“Psychotechnologies for the Age of Collapse”

Writing for Emerge, Euvie Ivanova argues that the present age of compounding crises may be met by new psychotechnologies:

Collective Sapience must include and integrate the practices that:

a. Restore wholeness of body and mind, a wholeness of self
b. Restore wholeness of self and other, a collective intimacy
c. Restore wholeness of self and world, an intimacy with Life
d. Work in the context of rapidly advancing technology and the many compounding crises of our world

This is a very tall order. And yet, if we don’t do it, we humans may not make it on this planet at all. Or we may hobble along through a long dark age, until we figure it out. One pathway may be to draw upon the lineages and psychotechnologies from before the dualistic frameworks of the Axial age. Existing practices that focus on intimacy with Life and restoring individual & collective wholeness may be the precursors for what is possible here. Celebrations of natural transitions like birth and death, solstices and harvests, and initiations into adulthood and elderhood are some examples.

This is the domain of religion – not in the dogmatic sense, but in the experiential sense – reverence for the sacred, for Life itself, and how to live in accordance with that. These new or adapted practices would likely need to be deployed in combination with strong traditions, both ancient and new, and a wisdom framework for how to be in the era that we’re entering. Perhaps what we’re trying to do is not only create wholeness in and among living beings in deep space, but also in deep time.

There is something emerging in our collective patterns of behaviour that resembles a proto-version of this collective sapience I am talking about. At this time, it seems to be happening only in pockets, and not yet consistently. Few people and groups can do it, and even fewer can do it reliably and continuously.