Andrew Cohen & Howard Bloom on Faith, Progress & Evolution

[Music] I'm very delighted to present our two speakers tonight because I think we have two very independent and distinct thinkers who are going to bring a very fresh perspective to this topic of Faith Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher in fact he's my spiritual teacher he's been teaching for 25 years now he's the founder of a global movement an organization called Enlighten next which is dedicated to the evolution of Consciousness and culture he's the also the founder of the award-winning spiritual magazine of the same name Enlighten next and his original teaching of evolutionary Enlightenment is really bringing forward the relevance of Spiritual Awakening for the 21st century with a particular emphasis on how that Awakening can impact culture now he's the author of many books but I'm very uh privileged to be holding in my hand tonight an advanced copy of his new book evolutionary Enlightenment this isn't going to be released until September and this is the synthesis of 25 years of Andrew's work and it's had some remarkable endorsements from some very significant people including Howard Bloom um dpra choer writes Andrew con made me believe that there has never been a better time to be enlightened now I know I'm I'm tantalizing you with this because you can't buy it tonight but you can go home and order your copy online tonight and failing that Andrew's other very valuable Publications on this topic are available and he'll be here to meet you and sign copies after the talk and here to dialogue with Andrew tonight is his friend and colleague Howard Bloom Howard has had an extraordinary range to his career starting out as a scientist and then going on to become one of the most sought-after publicists to some of the biggest rock and pop names of the 70s and 80s he boosted the careers of people such as Michael Jackson Prince Simon and gar uncle just to name a few and that literally is just a few he then went on to take his understanding of mass mind and mass media further going on to become one of the most Progressive thinkers social scientists and authors on the subject of human evolution and group Behavior writing critically acclaimed books such as the global brain the Lucifer Principle as well and his newest one The Genius of the Beast um Howard will be here afterwards to meet with you and sign copies there is one little quote about Howard I wanted to just read it was a review for Global brain said Howard is a modern day Prophet Bloom compels us to admit that evolution is a team sport I think um that also sums up why I'm particularly um excited about this combination of Howard and Andrew because they are both deep and passionate thinkers who've really dedicated their lives to understanding the nature of who we are the nature of cultural Evolution human evolution and how we can take the next steps to create the future so to have a conversation about the nature of faith in that context is I'm sure going to be very interesting and probably more importantly very relevant will you please welcome Andrew Cohen and Howard [Music] Bloom you may wonder why Andrew and I have been brought together on the same stage and it's because Andrew has just completed a book um evolutionary uh Enlightenment yes that's it that's it okay it's evolutionary Enlightenment and I have a book that's about a year old called the Genius of the Beast and in reality these two books are companion pieces they fit like this and what they both say is that we are star up come alive that's Joanie Mitchell's line that we are children of the big bang that we are piles of protons that those protons are 13.73 billion years old that those protons have been through every crash bash and astonishment that this universe has ever produced they've been in the hearts of stars as those hearts were born and kindled and crushed star stars to make their light and they've been in the hearts of those stars as those stars died in fact that's how they they attained the qualities that allowed them to become us that's how they became things like carbon and oxygen as opposed to just hydrogen and helium so but the difference between us and the other piles of protons in this universe the difference between us and the floorboards of the stage or the walls or the the stones uh that drift uh as planets around distant Stars the difference between us and them is that we are piles of protons with a conscience we are piles of protons with imagination we are piles of protons with a vision We Exist at a tiny little thing called the present and the present is this flitting boundary between the past which is absolute and fixed and the future which has seemingly infinite possibilities and we are positioned at the boundary of possibility space to use Ste uh steuart cowman's phrase and our job is to explore that possibility space now instead of giving a stump speech we're supposed to be having a dialogue and frankly we've been looking forward to this dialogue for something like 12 years Andrew I I was stuck in a bed out in Brooklyn New York for 15 years with a very serious illness for 5 years I was too weak to speak and when I find finally regained at least my voice but not the ability to get out out of my bedroom beyond my bathroom my furthest destination um Andrew brought his entire staff from Fox Hollow Massachusetts down to my apartment my very grubby apartment my monumentally messy apartment in in Park Slope and that is how that is how our relationship began but Andrew sat in the background and let his staff do all of the speaking and I've been looking forward to dialoguing with Andrew for a long time so Andrew what does progress have to do with faith uh well progress has everything to do with faith because um as we know and we briefly were speaking about that before we came out here tonight that uh there are many people today very many Highly Educated people that aren't really so sure that we're making progress uh and I think the this issue of of coming to a very clear uh understanding or decision about the fact of of you know of whether whether we are making their whether there is such a thing as progress number one and number two whether we as human beings are making progress I think it's essential uh is an essential prerequisite for human being for human for a human being especially now you know as we're getting into the the the second decade of the 21st century let me jump in on that because to give a few indications of the fact that you're right and we are unequivocally making progress in 1850 the average lifespan of a western human being was 38. 5 years um by 2000 it was 78.5 years in other words whatever we've done all of those things that we have done that have allegedly poisoned the atmosphere defied and destroyed nature um desecrated everything that's holy upon the face of the Earth and created every kind of toxic poison you can imagine well apparently all those toxic poisons and all of that desecration was good for us because well well I I I think that you know what you're bringing up is very important I think it's good to it's good kind to to go through this slowly because because modernism which you've written about quite a lot about um you know because a very big very big point that Howard makes in his in in in a lot of his work in his writing is that modernism and capitalism has provided you know an enorm enormous Great Leap Forward uh at the level of culture and and and human health and and possibility and and and it's very there's a a lot there's a lot of thinking in in Progressive postmodern ISM that the fundamental problem with where we at the level of culture that that modernism and the Great Leap sword of modernism created all the problems and there's a there's a there's a there's a mistaken assumption but in in many people uh I believe that there that we need to go back to the good old days but there but which is actually it's a fallacy there the things with with with all the problems that we're facing now of of of overpopulation and environmental degrad ation Etc and you're all and climate change and all the rest of it still uh the the life conditions for for more human beings on this planet in terms of the the the level of Education uh the the the St the standard of living the the freedom of thought the freedom of movement the freedom of possibility the endless opportunities we have is is literally historically unprecedented I I often tell people of my generation I say we are among the luckiest people that have ever Bor been born in the history of human civilization and I think this is important it's an important truth to recognize because if it's true that we're among the luckiest people that have ever been born in the history of our own species if it's true and I believe true ABS then we should feel lucky in other words but most too too many I think the the irony or the tragedy of of of of a lot of this so much of this progress is that uh um so many of us those of so many of the luckiest people that have ever ever been born feel victimized and existentially lost and that's why Awakening to the significance of of progress and of this evolutionary context you know Awakening to the context of cosmic Evolution biological evolution cultural Evolution um uh is is is actually so important because then we're going to be able to see all our personal predicament and also our the cultural predicament and also many of the predicaments that we're facing in ter you know many of these Global challenges that we're facing all within the context of a cosmic process that's moving very quickly that had that that is that is progressing now all the let me let me break in on you for a second um Once Upon a Time our ancestors um had asked the question why are we here and how did things come to be how did they come into existence and they answered it with narratives of their own and as we discussed backstage by 1650 I mean we know that those narratives were in the day of let there be light um God created the whole thing and by 1650 uh they had decided the Christians in the Western World had decided that God created a perfect world so it must have been a sphere because that's the perfect form why in the world would the would would the globe be blistered with these great gashes and wounds of mountains and valleys and Ravines there was only one answer because man had sinned and God had been deteriorating this universe ever since everything had been going downhill well we have the advantage when it comes to Faith of two narratives that's right um that they didn't have one is The Narrative of the history of the Universe from The Big Bang to the protons in your hand that keep your finger from going through those protons are 13.73 billion years old the other is the narrative that um arasmus Darwin Charles Darwin's grandfather gave us in 1795 and it was The evolutionary narrative it was the tale of Life progressing from the tiniest of starts to the most astonishing of things with even more astonishing things with this just being the Prelude and Far Far More astonishing things coming in the future if we take our obligations to Nature seriously if we take our obligations to Nature seriously and I and I think that you know with you know as as integral theory has has has taught us all all great leaps forward bring their own new problems and and and and modernism of course you know gave rise to uh to capitalism and democracy and made and and and the human freedoms now that many of us take for granted uh and of course it's also created its own set of enormous problems and some of these many some of these problems are are are indeed threatening our existence and that's also true but that doesn't mean that progress isn't occurring and of course we there's enormous challenges that we're facing but I think it's it's it's it's helpful to realize that the that the that the we're not going to be able to solve these problems unless we're capable of evolving level of conscious well there's something very important and it's an implicit argument in your work and it's certainly in my work and that is those who look up go up those who look down go down um and and we have been um we have been so successfully propagandized since approximately 1960 by Eco theorists um who make very good points but forget something our problems are our greatest opportunities our problems are go our problems are motivators our problems are things in which we perceive something in a way that bothers the hell out of us and because we are bothered that bother is our driver that bother is the driver that gets us to transcend to go to the point where people of a next generation will take for granted the solutions that we work out absolutely take for granted the solutions that we work out so our problems are gifts in most cases if they don't do what nuclear weapons do do which is threaten our very existence as human beings well I well but it's very interesting to to to make the the the maybe controversial point that ever since nuclear weapons emerged onto the scene that we haven't there haven't been any more world wars that's a well another point is the good old days you brought up the question of the good old days well if we went back to the good old days we'd have two world wars in which um sometimes 200,000 people on just one side were killed in a day of battle yeah um if we had the good old days we uh kids would be crippled with polio um if we had the good old days we'd be dying at approximately 58 years old on the average instead of close to 80 today and Beyond 80 In some cultures that do their health care and their diet and lifestyle better than we do there's there's another uh there's another I think important uh uh fact to put on the table when we're speaking about progress and the significance of progress which is emergence and and emergence emergence with was originally was a term that that came out of biology but emergence is the recognition that greater complexity emerges out of lesser complexity and that is to me um the most extraordinary truth that I've discovered in the last 10 years well emergence I've just been doing a history of emergence for my next book yeah the next the next book is well I'll give you the original title the god problem the five heresies or the Big Bang Tango parking in the social Cosmos notes for to post Newtonian science um and and in that book I trace the history of emergence and it's very relevant to this conversation because it starts with um two guys um around 1850 who noticed something in chemistry they weren't chemists but they noticed something that chemists were discovering and that is if you put hydrogen together with oxygen what is hydrogen it's a gas what is oxygen it's a g gas now if we're logical human beings we know that if you add one gas to another gas what do you get a gas gas in gas out stupid right and that's not the way it worked when you put hydrogen together with oxygen these two gases and add a flame whmo you get an explosion but coming out of that explosion you get this stuff with characteristics which if we had never seen it before if we had existed in the universe let's say six billion years ago when this stuff had never ever congealed if if you described it to me or you described it to me I would have said you were wacko because it has substance but you can put your fingers through it um it has substance but it has no shape what do you mean it has no shape well it can soak into your carpet soak into your carpet there's no such thing as soak it into your carpet we've never seen this kind of stuff before so to us it's absolutely improbable in other words the liquid called water would have seemed ridiculous to us if we had gone around describing it 6 billion years ago when no liquid water had ever ever been seen and it was that phenomena that these two guys were looking at now here's the big trick for us this is a universe of super siiz surprises and super siiz surprises are surprises of emergence or something you could not possibly have predicted comes true well we are emergence walking the planet a daily basis and Our obligation look the cosmos is going to produce her next great surprises surprises as big as liquid water with us or without us but it would be a hell of a lot more fun if it was not only with us but if we were riding the curve and driving it as if it were a horse but but also I I looking at this whole notion of emergence when we when we recognize you know as we've been saying this this miracle in nature that you know it's it's it's true in the cosmos and also at the level of biology the greater complexity emerges from lesser complexity no one's been able to explain how that happens and of course that's when for those of us who are spiritually oriented that's when the spiritual dimension of this all comes in but I think once we recognize that emergence is an inherent part of this creative experiment that's happening in the universe and and all the more clearly and obviously the level of life then we also realize it's also happening as it relates to our Interiors our our individual interiors and our shared Interiors so that that emerg the level of Consciousness and at the level of culture is what I'm particularly interested in and I think in terms of Faith having the faith and the conviction that enormous vertical because often people develop but they develop on a horizontal plane you know that's self-improvement is is you're kind of moving around the furniture your if the room is messy you clean it up and we come in the room if it was messy you clean up it looks a lot better so that's a big Improvement so that would be proven on a horizontal plane but uh but the development that happens on a vertical axis means you you're going up to a completely different story in the building you're in a completely different place and and if we're speaking about emergence it's it's a place it's a dimension it's a possibility that never existed before that suddenly came into existence or emerg because you created the conditions that made that possible and it gets us back to the principle in a book called Everything Bad is good for you by Steph Johnson and that is why do people who remember I was in the entertainment industry for 18 years with working with Prince and Michael Jackson and Bob Marley and bet Midler and ACDC and er Smith and kiss and queen and Billy Joel and Billy Idol and Paul Simon and people like that what in the world do we in entertainment contribute and do you have to contribute when you write a book you have to keep people on the edge of their se you have to keep people involved what are we doing we are testing the edges of the culture that being by now the cultural inventions that have become boring to us well hey these were amazing cultural inventions just 15 years ago or 50 years ago and and people's wives said you can't write that nobody's ever going to buy that about elements of the culture we take for granted today but we' become bored and boredom has the same potential in it that that problems do it drives us to something interesting and new so in the entertainment business or when you're writing a book we have to keep you entertained by going to the edge of everything you take for granted or bored with and finding novelty that you are not bored with yet so what do we doing for you as part of a cultural engine we're turning you into a cultural engine we are turning you into a perceptual engine we are turning you into a perceptual engine that is constantly looking for its boundaries and then going Beyond them and then getting bored with what it finds beyond the boundaries and adding those things and moving on to something else new um now Klay sher's phrase a cognitive Surplus is hints that there is an existence to this larger cultural engine of which we're part and we are part of a search engine and we are part of a search engine of the cosmos and this is where progress comes in because we are the cosmos searching her possibilities we are the cosmos searching her impossibilities we are the cosmos Reinventing herself and if you look at the history of the cosmos what you'll see through emerging properties is a cosmos that is constantly Reinventing herself a cosmos that says I want the creatures who will say to me because those who will do it will transcend me and in the process of transcending me they will extend me and that is our job right and and and I and the the the big shift that needs to be taken here is is is a a reasonably a sophisticated person will if one walks them through these these steps in historical examples scientific examples biological examples would realize oh this is true this is true this is true but then uh but then is in terms of this issue of faith faith especially now you know the as we enter into as I said the second decade of the 21st century uh the the recognition that the that the UN that that evolution is a process that's going somewhere and as we've been we were were in a shared agreement that that there is that this uh that the evolutionary process is the history of progress that we're that we're part of a process that is progressing uh and if we if we if we realize that's true and then we begin to uh contemplate the nature of Consciousness which is our our shared our own interiority and our shared interiority and then begin begin to entertain the conviction that emergence can happen at the level of our own Interiors like a vertical leap a vertical leap that would mean so that would mean within our own individual interiors and ultimately shared Interiors level of our shared culture it's possible for a possibilities at you know possibilities at the level of Consciousness would could enter into our individual subjective World space and also within ultimately our shared inter subjective inter subjective cultural inter subjective World space a new potential that never existed before well let me throw another little story one sec so the issue here has to do with faith and I it's very this is something that I really try and convey to to people to share which is that emergence is the nature of the evolving Cosmos at the level of the of the cosmos level of biology level of culture and also the level of Consciousness and we realize that's true when we allow ourselves to have faith in the possibility that emergence at the level of Consciousness and culture can happen in and through us we awaken to the the inspiration and the conviction for example that Howard was speaking about we're realizing oh it's really possible and I think that this this that that realizing I mean the evidence for it at least is I think as far as we're concerned is inherent in many you know is is inherent in you know cosmological Evolution biological evolution cultural Evolution but when we think about cosmological Evolution biological evolution and cultural Evolution we still see it as being out there when we realize all of that is happening in here and we realize that emergence can also happen in here in in and as and through ourselves then we discover an enormous source of faith and conviction in what's possible well I want want to add to that this little story um back in the 1950s psychologists believe that what are that our goal in life how are we doing with time good we have seven more minutes we have seven more minutes okay so the question um but at that point psychologists who are very part of the very much a part of this movement that sees the cosmos as random and meaningless right um assumed that all creatures want homeostasis what does homeostasis mean it means you want want to be enough that you no longer are interested in sex you want to eat enough that you're no longer interested in food and then you want to go to sleep that's what they thought the goal was of all life and they tried they tried an experiment back in the 1950s um they put chimpanzees in a box and a dark box no windows it had but it had one slit carved in the side and it had a shutter on the slit and when the chimpanzees were put in there the shutter was closed now and there was a little handle so that you could open the shutter if you wanted to now they made sure that the chimpanzee had had as much sex as it could possibly be interested in that it had as much food as it could possibly be interested in and as a consequence Theory said all it would want to do is sleep right it should be a happy chimp that's what we want is stasis sitting in place um it didn't turn out that way the chimps were utterly fascinated by that slide and all they wanted to do was look out of the box and see what in the world was going on so we are not creatures who are built for Faith as a static thing it is time to discard the idea that faith is a verb faith is a noun and faith I mean faith is sorry faith is not a noun it's a verb it's an action it's a constant action it's a constant self-reinvention if you stop Reinventing yourself you're dead one of the reasons that we are living much longer than we used to and one of the reasons I'm 68 years old as of a few weeks ago one of the reasons you can be 68 years old and feel 40 these days is because you can stay plugged in and you can keep Reinventing yourself and I was telling Andrew backstage the story I put Buzz Aldren together with the 11th President of India Dr AP PJ colam in February and we're working on harvesting solar power in space which is an endless supply and we'll remove a lot of our energy problems well I have a negotiating partner in India he's 74 years old and on Skype we tend to get online when he's it's the beginning of his morning at 6:30 in the morning his wife is preparing breakfast and one day we were online together and he said oh you know I I've got a problem my sister has just arrived his sister who is his older sister his older sister he's about 74 years old she's about 76 or 78 um his older sister had just flown in from God knows what city in India to God knows what city my negotiating partner is in because you don't have to know these things these days all you have to do is have your laptop and or your cell phone and he said my sister when she got in the next day he said my sister when she got in sat down with her cell phone and made more phone calls in two hours than I've made in two months what does that tell you the thing that keeps us alive when we feel we're unnecessary we're like cells in the body when cells in the body are unnecessary they kill themselves off it's called apoptosis they have a built-in suicide program so do we um but if you feel plugged in if you feel the people need you if you are connected to a lot of people you have the life force period that is it that Luke is the force and this woman at 78 was functioning like a woman of 48 because she had the force how in the world did she get the force through something that didn't exist 20 years ago or 30 years ago this and we listen to people who tell us that we are producing so many toxic pollutants we are killing all life off this is life over to you it's all yours well I I what what I what I think is what I what I think makes the the recognition you know and the acceptance you know because this the what the the shared agreement that Howard and I have about progress is not a culturally shared agreement there are a lot of people that are convinced that things are getting worse not better as we were saying earlier but uh um I I think what becomes very spiritually relevant as we as we awaken to the fact that we're part of a process that's going somewhere and the part of pro and and the process is making progress and now when we realize that the that the process awakens to itself and becomes aware of itself through us that we are the eyes and the ears and the heart and the mind of the entire Cosmos Awakening to itself as us that this is that this human form that this human body and this human mind and this human personality that's been that's been conditioned by our all of our biological history and our and our cultural history and our personal history is is ultimately a vehicle for the for for the evolution of the process when we realize that who we are as Howard was saying and this is this is something that's a very big part of what I teach we that who that who we are is the entire evolutionary process Awakening to itself and this is then the human the human body mind and personality is ultimately a vehicle for that kind of recognition uh when that begins to happen when we begin to experience those kind of insights those moments of transcendence when we realize who we really are and what's actually happening here then what we begin to awaken to is a moral obligation then the moral obligation as well if in fact I'm the Leading Edge of of a cosmic developmental process that started 14 billion years ago and I realize that were I'm part of a this is a a cosmic biological uh uh cultural experiment that's that's desperately in need of conscious Direction because now BEC be because of the our high degree of cultural Evolution this process now can be uh consciously directed in ways that it never could could be for you know so because we are learning so much so much more about who we are and how we are and what this process is and so the issue the issue then begins to comes well I'm only going to have a certain amount of time to be here and even if even considering you know life extension and all the rest of it um the question is well what what am I actually doing with the life that I've been given with the life that I have because if I am the Leading Edge of the Big Bang does the life I live the way I live it the choices I make the actions I take uh uh does do my moral convictions my philosophical convictions and my spiritual convictions does my has my life become a living expression an example of that or am I still hypnotized by shared cultural beliefs and ideas that aren't that that aren't awake to some to to the to these bigger and much more uh relevant ideas am I am I living in a in a kind of culturally uh unconscious hypnotized State and I think the issue is too many too many of us are living in a a dream and and and it's and it's the it's the share it's a shared unconsciousness from the perspective of the of what's possible in the future in other words this like the post the shared agreement of postmodernity was was was a state of Enlightenment relatively speaking as of Awakening from from Traditional Values and modern values but now that we're all but now as we're progressing we have to take the next step and what I'm very interested in is the Step Beyond the postmodern one what what is what what are what are our new shared values going to be as part of the post postmodern shared agreement and uh as I often say uh sophisticated sensitive people are aware of the fact that that most of the shared cultural agreements that held Society together that really told us what The Human Experience is supposed to look like how you know what what uh uh why why we're why we're supposed to be doing what we're doing these shared Agreements are falling away and most of us have no idea what we're supposed to be doing earlier in human history uh most human beings for most of history have been struggling to survive now we are lucky enough in spite of the recession uh that we're able to be concerned with a lot more than survival and the issue is what are we doing with the with the mity made it made the great Le made education possible uh you know women's Liberation uh you know emancipation of slaves and all the rest of it but but now we so many of us find that we don't really know what to do with with the good with our wealth with the Good Fortune weather education is an existential almost paralysis and and the thing is uh there is no such thing as free time because with all the time we with with as we're living we're always making choices it's what you know the traditional idea of karma the choices you make are going to create future choices which are going to create future choices so the issue is if if if many of the things that uh that Howard and I were saying uh are true and that we're part of a process that's going somewhere and now that as the pro this process is Awakening to itself through us it's not happening out there it's happening in here and where we're all going is depending upon us then the issue has then the next step has to do with us really being willing to take responsibility for what that means and I think that the the kind of spiritual transformation for for an individual at the Leading Edge of cultural Evolution has to do with really being willing to boldly uh consider you know what that might re really mean and to be totally honest I think I don't I think for the luckiest people that have ever been born to be excessive to be too con too overly concerned with merely the how how it is that we're going to survive just to make sure we have enough to survive it it's it's almost morally unjustifiable throwing away our lives I think the bottom line cuz we're 3 minutes over and that is going to basically sum up and cod of what what you were saying find your passions find the things you've wanted to do more than anything in life that you think are the defining things of you find your adventures do them start to do them today because if you don't do them you will be stealing something from humanity and that's in essence what Andrew is saying thank you Andrew thank you Howard [Applause] [Music] um