitence

by Abraham Isaac Kook

Absorbing Perfections

by Moshe Idel

The Lonely Man of Faith

by Joseph B. Soloveitchik

God, Man and History

by Eliezer Berkovits

Biology and Knowledge Revisited

Jean Piaget Symposia Series

The Theory of Communicative Action

by Jürgen Habermas

The Essential Peirce

by Charles Sanders Peirce Edited by Nathan Houser & Christian Kloesel

Get Your Preview Draft of Two Forthcoming Outrageous Love Books HERE

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On our main topics pages, you get a direct experience of our ongoing work at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion – the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism. We invite you to explore our books, papers, podcasts, etc.

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Great Library Books2025-07-02T05:00:53-07:00

White Papers

Latest Released White Paper

[For More Formal and Oral Essays from Our Think Tank, Visit Our Substack Publication]

Book Review “First Principles & First Values” by David Nicol

Read on Substack

David Nicol is an Australian native now living in North California. His book, Subtle Activism: The Inner Dimension of Social and Planetary Transformation (SUNY Press) was the first comprehensive study of the idea that focused collective intention can powerfully and measurably contribute to social change.

David writes a blog on Substack called Geistic Musings, offering his “reflections on the intersection of consciousness and culture.”

Book Review “First Principles & First Values”

A New Story of Value for Our Times

Today I want to share about (what I think is) a vitally important new book that offers profound context for why we need these novel forms of knowing to start to move into the center of culture as a matter of urgency in this time between worlds.

The book is First Principles & First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on Cosmoerotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, by David J. Temple. David J. Temple is a pseudonym that represents a consortium of writers associated with the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, with Marc Gafni and Zak Stein being the primary authors.

Because of the significance of the book’s thesis, I go into some detail below to convey the essential argument. I hope you will stay with me, because there is something deeply hopeful about these ideas for our future.

First Principles is an attempt to articulate the foundations of a new worldview that can guide humanity through the global metacrisis. We have become deeply conditioned by postmodernity to be cynical of intellectual efforts to create frameworks of universal value, but this is indeed at the heart of the authors’ thesis. Post-modernity’s deconstruction of old stories of value has overreached, resulting not only in a pervasive global mood of nihilism but also an inability to coordinate in any meaningful way at a time when the stakes could not be higher.

Into this void, First Principles offers a ‘New Story of Value’ that provides a context for integrating the best of premodern, modern, and postmodern thought. It does so by explicitly articulating a universal set of values that underlies reality all the way up and down the evolutionary chain, and is validated by both science and the wisdom traditions. Below I provide a specific example. (more…)

More Think Tank Documents in Development

To find these essays organized by topic, please visit our Topics page on the Top Menu.

Scholars at the Center for World Philosophy & Religion are conducting research and co-creating publications which can help to chart the course for the next step in the emergence of humankind. Some of our authors have traditional academic credentials, and others are independent scholars and thinkers who bring unique perspectives to bear, often informed by real-world involvement in putting insights from Integral Wisdom into practice.

Note: Dr. Marc Gafni is involved at different levels in many of these projects, ranging from being the lead author, co-author, or at times simply writing an introduction to frame the topic in terms of the larger conversation.

See the Bibliography of Dr. Marc Gafni

The following white papers, extended essays, and book excerpts have been or are now being actively developed at the Center for World Philosophy & Religion think tank – the links lead to the final or current versions of the papers.

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First Principles & First Values: Toward a Universal Grammar of Meaning in a Time Between Worlds – A White Paper

Living in the Tao: Toward a Global Ethos for a Global Civilization

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First Principles & First Values: Toward a Universal Grammar of Meaning in a Time Between Worlds – A White Paper2023-06-17T12:21:06-07:00

Dr. Marc Gafni: From the Failure to Participate in the Conspiring of Reality to Conspiracy Theory

On the Failure of Eros, First Principles, and a Portal to Evolution’s Next Step

by Dr. Marc Gafni

This article is an edited Transcript from One Church – Episode 189 – May 24, 2020. You can watch the whole episode on the Watch page of the One Mountain, Many Paths Website. One Mountain, Many Paths is a project of our sister organization, the Foundation for Conscious Evolution.

Read below or download the article here:

The Great Conspiring of Reality: What Do Conspiracy Theories Get Right?

On every news channel in the world in the last six or seven weeks, the conversation is around one thing. The conversation is around conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory has moved from the periphery of culture, from its fringe to its center. Why has conspiracy theory moved from fringe to center, at this particular moment in time? And why do we need to talk about it, why does it matter? In newspapers in Asia and in Europe and in South America and in Africa, all over the United States, Mexico, Canada, why is conspiracy theory in the mainstream media the lead item? Why is it so critical for us to understand this?

Because it’s actually speaking to something unbelievably important. The sensemaking that we need to do is to understand this in the largest light. The sensemaking that’s being done around conspiracy theory, there is some truth, there are some good things being said, but it’s so shallow, almost insipid, pallid. Neither the conspiracy theorists don’t understand the mainstream media, the mainstream media doesn’t understand the conspiracy theorists. Both of them dismiss each other. It’s an expression of the larger polarization, the larger culture war.

Why are we attracted to conspiracy theory? Why is it driving the click bait structure of the virtual world? What is attractive in it? Where is the allurement? Where is the attraction? That’s the deep question. Anyone who believes every conspiracy theory is a fool. Anyone who doesn’t believe any conspiracy theories is also a fool, perhaps a greater fool.

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Dr. Marc Gafni: From the Failure to Participate in the Conspiring of Reality to Conspiracy Theory2023-06-17T12:26:43-07:00