Eros, Unique Self, & a New Story of Value | w/ Marc Gafni

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on Back to the Present Podcast with Mithchell Bastock

I don’t know about you, but being a human is pretty cool. All of us almost always take it for granted. It’s so easy getting caught in what’s going on in our our lives that we forget about the bigger picture.

Marc paints this picture. We are at a bit of a crossroad it seems on this planet right now. I don’t believe anyone really knows which way things will go, though I’m 101% confident us humans need to change the way we do things if we want our descendants to enjoy this amazing planet the way we can.

The work Marc and his colleagues are doing provides the tools and stimuli for those of us courageous enough to fight for everlasting love.

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

Eros, Unique Self, & a New Story of Value | w/ Marc GafniJamie Long2024-07-09T06:42:31-07:00

#353 First Principles and First Values (Book Release) w/ Dr. Marc Gafni aka David J. Temple

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on Kyle Kingsbury Podcast.

ABOUT:

The dear Dr. Gafni is back in a different capacity than he has been lately. We’re taking a short hiatus from learning the Faces of Eros to discuss a work he has most recently collaborated on with Zach Stein and Ken Wilber under the pseudonym “David J. Temple”. The book is First Principles and First Values and it is the basis for much of his views on the CosmoErotic Universe. Please go get the book, work through it at a manageable pace, and let’s create this more beautiful world fam!

Marc’s Books:

NEW BOOK: First Principles and First Values – David J. Temple

A Return to Eros (paperback)

A Return to Eros (audiobook)

The Erotic and the Holy

Your Unique Self

Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment

Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism

Listen to this podcast:

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

#353 First Principles and First Values (Book Release) w/ Dr. Marc Gafni aka David J. TempleJamie Long2024-07-09T06:42:46-07:00

DR. MARC GAFNI: Changing the Story of Humanity at a Pivotal Time in History // EP. 246 Video

**Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on the The Medicin Podcast with Mimi and Chase Lindquist**

About:

In Dr. Gafni and his colleague, Dr. Stein’s language: “We stand at a pivotal moment in history – a time between worlds and a time between stories – poised between dystopia and utopia.” To bridge the gap between our external technologies and internal narratives of identity and purpose, every human and every epoch of humanity must evolve responses to three essential questions, what we refer to as the three great questions of CosmoErotic Humanism: “Who? Where? And What?”

Who am I? and Who are we?

Where am I? and Where are we?

What ought I do? and What ought we do?

In the new book, “First Principles and First Values,” written under the pseudonym David J. Temple, a roadmap for humanity is laid before the reader answering the common question, “What can we do to shift the future of humanity towards higher consciousness and shared common goals?” We discuss the roadmap in this episode.

GET THE BOOK HERE // Download first 5 chapters FREE

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

DR. MARC GAFNI: Changing the Story of Humanity at a Pivotal Time in History // EP. 246 VideoJamie Long2024-07-09T06:46:43-07:00

DR. MARC GAFNI: Changing the Story of Humanity at a Pivotal Time in History // EP. 246 Audio

**Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on The Medicin Podcast with Mimi Lindquist.**

ABOUT:

In Dr. Gafni and his colleague, Dr. Stein’s language: “We stand at a pivotal moment in history – a time between worlds and a time between stories – poised between dystopia and utopia.” To bridge the gap between our external technologies and internal narratives of identity and purpose, every human and every epoch of humanity must evolve responses to three essential questions, what we refer to as the three great questions of CosmoErotic Humanism: “Who? Where? And What?”

Who am I? and Who are we?
Where am I? and Where are we?
What ought I do? and What ought we do?

In the new book, “First Principles and First Values,” written under the pseudonym David J. Temple, a roadmap for humanity is laid before the reader answering the common question, “What can we do to shift the future of humanity towards higher consciousness and shared common goals?” We discuss the roadmap in this episode.

GET THE BOOK HERE // Download first 5 chapters FREE

Listen to this podcast:

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

DR. MARC GAFNI: Changing the Story of Humanity at a Pivotal Time in History // EP. 246 AudioJamie Long2024-07-09T06:46:29-07:00

Intimate Conversations: A New Story of Value for Humanity with Dr. Marc Gafni Pt. 2 – Allana Pratt

Enjoy Part 2 of this podcast, “A New Story of Value for Humanity with Dr. Marc Gafni” featured on the Intimate Conversations Podcast with Allana Pratt

Join Allana Pratt in conversation with Dr. Marc Gafni.

In Allana’s voice:

I’m always left spellbound by the breathtaking honor of connecting with Dr. Marc Gafni.

When he speaks every cell of my body comes alive, my soul feels ignited, I’m able to literally feel Eros in, as and through me. It brought me to tears. ‪@MarcGafni

We spoke of his new book that I invite you to purchase, First Principles and First Values. Not only did we speak of Eros and Pseudo Eros, but a new word, Erosvalue in response to the meta-crisis. And yet what does this mean to your life and intimate relationships? In this inspiring conversation you will discover…

The importance of being able to feel the whole of life, not to bypass the hurt or disassociate …but to feel it all, move beyond identity and embrace unique values to experience a never known before possibility.

How First Principles and First Values allow us to tell a new Story of Value… And how we need to stay in the field of value to create synergies and end the meta-crisis.

How indeed we live in an intimate universe and yet the intimate universe also lives in us, thus intimacy is literally what we need to survive and embody thriving.

How we can evolve the story that animates society when we support our evolution reading this book of first principles and first values, a shared grammar… so we are no longer lonely, non intimate, cut off from the interior of each other, isolated in surface existence.

How, quoting the book, we can create a new story with a plot line that plays out desire that moves toward intrinsic values where we have will, choice, possibilities and freedom, dealing with the crisis of value, (a birth) and a resolution of a new structure of value.

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

Intimate Conversations: A New Story of Value for Humanity with Dr. Marc Gafni Pt. 2 – Allana PrattJamie Long2024-07-25T06:48:00-07:00

Intimate Conversations: A New Story of Value for Humanity with Dr. Marc Gafni Pt. 1 – Allana Pratt

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on the Intimate Conversations Podcast with Allana Pratt

Join Allana Pratt in conversation with Dr. Marc Gafni.

In Allana’s voice:

I’m always left spellbound by the breathtaking honor of connecting with Dr. Marc Gafni.

When he speaks every cell of my body comes alive, my soul feels ignited, I’m able to literally feel Eros in, as and through me. It brought me to tears. ‪@MarcGafni

We spoke of his new book that I invite you to purchase, First Principles and First Values. Not only did we speak of Eros and Pseudo Eros, but a new word, Erosvalue in response to the meta-crisis. And yet what does this mean to your life and intimate relationships? In this inspiring conversation you will discover…

The importance of being able to feel the whole of life, not to bypass the hurt or disassociate …but to feel it all, move beyond identity and embrace unique values to experience a never known before possibility.

How First Principles and First Values allow us to tell a new Story of Value… And how we need to stay in the field of value to create synergies and end the meta-crisis.

How indeed we live in an intimate universe and yet the intimate universe also lives in us, thus intimacy is literally what we need to survive and embody thriving.

How we can evolve the story that animates society when we support our evolution reading this book of first principles and first values, a shared grammar… so we are no longer lonely, non intimate, cut off from the interior of each other, isolated in surface existence.

How, quoting the book, we can create a new story with a plot line that plays out desire that moves toward intrinsic values where we have will, choice, possibilities and freedom, dealing with the crisis of value, (a birth) and a resolution of a new structure of value.

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

Intimate Conversations: A New Story of Value for Humanity with Dr. Marc Gafni Pt. 1 – Allana PrattThe Editors2024-07-09T06:47:09-07:00

The “Intimate Universe,” the “Evolution of Intimacy,” & “Evolutionary Intimacy”

Twenty Cross-Platform Applications of the Intimacy Equation

This early draft of an essay was written by Dr. Marc Gafni. It is part of Volume 3 of a forthcoming six-volume book series, The Universe: A Love Story, by Dr. Marc Gafni with Dr. Zachary Stein & Barbara Marx Hubbard. The essay was edited and prepared for publication by Kerstin Tuschik. We welcome substantive feedback as we prepare a more advanced version of this essay.

Download a PDF of This Early Draft Essay

Understanding that the evolution of love equals the evolution of intimacy liberates intimacy from its narrow anthropocentric predicament. There are three core meanings to intimacy, two of which we have already begun to unfold in the previous volumes of this series. We now move to a deeper take on both of these dimensions, even as we add a third element to the core structure of intimacy. We might also refer to this perception as the holy trinity or the three-core definition of intimacy. Each meaning or definition adds something fundamental. These definitions apply to more than human intimacy.

Remember that evolution is the evolution of intimacy. Intimacy begins in the first nanoseconds of the Big Bang and moves through every level of Reality, including the world of matter, the world of life, and the human world of culture. These three lifeworlds are birthed in—what we have already referred to as—three progressive Big Bangs.[i]

The process starts with the First Big Bang, which births the physiosphere. The physiosphere includes everything from the Big Bang to the macromolecules that make up the first cell.

Then, in a momentous leap of emergence—the Second Big Bang—the biosphere is birthed. Animate conscious life gradually leaps forth from the apparently inanimate world of atoms, molecules, stars, and planets. The biosphere includes everything from the first cell until the first hominids walk on the African savannah.

Finally, the Third Big Bang births the noosphere. The noosphere includes everything from the emergence of self-reflective cognition and emotion—that is, art, language, and trade—beginning from the first human being through all the distinct stages of human cultural development until modernity and postmodernity.

We refer to these processes as cosmological evolution, biological evolution, and cultural evolution. All through the entire evolutionary process, the same core definition of intimacy is at play, driving and moving Reality. The trajectory of evolution is the evolution of intimacy. What we are describing in this writing is the emergence of what might be called the Fourth Big Bang, the emergence of Homo amor, the New Human and the New Humanity.

The Intimacy Equation

By now, it is clear that we are talking about intimacy as the very structure of Reality’s being and becoming. Intimacy is the inner nature and the inherent telos of the Universe: A Love Story. (more…)

The “Intimate Universe,” the “Evolution of Intimacy,” & “Evolutionary Intimacy”The Editors2024-07-02T09:04:07-07:00

The New Human and the New Humanity: Homo Amor

Download a PDF of the Essay

This early draft of an essay was written by Dr. Marc Gafni. It is part of Volume 2 of a forthcoming six-volume book series, The Universe: A Love Story, by Dr. Marc Gafni with Dr. Zachary Stein & Barbara Marx Hubbard. The essay was edited and prepared for publication by Kerstin Tuschik. We welcome substantive feedback as we prepare a more advanced version of this essay.

As we begin to live the new Story of Value, a New Human and a New Humanity begin to emerge. We have called the New Human and the New Humanity by the term Homo amor. Homo amor is the fulfillment of Homo sapiens. The shift to this new consciousness is fundamental. It is in many ways parallel to, and as momentous as, the early evolutionary transition from single-celled to multicellular life.

As the consciousness of Homo amor becomes available, more and more lives will be not only a love story but also a triumphant love story. Indeed, we are convinced that telling the new Story—articulating the new narrative of Homo amor, the Intimate Universe, and the Universe: A Love Story—is the most potent response to suffering that we have at this moment in our history.

Just as the new story of modernity generated innovations in exteriors that birthed the great dignities of modernity, it is the new Story of Homo amor that—at this pivotal eleventh-hour moment in the short span of human history—needs to generate innovation in interiors. This, in turn, will generate the coherence necessary to transform mass tragedy and devolution into mass triumph and evolution.

The Trajectory of Evolution: Promise and Peril

This view is not pollyannaish in any sense of the term. It in no way ignores evil or suffering. Quite the contrary.

First, it needs to be stated clearly that evolution is not a direct linear progression toward ever-deeper love and intimacy. Evolution meanders.

And yet, second, evolution does progress. Evolution is the movement toward Love by Love’s own inexorable and incessant persuasions: Persuasions that are both gentle and fierce in their quality and character.

A Note on Desire

Alfred North Whitehead was not wrong when, echoing the leading edges of the interior sciences in Hebrew wisdom, he pointed toward the inherent purpose of evolution as the movement toward the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Or, stated somewhat differently, if we are to deploy the term that we pointed towards above—the term appetite that Whitehead chose—Reality is hungry. Reality is hungry for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, all of which are expressions of a more primal hunger, the hunger for more Love, for more Eros, for more Divinity, disclosed in human form. Reality is lined with appetite all the way down and all the way up the evolutionary chain. In the language of CosmoErotic Humanism, the appetite of Cosmos is the Eros of evolution that itself evolves.^[1] [i] What Whitehead calls appetite, the interior science call by many other names including teshuka—desire.[2] Reality desires. (more…)

The New Human and the New Humanity: Homo AmorThe Editors2024-07-05T12:47:13-07:00

First Principles and First Values with Dr. Marc Gafni and Sasha Lipskala

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on the Be Brave Podcast with Sasha Lipskala

Join Sasha Lipskaia in conversation with Dr. Marc Gafni.

Marc Gafni is one of the most inspiring and powerful spiritual teachers I know. — Sasha Lipskaia

In this podcast episode they dive deep into the nature of our humanity and the crisis we are in, as we are facing the existential risk of not only the potential death of humanity but also the potential death of our humanity. How we can respond to the meta-crisis and reclaim our hearts? Participate in this deep contemplation on what we must do to cross over to the other side, the side of Love, the side of the Goddess.

Enjoy this meaningful dialogue and reflection. Tune in to gain insights that have the power to completely reshape the understanding of our world and our unique role within it.

For privacy reasons YouTube needs your permission to be loaded.

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

First Principles and First Values with Dr. Marc Gafni and Sasha LipskalaJamie Long2024-04-16T06:58:12-07:00

First Principles and First Values | Marc Gafni & Paul Chek

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on Living 4D Podcast with Paul Chek.

ABOUT:

Our planet is suffering deeply from a global intimacy disorder, is it even possible to turn things around?

Dr. Marc Gafni returns to the Living 4D podcast with Paul Chek, to share his newest work, First Principles and First Values (a collaboration with Dr. Zak Stein under the pseudonym David J. Temple), as a possible blueprint for a new and better way forward.

Join Paul Check and Marc Gafni for a transformative exploration on Living 4D!

In this conversation:

The value of stories.
A pivotal generation.
A cosmic story of value.
“We live in an amorous cosmos.”
“We are music.”
Is there no true shared field of values?
Moving from dogma to dharma.
Evolutionary love.
Eros defined.
How do you become a world-changer?
“God is a verb.”
A unique configuration of intimacy.
“God is the Infinite Intimate.”

Explore the power of stories, the essence of Evolutionary Love, and the cosmic story of value—essential insights for navigating today’s challenges.

Listen to this podcast:

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

First Principles and First Values | Marc Gafni & Paul ChekThe Editors2024-07-04T06:45:58-07:00

ErosValue: Early Thoughts – Dr. Marc Gafni

Download a PDF the Essay

The core Value of Cosmos is Eros. Indeed, the words cannot be fruitfully split.

Eros IS ethos.[1] Or said slightly differently, Eros is Value exponentialized as the Infinite Value, which suffuses Reality. Nothing exists outside of the circle of Eros as Value and Value as Eros. Eros IS ethos, and ethos, or Value, is the Ought implicit in Reality, which suffuses all of Cosmos. This is what we refer to in CosmoErotic Humanism as ErosValue.

Eros is life.

Eros generates new life.

Eros is a First Principle and First Value of Reality itself.

Eros is Value.

And Value is Eros.

Indeed, it is for that reason that we coined a new term in CosmoErotic Humanism:

ErosValue.

ErosValue generates the Value of Life.

In its creative movement, ErosValue generates ever-greater life through ever-deeper contact. It is the movement of Cosmos that brings together separate parts into larger wholes. The greater wholes have ever-more value. At every greater level of value, the emergent whole has greater depth, consciousness, and capacity.

A subatomic particle has a certain level of depth, consciousness, and capacity—all expressions of Value.

An atom—which contains, within it, subatomic particles that have come together to form a larger whole—has more depth, more consciousness, and more value.

The notion that there is already proto consciousness at the level of atoms is found across the interior sciences and is now appearing in multiple forms across the leading edges of the exterior sciences. The premise, which explains empirical reality far better than the other stunted hypothesis, is what we call pan-interiority. Reality is neither material nor spirit [value]. Rather, Reality is interiors and exteriors all the way up and all the way down the evolutionary chain. Alfred North Whitehead, who wrote Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russel, called this proto interiority at the atomic level prehension.

Atoms come together to form larger wholes, molecules, which have more depth, capacity, and consciousness—more value.

Molecules form a larger whole, macromolecules, which have more depth, capacity, and consciousness—more value.

Macromolecules come together, intensifying their intimacy, aggregating, alluring separate parts into a larger whole with greater depth, capacity, and consciousness—more value—emerging as cells.

Matter has become life. The physiosphere has morphed into the biosphere. This is the inherent process of Eros—animating the processes of classical science and mathematics, as well as the interior sciences—which drives life all the way up the evolutionary chain. At ever-higher levels of emergence, there is more depth, capacity, consciousness, and hence more value. But while there are self-evident gradients of values, all of Reality has inherent Value. Value lives all the way up and all the way down the evolutionary chain. Eros is value generating ever-more value.

Ethos and Eros Are One: Eros Is ErosValue

Not only, however, is Eros virtually identical with ethos. Ethos is identical with Eros. In other words, there is a feeling to the ethos-suffused movement towards wholeness. That feeling is Eros. The Universe feels, and the Universe feels Eros. For the feeling of ethos is Eros. (more…)

ErosValue: Early Thoughts – Dr. Marc GafniThe Editors2024-04-09T06:55:22-07:00

Resources for the Parallax Course “Opening the Eye of Value during the Meta-Crisis”

The Eye of Value: Early Draft Essay

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2020

Read “The Eye of Value”

On the Erotic and the Ethical

Dr. Marc Gafni, Tikkun, 2003

Read “On the Erotic and the Ethical”

NonDual Humanism

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2006

Read “NonDual Humanism”

The Wisdom of Solomon

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2006

Read “The Wisdom of Solomon”

The CosmoErotic Universe

An Excerpt from A Return to Eros

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2017

Read “The CosmoErotic Universe”

Eros as Value Perception

An Excerpt from Your Unique Self

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2011

Read “Eros as Value Perception”

Eros and Ethics

An Excerpt from A Return to Eros

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2017

Read “Eros and Ethics”

ErosValue: First Thoughts

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2023

Read “ErosValue: First Thoughts”

Value: For Its Own Sake

An Excerpt from A Return to Eros

Dr. Marc Gafni, 2017

Read “Value: For Its Own Sake”

Resources for the Parallax Course “Opening the Eye of Value during the Meta-Crisis”The Editors2024-04-09T04:09:02-07:00

The Eye of Value: Early Draft Essay – Dr. Marc Gafni, 2018

Four Prisms of the Eye of Consciousness: The Eye of Value, the Eye of Contemplation, the Eye of the Spirit, and the Eye of the Heart

The Eye of Value is a term coined and shared by Dr. Gafni in multiple oral teaching over many years and in this more formal essay from 2018. This early draft was drawn from the forthcoming volumes of The Universe: A Love Story—First Meditations on CosmoErotic Humanism in Response to the Meta-Crisis by Dr. Marc Gafni. A more expanded version will also appear in forthcoming work by Gafni, Stein, and Wilber under the moniker of David J. Temple.

The essay was edited and prepared for publication by Kerstin Tuschik. We welcome substantive feedback as we prepare a more advanced version of this essay.

Download a PDF of the Essay

The Empiricism of Love: The Three Eyes of Knowing—The Three Eyes of Eros—The Three Forms of Gnosis—The Three Eyes That Are One

How do we know that Love is Real?

Not because of faith or dogma.

Rather, we know Love is real because the depth of our direct felt experience of Love tells us it is so. Our experience of Eros generates gnosis. That Love is real, and not a social construction, a fiction, or a figment of our imagination, is, like all good science, an empirical truth. This is, in fact, how all true knowledge in every field of inquiry is obtained.

Knowing through experience, however, is precisely the opposite of dogma. Knowing through experience is what we call empiricism. And knowing that Love is real—in fact more real than anything else, as the intrinsic value of Cosmos it is—is what William James correctly called Radical Empiricism.

Indeed, all of science, as opposed to organized religion, is based on the authority of direct validated experience. This is true both in the exterior science and what we have called the interior sciences. Indeed, in exterior and interior sciences, there are three ways to unfurnish our eyes—or what have been called the Three Eyes of Knowing. In fact, these Three Eyes are three distinct forms of the Anthro-Ontological Method.

In CosmoErotic Humanism, we refer to them as the Eye of the Senses, the Eye of the Mind, and the Eye of Consciousness.

The Eye of Consciousness is also known by at least four other names: the Eye of Value, the Eye of the Heart, the Eye of the Spirit, or the Eye of Contemplation.

It is this last set of eyes, by all of their names, which discloses Love’s Ultimate Reality, which is Love’s Knowledge, which is Love’s Value.

But we will see, as consciousness evolves, these very distinct eyes begin to come together, and we realize that, at the higher levels of consciousness, they inseparably inter-animate each other.

Each of these eyes illuminates a different dimension of Reality.

Each one is the province of particular dimensions of knowledge.

At higher levels of consciousness—what is sometimes called, in the interior sciences, nondual realization—the different dimensions, perceived by the different eyes inter-animate, pointing towards a larger Seamless Field of Eros.

Each of the Three Eyes goes by different names.

The Three Eyes Are:

The Eye of the Senses or the Eye of the Flesh.

The Eye of the Mind or the Eye of Reason.

The Eye of Consciousness, alternatively known as the Eye of Value, the Eye of the Heart, the Eye of the Spirit, or the Eye of Contemplation. [These names, however, are not quite synonyms. Rather, each implicitly implies a different quality of the Eye of Value. As such, we will occasionally use all of the names together with the lead name(s) being written first and the other names in brackets next to it.]

The Eye of the Senses [Eye of the Flesh] is generally referred to as empiricism. This eye is what is classically called empirical knowledge. But, as we shall see, it is referring to a very narrow strain of empiricism.

The Eye of the Mind [Eye of Reason] is generally known as rationalism, while the Eye of Consciousness [alternatively the Eye of the Spirit, the Eye of Contemplation, the Eye of the Heart, or the Eye of Value] is generally known as mysticism.

But it would be more accurate to say that all of the eyes are forms of science, what we refer to, in CosmoErotic Humanism, as exterior and interior sciences. All Three Eyes are forms of empiricism. (more…)

The Eye of Value: Early Draft Essay – Dr. Marc Gafni, 2018The Editors2024-05-21T08:24:09-07:00

First Principles and First Values — Dr. Marc Gafni on The Metagame

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on The Metagame Podcast.

Marc Gafni | First Principles and First Values

Propositions on Cosmoerotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come

This podcast is about the latest book “First Principles and First Values” by Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Zak Stein under the pseudonym David J. Temple.

Our new book can be pre-ordered from the US and Canada (we are working on creating direct ordering from Europe and other countries – please stand by!):

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

First Principles and First Values — Dr. Marc Gafni on The MetagameThe Editors2024-04-03T21:27:22-07:00

Decoding Dune: A Revelatory Exploration w/ Dr. Marc Gafni and Aubrey Marcus

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on Aubrey Marcus’ Podcast

Spoiler Alert! This episode is for people familiar with the Dune series, and want to explore the complicated themes of this iconic sci-fi masterpiece. Like a message that is echoing from the past, what is particularly relevant about Dune now?

In this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni, we go on a journey to uncover the hidden lessons and timeless wisdom woven into the fabric of this incredible series. Marc Gafni and Aubrey Marcus discuss the multifaceted realms of power, politics, psychedelics, prophets, and the nuances of messianic leadership. We also explore the notion of destiny and the complexities of free will. Whether you’re a passionate aficionado or a curious soul, prepare to be enlightened as we meticulously decode the philosophical intricacies of Dune, offering fresh insights and revelations.

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Decoding Dune: A Revelatory Exploration w/ Dr. Marc Gafni and Aubrey MarcusThe Editors2024-04-03T09:14:15-07:00

First Principles and First Values (Interview with David J. Temple)

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Zak Stein (David J. Temple) featured on The Integral Stage Podcast on the new book: First Principles and First Values.

In this episode, Layman sits down with Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Zak Stein to discuss their jointly authored book, First Principles and First Values. They are publishing the book pseudonymously under the name, David J. Temple.

Click here to purchase First Principles and First Values now.

For privacy reasons YouTube needs your permission to be loaded.

Our new book can be pre-ordered from the US and Canada (we are working on creating direct ordering from Europe and other countries – please stand by!):

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

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

Order Here

First Principles and First Values (Interview with David J. Temple)The Editors2024-04-03T08:56:05-07:00

Dr. Marc Gafni & Layman Pascal: Public shadow in the planetary age

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on The Integral Stage Podcast.

“Public shadow in the planetary age”

This is the first episode of a new series exploring the subtle dynamics of collective shadow, narrative making & our responses to how we are perceived. In the digital epoch, it is unlikely that anyone will escape confrontation with a negative image of themselves existing in the minds of others. Do we learn from it? Fight it? Absorb it? Ignore it? And how do we evaluate anything when information itself becomes dubious?

Layman is joined this time by Dr. Marc Gafni — the world philosopher of “cosmo-erotic humanism” together with Dr. Zak Stein. Gafni is the co-president with Stein of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, founded with Ken Wilber in 2010, where they are articulating a “new meta theory story of value in response to the meta crisis”, even as Gafni lives as a character, both beloved and controversial, in the public mind.

Our task in this episode, and in this series, is not to demonize or exonerate. We encourage people to do their own research if they are interested. Facts matter. So do feelings. But that is not our topic in this series where we are focused on something more specific. We are not exploring the content of the narratives but rather how they emerge, how they are perceived by the people inside them, how those people respond under the conditions of the emerging digital, planetary age & what they have concluded about their responses.

We are not exploring content of the narratives but rather how they emerge, how they are perceived by the people inside them, how those people respond under the conditions of the emerging digital-planetary age & what they have concluded about their responses.

Dr. Marc Gafni & Layman Pascal: Public shadow in the planetary ageThe Editors2024-04-03T08:41:08-07:00

The Three Selves: A Memory of the Future

An Essay by Dr. Marc Gafni

This is an early draft of an essay, written by Dr. Marc Gafni. It is part of The Phenomenology of Eros: Meditations on the New Narrative of Desire by Dr. Marc Gafni with Barbara Marx Hubbard & Dr. Kristina Kincaid. The essay was edited and prepared for publication by Kerstin Tuschik. We welcome substantive feedback as we prepare a more advanced version of this essay.

Download a PDF of the Essay

Desire: The Heart of Reality

We will start with just a couple of sentences recapitulating what we have discussed in depth elsewhere.[1]

We live in a CosmoErotic Universe. Reality itself is animated and driven by Eros.[2] That is one of the tenets of what we have called CosmoErotic Humanism.[3] The core understanding, drawn from an extensive integration of a broad range of exterior and interior sciences, is that the human participates directly and uniquely in the larger Field of Value, which is Cosmic Eros.

The human being is the CosmoErotic Universe in person. And by CosmoErotic Universe we do not imply merely the physical structure of matter, but rather the entire Universe in all of its interiors and exteriors. The realization that the CosmoErotic Universe distinctly incarnates in every human being is the core of CosmoErotic Humanism.

An essential quality of Eros is desire. Throughout traditional, modern, and postmodern societies, the surface chatter of human culture has tended to identify desire with sex. The two words are virtually synonyms. But deeper levels of realization in all three time periods inform us that desire is not in any sense reducible to the sexual; indeed, sexual desire participates in the larger Desire of Reality—a Desire that powers Reality.

When I am on the inside, when I am fully intimate with myself, I am able to access desire, the most wanton and poignant quality of the erotic experience. Desire is an essential expression of Love and Eros. But when I am on the outside, a stranger to myself, I am alienated from my deepest desires. I cannot access my yearning, though longing and desire are vital strands in the textured fabric of Eros.

It was Rilke, rebelling against the old religious dogmas, who wrote of the shivering blaze that is Reality’s Desire as it awakens in human consciousness:

You see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything

The darkness that comes with every infinite fall

And the shivering blaze of every step up

So many live on and want nothing

…

But what you love to see are faces

That do work and feel thirst.[4]

Desire is a quality of Cosmos itself. To place desire only in the realm of the sexual is to exile the erotic to the sexual[5]—but we must remember that twelve billion years of Cosmic Eros existed before sex disclosed itself.

(more…)

The Three Selves: A Memory of the FutureThe Editors2024-05-27T05:59:13-07:00

Story as a First Principle and First Value of Reality

By Dr. Marc Gafni

This is an early draft of an essay, written by Dr. Marc Gafni. It is part of Volume Two of a forthcoming six-volume book series, The Universe: A Love Story, by Dr. Marc Gafni & Dr. Zachary Stein with Barbara Marx Hubbard. The essay was edited and prepared for publication by Kerstin Tuschik. We welcome substantive feedback as we prepare a more advanced version of this essay.

Download a PDF of this Essay

We often speak of three great questions of CosmoErotic Humanism.

The first is Who—as in Who am I? Who are You? Who are We? This is the great question of identity.

The second question is What—What do I really want? What is my deepest heart desire? These inquiries are closely linked to the great question of normativity. What is there for me to do? What is there for you to do? What is there for us to do? What ought I do? What ought we do?

The third question, the one which we want to focus on here is Where—Where am I? Where are You? Where are We? This is the question of Universe Story. In CosmoErotic Humanism, we respond to the Where question with the following series of brief, precisely formulated sentences:

Reality is not merely a fact.

Reality is also a story.

Reality is not an ordinary story.

Reality is a love story.

Reality is not an ordinary love story.

Reality is an Outrageous Love Story, or what we might also call an Evolutionary Love Story.

An Outrageous Love Story is not a pollyannish love story. Rather, an Outrageous Love Story embraces the full ecstasy and agony of life.

“Reality is a Love Story” applies to the narrative arc of the Whole—all of Reality, in its sequenced movement, contingency, and freedom in the context of telos and plotline.

YOUR love story is chapter and verse of the Universe: A Love Story.

Your Unique Self intimately participates in the Love Story of Reality.

One of the key purposes of the writings of CosmoErotic Humanism is to validate every phrase in these sentences, based on the validated insights at the frontiers of human gnosis as found in the exterior and interior sciences across space and time. More specifically, we are engaged in synergizing traditional (premodern), modern, and postmodern Principles and Stories of Value into a new grammar and Story of Value that is greater than the sum of all previous stories or plotlines.

Here we will focus particularly on the elements and dimensions of Story. The series of sentences featured above points towards what we are calling the narrative arc of Reality.

Our point is that Story is not a mere human contrivance that developed and survived because of its adaptive power. Rather, the adaptive power of Story is rooted in its fundamental, ontological status. Reality itself is stories all the way down the evolutionary chain. Said differently, Story is a First Principle and First Value of Reality. Human beings think and feel in stories because this first Value of Reality lives in us, as us, and through us. And here we are referring to the anthro-ontological Principle that lies at the very heart of the epistemological method of CosmoErotic Humanism.

The First Principle and First Value of Story is implicit in both the interior and the exterior sciences. To approach this First Principle, we need to pause and briefly unpack four implicit elements that apply to every manner of Story all the way down and all the way up the evolutionary chain, through all levels of matter, life, and the depths of the self-reflective human mind. It will then become apparent that these core elements of Story are at play throughout all of Reality, across space and time.

The Four Elements of Story

The first element of Story is a thread of action, in which events and dynamics are causally connected to each other. (more…)

Story as a First Principle and First Value of RealityThe Editors2024-03-27T07:03:03-07:00

Introduction from the New Book on “First Principles & First Values”

Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come by David J. Temple

CosmoErotic Humanism is a philosophical movement aimed at reconstructing the collapse of value at the core of global culture. This movement emerges in response to the meta-crisis, understanding existential and catastrophic risks as rooted not only in failures of economics, politics, and technology, but in failed worldviews. The core of CosmoErotic Humanism is a system of First Principles and First Values that recasts cosmic evolution as a Story of Value in which humanity plays a unique role. These First Principles and First Values ground a comprehensive set of theories, including self and psychology, epistemology, scientific metaphysics, education, theology, mysticism, sexuality, and value.

CosmoErotic Humanism thereby responds to the three great questions: Where? Who? and What? It offers a new Universe Story (Where am I?), a new narrative of identity (Who am I?), and new vision of ethics (What ought I/we do?). These are some of the first words on the possibilities of a world philosophy adequate to our time of civilization transformation. What is offered by CosmoErotic Humanism is a new Story of—eternal yet evolving—Value that can serve as a context for our diversity, finally allowing us to speak of humanity as part of a shared Story of evolving Cosmic Value.

Download Chapters 1-5 of the Book HERE

To the Reader

The propositions collected here unpack the urgent moral need to articulate a new vision and theory of value. Simply put, humanity must redefine what it understands to be valuable if it is going to survive. Humans must understand the importance of what they value in the Cosmos—the reality of value itself—beyond the notion that what they value is, for example, simply an arbitrary price that can be fixed to a commodity. The idea that a tree is only as valuable as what it can be sold for is absurd. The idea that a person is only as valuable as what they can contribute to society is also absurd. In fact, both incarnate a dimension of value that is immeasurable and fundamentally irreducible to its commodified form. Yet just this kind of absurdity has been driving global culture for centuries.

There has been great confusion in value theory over the last two hundred years. On the one hand, conservatives have attempted to simplify the discussion to a single list of preordained and eternal values, which must be protected, and to which all people must pledge allegiance. At the same time, driven by a reductive materialism, scientific communities largely claim that only what is described by physics is real and that therefore nothing ultimately has intrinsic value. Given this metaphysical assumption, contemporary value theory has stridently argued that value is but a contrived human invention. The rise of postmodernity has only exacerbated this trend, labelling all values “social constructs,” “fictions,” or “figment of our imaginations.” This claim has now entered mainstream culture. To cite but one example, two extremely popular books by Yuval Harari, Sapiens and Homo Deus, present these kinds of dogmatic postmodern claims as taken-for-granted assumptions. Harari’s books have received enthusiastic endorsements from popular cultural luminaries, including prime ministers, presidents, corporate leaders, and myriad literary, spiritual, and religious figures.

Value, however, is not merely instrumental or economic. It is not a social construction or cultural contrivance—not a mere fiction covering over a truly valueless and therefore ultimately meaningless world. The propositions here begin to demonstrate that value is intrinsic to Cosmos, all the way down and all the way up the evolutionary chain. Value is foundational and evolving. It is not that human beings contrive value; rather, value precedes life. Life is an inherent expression of value. Life is contrived in pursuit of Cosmic Value. Cosmic Value in this way generates life, as life emerges in pursuit of value. We live inside of value even as value lives inside of us. Reality is value. But this is all ahead of the story.

The material collected here from the internal writings of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. The Center is co-founded and led by Marc Gafni and Zak Stein. Together with Ken Wilber—also a cofounder of the Center—and an international team, they execute the Center’s mission: to evolve culture as needed in response to the looming threat of existential and catastrophic risk. This movement in culture has become referred to as CosmoErotic Humanism. Future volumes will include many colleagues who have been in leadership positions or dialogue with the Center for World Philosophy and Religion over the years—including Barbara Marx Hubbard, Lori Galperin, John P. Mackey, Howard Bloom, Ervin László, Sally Kempton, Daniel Schmachtenberger, and others. In each volume, as appropriate, we will recognize any particular partners who played a key co-authorship role in that particular work.

Taking the form of forty-two telegraphic propositions, this extended monograph provides a brief unpacking of CosmoErotic Humanism’s First Principles and First Values. We are not making our full arguments here; these will appear in longer forthcoming volumes. Please read through the propositions themselves, skipping ahead to those most interesting to you, those that elicit the most desire. Also review the list of First Principles and First Values (see pages 168–170) and try to hold the whole picture before beginning to read through them in sequence. Here we are putting it all on the table, as it were, so that, as we begin to publish more and elaborate on these themes, there is no confusion as to where we stand.

David Judah Temple
October 2023
Vermont, USA

Photography by Kristina Tahel Amelong

The following is the Introduction from our new book “First Values & First Principles” by David J. Temple.

Download Chapters 1-5 of the Book HERE

Order the Book

David J. Temple is a pseudonym created for enabling ongoing collaborative authorship at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. 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.

Dr. Marc Gafni is a visionary world philosopher and futurist, one of the leading formulators of world spirituality and religion of our time, and a beloved teacher and public intellectual with a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. He has more than twenty books to his name, including Your Unique Self, A Return to Eros, and three volumes of Radical Kabbalah.

Dr. Zak Stein is an educator, groundbreaking educational theorist, and futurist who specializes in developmental theory and metrics with a doctorate in the philosophy of education from Harvard University. He is the author of Education in a Time Between Worlds, among many other publications.

Ken Wilber is the creator of Integral Theory, with over twenty-five books to his name. He is one of the most influential philosophers of our time.

Introduction: On Redefining “Value” & Realizing Intimacy with All Things During the Meta-Crisis

The world is not what it was when the great wisdom traditions first began to (re)connect (“religion” is from the Latin religare, meaning to bind or tie) the human to the Cosmos through the identification of a Field of Value in which all life participates. The last century has seen more change in the conditions of human existence than any other period in known history. Technologies and societal evolutions have moved the center of culture outside the Field of Value. Humanity has become untethered from Reality, and more specifically: divorced from the Reality of Value. And so there is an urgent need for new forms of religion, philosophy, and culture that reconstruct value and reconnect humanity with nature and Reality.

Concern for the legacy of the great traditions is what unites the writing collected here to the modern tradition of perennial philosophy. This tradition suggests that a common core of truths can be found within all the best works of humanity’s religious imagination and interior sciences of contemplation. We propose here an Evolving Perennialism in which universal and eternal truths can be identified without becoming fixed. Eternal values evolve. As explained below, this is one of the ways beyond the devastating criticisms of accepted forms of value that modernity and postmodernity have rightfully offered. The failures of prior traditions that enthroned value do not put an end to value; in our hands, these critiques serve to evolve value. (more…)

Introduction from the New Book on “First Principles & First Values”The Editors2024-03-12T08:34:49-07:00