Author and speaker Charles Eisenstein visits Mindrolling to talk about climate change, the societal myths that steer us wrong, and transcending our own stories.
Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. His latest book, Climate — A New Story, is about flipping the script on climate change. Learn more about Charles at charleseisenstein.org.
A Crisis of Consciousness
Raghu and Charles discuss the usefulness of the psychedelics before the conversation turns to the deep myths of society that cause many people to feel lost and out of place in the world.
“More and more people just can’t play into the life that the story prescribes for them, and that is creating a crisis of consciousness, you could say, where people don’t know how to identify themselves and locate themselves in the world.” – Charles Eisenstein
Generational Conditioning (13:40)
It’s all about the kids! Raghu brings up how he thinks this current generation of young people has an even better grasp on social activism than his generation from the 1960s. Later, Charles shares a story that highlights a very common type of childhood conditioning that haunts people into their adult years.
“The demotion of play to something that can maybe fit into spare moments of the day, in hallways between class, in the minutes before the bell rings; it’s the seizure of childhood to make it into a training time for a confined adulthood… It’s a conditioning.” – Charles Eisenstein
The Myth of Us Versus Them (27:41)
The conversation turns to myths that play into the massive polarization of society, and the amazing amount of courage that it takes to step into a new story.
“We are trained to think of ourselves: am I good, or am I bad? What do I have to do to be good? That leads to the political polarization that we’re seeing today. Where people divide the world into the good people and the bad people. Everybody thinking themselves to be among the good people.” – Charles Eisenstein
A New Story on Climate Change (47:22)
Raghu asks Charles about his book, Climate — A New Story, as the two discuss how we can start healing the earth.
“An essential part of the healing has to be social healing and personal healing. The climate is a symptom of everything, because everything is so interconnected that any harm anywhere could have global effects.” – Charles Eisenstein
