Dr. Marc Gafni, as esteemed teacher, joins this Aubrey Marcus podcast with Vylana Marcus and Alana Beale to discuss the cosmic, philosophical, spiritual, and psychological underpinnings of a configuration of Love. 

Join Aubrey Marcus, Vylana Marcus, Alana Beale and Dr. Marc Gafni in conversation.

In Aubrey’s voice:

This is by far the most controversial podcast we have ever released, triggering equal amounts of radical praise and intense hatred. We read through thousands of comments and ultimately chose to leave the podcast up, but for actual concerns for our own safety to take the comments down. Something about this wildly intimate and emotional revelation that includes the story of how the sacred union with my wife Vylana expanded to include our beloved Alana Beale, a 28 year old powerful woman who we esteem as a teacher to us in many ways.

Why did it touch such a raw nerve?

Perhaps it was the disappointment in the fantasy of Aubrey embodying the reformed Polyamory guy, the bad boy who made good, being dashed on the rocks of reality. Perhaps not having Vylana’s paramour Joshua at the table with us, or one of Alana’s lovers she has had during this process gave an impression that this was some form of archaic patriarchal polygyny. Perhaps it is because in our post-modern world, monogamous union is one of the values that has survived the onslaught of post-modernity. Perhaps it is because I made the mistake of maintaining the repose of a podcast host, instead of dropping into the raw feeling tones of my beautiful wife Vylana. Perhaps it is because there were private details of certain challenging interpersonal dynamics between Vylana and I that were left out of the narrative. Perhaps it is because there is a misinterpretation that the whispers we received along the way, nudging us toward this constellation were being claimed as God’s will. Which of course, none of us can claim to know God’s will.

But ultimately this podcast is not a prescription; we state that many times. It is a description of what has worked for us to allow us to live a life of radical commitment and total freedom. And we have been shocked that so many people who celebrate the beautifully diverse non-heteronormative unions, have expressed such vitriol and ill-will toward all of us. Because we dare to ask the question: Are relationship structures intended by the Cosmos to be one size fits all? Or do variations actually serve the evolution of love?

Dr. Marc Gafni, our esteemed teacher, joins us to discuss the cosmic, philosophical, spiritual, and psychological underpinnings behind this configuration of love that we hope will expand the boundaries of what is possible in every dimension of our intimate, personal, and communal political lives.

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.