Dancing on the Edge of Time presented by Sean O’Laoire. When the first group of Homo Sapiens Sapiens sat around a campfire in East Africa and began to practice their newly acquired speech, they told stories. Over time these stories broke into four different kinds: Personal Stories, which gave individuals their ontological identity; History, which was the tribe’s effort at fashioning a group identity; Cosmology, which were their efforts at explaining the universe in which they found themselves; and Theology, which was the record of their relationships with the gods. But these roads have often wandered in the wasteland: Personal Stories became the justification for greed and narcissism; History became propaganda; Cosmology disintegrated into materialistic scientism; and Theology became the breeding ground of fundamentalist sectarian religions. It’s time to recover the true purpose of story-telling: to see the individual as a nexus in the web of life; to view history as the teleological imprint of a future that beckons us; to reinstate awe as the primary tool of scientific enquiry; and to drill down deeply into the wells of religion until we find the mystical water-table that feeds all of them. So, in my presentation, I will cover five points: firstly, I will briefly trace the evolution of spirituality and suggest where it is headed; secondly, I will quickly look at the development of our self-image as a species; thirdly, I will examine the notion of “Trickle Down Thinking” in our economic policies, in our technologies and in our major religions; fourthly, I will look at some great bifurcation points in evolutionary history and predict what the next one may be; and, finally, I will look at what a suitable charter might be that will prepare us for cosmic citizenship; citizenship which is the reward for impregnating that All-Source-Filled Void with the intentionality of a unity consciousness."
Bio
Sean O'Laoire
Seán ÓLaoire
Fr. Seán ÓLaoire has a B.Sc. degree (major in Mathematics). Ordained a
catholic priest in 1972, he spent 14 years working in Kenya. He is
multi-lingual and has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology; he
is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice.
He is co-founder and the Spiritual Director of a non-denominational
community called “Companions on the Journey” based in Palo Alto.
He is the author of four books:
1. “Ukweli ni Nini?” (What is truth?) – written in Swahili
2. “Spirits in Spacesuits - A Manual for Everyday Mystics”
3. “Souls on Safari”
4. “A Sensible God”