The Holdall

I talked with Jac Hielema about Rudolf Steiner's book The Philosophy of Freedom. It's a book that helps us in our thinking, allowing us to arrive at new ideas, which we can then freely work with (or not).Please listen in the spirit Jac talks about, when he talks about the various ways we can listen to people:"I ask you questions, and I let your answers go into me all the way. Most of the time, if I ask a person a question, I already throw him out of me by my inner reactions to the person. So if I really want to meet you, I have to be completely open and loving, and just open my heart for you with love. And then when I ask you a question, and you answer this question, I let your answers go into me. And then I can experience your answers."Jac has for a number of years been a teacher, giving seminars on that book. With his partner Damaris Matthijsen, he organises Economy Transformers in the Netherlands, and they are currently setting up a credit institution based on gifts in the historic home of banking, Amsterdam. He is writing a book on how to create a more human society.

A change of tone, and a personal podcast.

Owen Barfield was a scholar of what he called the evolution of consciousness, the idea that humanity's modes of perception of reality, of thinking. and of relating to nature have evolved in the time of recorded history. He was also famously a friend of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. I talked with Mark Vernon, who has written a book about Barfield, about how Barfield's ideas shed light on Christianity, the history of words, the imagination, and what a rainbow is, among other things. Show notes: roryoconnor.xyz/podcast/introducing-owen-barfield roryoconnor.xyz patreon.com/roryoconnor

A weekend of smashing the system. The head-system. I talk about what ayahuasca is, the legal and medical situation, and so on, for the first 15 minutes, and then it's trip talk, but considered trip talk. As I admit, I am an enthusiast for this psychedelic / entheogen / ecodelic / substance / mind-stuff. I come clean that I don’t think one is experiencing a simple hallucination, but that something is superintending the trip; while leaving open the possibility I’m wrong about that. roryoconnor.xyz patreon.com/roryoconnor

An interview with the economist Guido Preparata, above all about two broad topics. First, how the United States maintains its central role in the global economy through the power of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Second, about how money might be reformed to reflect its place in economic production. Preparata was a central banker with the Bank of Italy, and has taught at the University of Washington and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has written two books, Conjuring Hitler and The Ideology of Tyranny, and edited New Directions for Catholic Social and Political Research. Show notes: https://roryoconnor.xyz/podcast/guido-preparata-on-the-u-s-balance-of-payments-cryptocurrency-interest-inflation-and-perishable-money/ roryoconnor.xyz patreon.com/roryoconnor