That was a totally amazing and DEEP trailer -- an in-depth consideration of profound implications -- extremely well done! So "the Leviathan" -- what could that be? From my integral spiritual perspective, it could only be the Ego, the self-contraction that turns away from the healing Divine Conscious Light that is the fundamental truth of reality -- the Leviathan is what Wilber termed "the Atman project," the endless search for "substitute sacrifices," "substitute gratification," distractions of an unfulfilled search from the always already present Reality that is whole, free, and full of love-bliss, our true condition. In any case, I can't wait to see the documentary. The imagery and editing are the best I've seen. Congratulations on a creative dream fulfilled and a profound service to humankind.
Profound! "The real enemy lives in the source code of our culture, stalking us deep within our own souls. To overcome (our problems), we have to face the Leviathan." Leviathan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan *** I believe we must shift from states of Ego to a state of "being" described as Essence. In his profound book, A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle addresses how our primary purpose is "being", "presence", which precedes thought, is rooted in the fullness and richness of the present moment, and allows for an “evolutionary impulse” to prompt and inspire us into our secondary purpose, “awakened doing”. Instead of “efforting” from ego in which we rely on personal willpower, we rely on the power of universal intelligence to guide us to manifest consciously. Instead of asking “How can I get what I want?”, we ask “What does the universe desire of me?”, opening us up to all that is possible. *** In the meantime, as expressed by the late visionary and futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard, in following the wisdom of nature, quantum transformations are nature’s tradition; problems are evolutionary drivers; crises precede transformation; through synergy and greater cooperation, nature creates new whole systems out of separate parts, cooperating synergistic whole systems. As stated by Eckhart Tolle, “Acute crises and dysfunction always precede or coincide with any evolutionary advancement or gain in consciousness.” (Check out: Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Our Story https://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/8380/Our-Story)
HI Margaret, you hit the nail on the head for me, and as followers of Ann Barring and Betty Kovaks (The Youtube documentary and book - Merchants of Light) helps me understand these dynamics and the consequences I see all around the world, of colonizing our feminine - internally - and externally - particularly over the last 2000 years - and exponentially with the Industrial Revolution. The conquest of the linear mind has left us bereft of the 3 basic other operating systems - body, heart, spirit) I'm a midwife for the birth of the other 3 types of organizations emerging as hierarchies crumble in complexity. "Syngineering; Building Agility into Any Organization" illustrates how 3 messy experiments that hold promise for that journey from power over to shared sovereignty. Shalom William
Thanks for sharing, William. Yes, we must reclaim and embrace the "feminine principle" for the sake of balance and harmony. The following may be of interest to you: https://blog.pachamama.org/the-eagle-and-the-condor-prophecy - about the importance of balancing feminine and masculine energies. Blessings, Margaret
Dear Margaret - thanks so much for connecting me not only with the Eagle and Condor Myth (which, for me, holds more Truth than contemporary perspectives) and connecting me with Pachamama, and this is the time that it has stuck. In Gratitude and Blessings, William
This trailer feels early familiar, cause it gives voice to that odd feeling we live with in the 'modern world' , that strange internal malaise somewhere between reality and our slave master algorithms.
I've been playing with the Moloch metaphor for the perfection of the extractive machine that is AI. So curious to see if Leviathan is similar here. I couldn't agree more about the flaws in our "source code" (a phrase that makes me hesitate because it preserves the machine metaphor). Thank you for attempting to frame this issue in what appears to be such a broadly accessible format and framing.
Hi Chad, I like to think of everything with it's polarity or shadow, and look for the balance that makes sense in the ecosystem now, and so the source code terminology, particularly in relation to the ancient I Ching and the contemporary Gene Keys, suggests we have both structure and flow, and we can't do one without the other. So regardless of reactions, it is important to see that technology, and 0's and 1's, occurs naturally across the depth of the contents of our world. And it is lovely how we started by mimicking nature, but like a few other institutions and system driven by the mind rather than the heart of humanity - took it way out of balance with no bounds. Shalom William
I think the machine metaphor for nature is ill-fitting and we can do better. So I'm wary of phraseology that allows people to slip unconsciously into that metaphor.
We have to face death. ☠️ Both individual endings and cultural. Without death there is no new life or renewal. Like a tree on the forest floor. Let’s the light in. And the great unraveling of the current shit show will continue. 🥰
Utterly unconvincing. The systems - oligarchy, capitalism, patriarchy, ecocide - ARE causing the problem. The solution is collective struggle to create new systems out of the destruction of the old ones. This isn't a simple fix; it will be incredibly difficult to create the revolutionary collective we need. Lots of suffering will occur before humanity can fight its way through the collapse.
It isn’t an either or - in the film we’re proposing both internal and external approaches. If the solution was as simple as a communist revolution we’d already be there. Again, the error you’ve made is confusing a 3 minute teaser trailer for an 80 minute film, which might point to a penchant toward reductionism also present in your proposed solution.
Beautifully said. This little back and forth is a microcosm of the cultural dialectic, isn’t it. I’m longing for a deep synthesis between people who want to heal the world and people who want to heal themselves.
It would make sense to watch the full documentary before you make a counter argument - I fundamentally disagree that everything you listed acts as its own distinct generator function
Your trailer didn't convince me you're proposing an action-based solution, but rather some form of consciousness-shifting, possibly psychedelic in nature.
While I agree that consciousness is part of the problem, taking action based on the real-world systems is the solution. Bringing people to revolutionary consciousness.
"Source-Code" is a term of art among those repackaging new age mysticism. Good luck with that, I'll be working with the emerging communist vanguard.
Dear Rev, from my perspective, those are like the leaves and branches on the tree - and have cause inordinate carnage, however they are symptoms, what we see and feel, but truth is much deeper and pervasive. Hidden in the shadows of the subtle worlds of our minds lye the true culprit, and in the dimension of the invisible archetypes, when these energies converging in each of us - are named (Hillman/Olivier in Archetypes at Work), and researched as Ian McGilchrist (the Master and His Emissary) has done so thoroughly and eloquently, then with names we can know and engage and Release these rudimental forces that are in every human being in some fashion - and that gives hope when we realize that the circumstances, particularly those you name are sourced from a lack of connection between the brain hemispheres - and in fact, over the past 2000 years, a colonization of the right by the left sphere. Because these are such intractable symptoms, it is critical that we not continue, like the Man of La Mancha, swing at windmills. Shalom, William
I was a major pre-publication book-buyer fan, who found your work so outstanding I cross-connected one of your posts to my 3,000 subscribers and kept touting you in follow-ups. Hopefully, I will be as enthusiastic about the film, although I do have some trepidation where "ain't it awful" is a familiar refrain where what to do to get the system change we so desperately need is not generally being addressed and the trailer does not promise it will be.
Here's one mention of you:
I don’t get excited about many people who are dealing with the bigger picture, but I resonate with Alexander Beiner, who calls his Substack The Bigger Picture. This is an excerpt from The Naked Potential of 2024: Democracy, Chaos and Creativity / Reflections on the year. How could you not read all of it after you see the picture he used?
And another:
Alexander Beiner makes observations related to mine about the fundamental shift we need to make in a new post where he talks about needing “a counterculture that links status to quality, not quantity.” Quality is the soul stuff that shapes how we handle the material realm, and he says different things from what I say about that. It’s a very good piece.
Thanks Sue, I agree with moving beyond 'ain't it awful' - but to do that you have to start with the despair and root the hope within it, hence the Byung-Chul Han quote I included beneath the trailer. Also, outside of the systems change and 'liminal web' bubbles, the majority of people aren't familiar with these kinds of frameworks (meta-crisis, meaning crisis) and so my job is to explain them in as accessible way as possible and then move toward solutions from there, which is what the documenatary does.
Yep I agree with this - there's a big problem with spiritual bypassing in the wellness and spirituality scenes, and meta-bypassing in the systems change scenes. My focus is to present achievable solutions - doing that in a 3 minute teaser is challenging as they'll always be shallow and trite unless they're rooted in a deeper argument - also I don't want to ruin the suspense of the documentary. A trailer is about hinting at what's to come, not revealing everything up front ;)
Having made a film that got a good review in The New York Times, I speak from some experience saying that trailers are an art in themselves, and it's usually best to go to one of those artists rather than have the filmmaker do it.
Solutions are not cool in some circles. Mystery is not only cool, but makes more money, in the same way that doctors may prefer to keep patients medicated rather than cure disease (a patient cured is a customer lost). I sincerely hope this is not the case with Alex.
Hi Sue, I so love what you have said - and appreciate people's tiredness with the messy universe. Just one note about that: The paradoxical theory of change (Beisser - ala Gestalt) suggests, as well as doing shadow work, that I must start where I actually am, and be as honest truthful about reality and I and others present with me - can be - and do it before hopes, setting aside should (a fantasy) or judgements (projections)...and it is not about niceousity(I made the one up) or liking it. Changing myself to save the world is tough work and I must do it in the present moment - the only place I can create. Shalom, William
One of my tenets is that "acceptance" comes first. Start from the way it is because it is the way it is, and denying reality is a losing battle. Then go from there to change things.
Trust is in our willingness to let go of the 3D Matrix of ridged thinking. We are breaking free from that 3D Matrix into 5D. Are you at 5D yet? You're invited!
Did you mean ‘rigid thinking’, ‘rigged thinking’ or thinking with ridges on it? I realise that at your advanced level of 5D spiritual knowing they’re all the same, but please explain it to us lowly mortals stuck in our 3D matrix
I wish this film showing was better advertised at the golden lion, Todmorden last night 17/6. I would of liked to have seen it. I only found out as I walked by as it was on. When and how will it be available to watch?
I am curious, perplexed even, as to the title "Leviathan"
That original work by Hobbs, red in tooth and claw remains on the reading list of politics 101 around the world.
In brief. How to subsume to the will of the monarch (Trump et al) to avoid the war of all against all...Yes that was a brief precis !
I suspect there was a reason for the title of and I wonder if someone would take the time to be kind and enlighten me as to the significance. Many Thanks indeed . Steve.
That was a totally amazing and DEEP trailer -- an in-depth consideration of profound implications -- extremely well done! So "the Leviathan" -- what could that be? From my integral spiritual perspective, it could only be the Ego, the self-contraction that turns away from the healing Divine Conscious Light that is the fundamental truth of reality -- the Leviathan is what Wilber termed "the Atman project," the endless search for "substitute sacrifices," "substitute gratification," distractions of an unfulfilled search from the always already present Reality that is whole, free, and full of love-bliss, our true condition. In any case, I can't wait to see the documentary. The imagery and editing are the best I've seen. Congratulations on a creative dream fulfilled and a profound service to humankind.
Profound! "The real enemy lives in the source code of our culture, stalking us deep within our own souls. To overcome (our problems), we have to face the Leviathan." Leviathan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan *** I believe we must shift from states of Ego to a state of "being" described as Essence. In his profound book, A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle addresses how our primary purpose is "being", "presence", which precedes thought, is rooted in the fullness and richness of the present moment, and allows for an “evolutionary impulse” to prompt and inspire us into our secondary purpose, “awakened doing”. Instead of “efforting” from ego in which we rely on personal willpower, we rely on the power of universal intelligence to guide us to manifest consciously. Instead of asking “How can I get what I want?”, we ask “What does the universe desire of me?”, opening us up to all that is possible. *** In the meantime, as expressed by the late visionary and futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard, in following the wisdom of nature, quantum transformations are nature’s tradition; problems are evolutionary drivers; crises precede transformation; through synergy and greater cooperation, nature creates new whole systems out of separate parts, cooperating synergistic whole systems. As stated by Eckhart Tolle, “Acute crises and dysfunction always precede or coincide with any evolutionary advancement or gain in consciousness.” (Check out: Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Our Story https://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/8380/Our-Story)
Well, I thanked William for your Barbara Hubbard quote - so thank you Margaret and thank you both.
HI Margaret, you hit the nail on the head for me, and as followers of Ann Barring and Betty Kovaks (The Youtube documentary and book - Merchants of Light) helps me understand these dynamics and the consequences I see all around the world, of colonizing our feminine - internally - and externally - particularly over the last 2000 years - and exponentially with the Industrial Revolution. The conquest of the linear mind has left us bereft of the 3 basic other operating systems - body, heart, spirit) I'm a midwife for the birth of the other 3 types of organizations emerging as hierarchies crumble in complexity. "Syngineering; Building Agility into Any Organization" illustrates how 3 messy experiments that hold promise for that journey from power over to shared sovereignty. Shalom William
“Acute crises and dysfunction always precede or coincide with any evolutionary advancement or gain in consciousness.”
- not poetic or lyrical, but this sure sounds good to me . Thank you for sharing this William.
Thanks for sharing, William. Yes, we must reclaim and embrace the "feminine principle" for the sake of balance and harmony. The following may be of interest to you: https://blog.pachamama.org/the-eagle-and-the-condor-prophecy - about the importance of balancing feminine and masculine energies. Blessings, Margaret
Dear Margaret - thanks so much for connecting me not only with the Eagle and Condor Myth (which, for me, holds more Truth than contemporary perspectives) and connecting me with Pachamama, and this is the time that it has stuck. In Gratitude and Blessings, William
My pleasure, William, and great!
This trailer feels early familiar, cause it gives voice to that odd feeling we live with in the 'modern world' , that strange internal malaise somewhere between reality and our slave master algorithms.
Excited and curious to see this!
I've been playing with the Moloch metaphor for the perfection of the extractive machine that is AI. So curious to see if Leviathan is similar here. I couldn't agree more about the flaws in our "source code" (a phrase that makes me hesitate because it preserves the machine metaphor). Thank you for attempting to frame this issue in what appears to be such a broadly accessible format and framing.
Hi Chad, I like to think of everything with it's polarity or shadow, and look for the balance that makes sense in the ecosystem now, and so the source code terminology, particularly in relation to the ancient I Ching and the contemporary Gene Keys, suggests we have both structure and flow, and we can't do one without the other. So regardless of reactions, it is important to see that technology, and 0's and 1's, occurs naturally across the depth of the contents of our world. And it is lovely how we started by mimicking nature, but like a few other institutions and system driven by the mind rather than the heart of humanity - took it way out of balance with no bounds. Shalom William
I think the machine metaphor for nature is ill-fitting and we can do better. So I'm wary of phraseology that allows people to slip unconsciously into that metaphor.
Great Stance Chad. Best Wishes, William
Poinient trailer! Love the direction of mixing the different styles of the abstract generated, the clean “official” and the rough.
Wow. I’m delighted this has come to fruition. It looks ELECTRIC
Great trailer! Who edited this? They did an excellent job.
Thanks! It was edited by Whetham Allpress who's also editing the documentary - he's brilliant.
How/Where might I watch this as an individual please?
On the Kainos Substack from 26 June :)
I so so want to see this…
We have to face death. ☠️ Both individual endings and cultural. Without death there is no new life or renewal. Like a tree on the forest floor. Let’s the light in. And the great unraveling of the current shit show will continue. 🥰
Utterly unconvincing. The systems - oligarchy, capitalism, patriarchy, ecocide - ARE causing the problem. The solution is collective struggle to create new systems out of the destruction of the old ones. This isn't a simple fix; it will be incredibly difficult to create the revolutionary collective we need. Lots of suffering will occur before humanity can fight its way through the collapse.
It isn’t an either or - in the film we’re proposing both internal and external approaches. If the solution was as simple as a communist revolution we’d already be there. Again, the error you’ve made is confusing a 3 minute teaser trailer for an 80 minute film, which might point to a penchant toward reductionism also present in your proposed solution.
Beautifully said. This little back and forth is a microcosm of the cultural dialectic, isn’t it. I’m longing for a deep synthesis between people who want to heal the world and people who want to heal themselves.
It would make sense to watch the full documentary before you make a counter argument - I fundamentally disagree that everything you listed acts as its own distinct generator function
Your trailer didn't convince me you're proposing an action-based solution, but rather some form of consciousness-shifting, possibly psychedelic in nature.
While I agree that consciousness is part of the problem, taking action based on the real-world systems is the solution. Bringing people to revolutionary consciousness.
"Source-Code" is a term of art among those repackaging new age mysticism. Good luck with that, I'll be working with the emerging communist vanguard.
Dear Rev, from my perspective, those are like the leaves and branches on the tree - and have cause inordinate carnage, however they are symptoms, what we see and feel, but truth is much deeper and pervasive. Hidden in the shadows of the subtle worlds of our minds lye the true culprit, and in the dimension of the invisible archetypes, when these energies converging in each of us - are named (Hillman/Olivier in Archetypes at Work), and researched as Ian McGilchrist (the Master and His Emissary) has done so thoroughly and eloquently, then with names we can know and engage and Release these rudimental forces that are in every human being in some fashion - and that gives hope when we realize that the circumstances, particularly those you name are sourced from a lack of connection between the brain hemispheres - and in fact, over the past 2000 years, a colonization of the right by the left sphere. Because these are such intractable symptoms, it is critical that we not continue, like the Man of La Mancha, swing at windmills. Shalom, William
I was a major pre-publication book-buyer fan, who found your work so outstanding I cross-connected one of your posts to my 3,000 subscribers and kept touting you in follow-ups. Hopefully, I will be as enthusiastic about the film, although I do have some trepidation where "ain't it awful" is a familiar refrain where what to do to get the system change we so desperately need is not generally being addressed and the trailer does not promise it will be.
Here's one mention of you:
I don’t get excited about many people who are dealing with the bigger picture, but I resonate with Alexander Beiner, who calls his Substack The Bigger Picture. This is an excerpt from The Naked Potential of 2024: Democracy, Chaos and Creativity / Reflections on the year. How could you not read all of it after you see the picture he used?
And another:
Alexander Beiner makes observations related to mine about the fundamental shift we need to make in a new post where he talks about needing “a counterculture that links status to quality, not quantity.” Quality is the soul stuff that shapes how we handle the material realm, and he says different things from what I say about that. It’s a very good piece.
Thanks Sue, I agree with moving beyond 'ain't it awful' - but to do that you have to start with the despair and root the hope within it, hence the Byung-Chul Han quote I included beneath the trailer. Also, outside of the systems change and 'liminal web' bubbles, the majority of people aren't familiar with these kinds of frameworks (meta-crisis, meaning crisis) and so my job is to explain them in as accessible way as possible and then move toward solutions from there, which is what the documenatary does.
Agreed about getting stuck in "ain't it awful" without offering a solution beyond mystical personal escape, available to the few with enough money.
Yep I agree with this - there's a big problem with spiritual bypassing in the wellness and spirituality scenes, and meta-bypassing in the systems change scenes. My focus is to present achievable solutions - doing that in a 3 minute teaser is challenging as they'll always be shallow and trite unless they're rooted in a deeper argument - also I don't want to ruin the suspense of the documentary. A trailer is about hinting at what's to come, not revealing everything up front ;)
Having made a film that got a good review in The New York Times, I speak from some experience saying that trailers are an art in themselves, and it's usually best to go to one of those artists rather than have the filmmaker do it.
Solutions are not cool in some circles. Mystery is not only cool, but makes more money, in the same way that doctors may prefer to keep patients medicated rather than cure disease (a patient cured is a customer lost). I sincerely hope this is not the case with Alex.
Hi Sue, I so love what you have said - and appreciate people's tiredness with the messy universe. Just one note about that: The paradoxical theory of change (Beisser - ala Gestalt) suggests, as well as doing shadow work, that I must start where I actually am, and be as honest truthful about reality and I and others present with me - can be - and do it before hopes, setting aside should (a fantasy) or judgements (projections)...and it is not about niceousity(I made the one up) or liking it. Changing myself to save the world is tough work and I must do it in the present moment - the only place I can create. Shalom, William
One of my tenets is that "acceptance" comes first. Start from the way it is because it is the way it is, and denying reality is a losing battle. Then go from there to change things.
Trust is in our willingness to let go of the 3D Matrix of ridged thinking. We are breaking free from that 3D Matrix into 5D. Are you at 5D yet? You're invited!
Did you mean ‘rigid thinking’, ‘rigged thinking’ or thinking with ridges on it? I realise that at your advanced level of 5D spiritual knowing they’re all the same, but please explain it to us lowly mortals stuck in our 3D matrix
Brilliant!!! Brilliant!!! Yes, And, All of Everything! Thanks for this 5D perception share Alexander! Much appreciated! :)
I wish this film showing was better advertised at the golden lion, Todmorden last night 17/6. I would of liked to have seen it. I only found out as I walked by as it was on. When and how will it be available to watch?
Something wonderful is going to happen.
I am curious, perplexed even, as to the title "Leviathan"
That original work by Hobbs, red in tooth and claw remains on the reading list of politics 101 around the world.
In brief. How to subsume to the will of the monarch (Trump et al) to avoid the war of all against all...Yes that was a brief precis !
I suspect there was a reason for the title of and I wonder if someone would take the time to be kind and enlighten me as to the significance. Many Thanks indeed . Steve.