Making Meaning in Challenging Times with Jamie Wheal

• Along with the meta-crisis — a frame for the interconnected nature of the challenges we face from COVID to climate, which we discussed in episode 36 with Daniel Schmachtenberger — Jamie Wheal believes we're also undergoing a meaning crisis — a collapse in our capacity to find inspiration, healing, and connection in challenging times. In fact, Wheal makes the case that in order to address the meta-crisis, we must address the meaning crisis.
  

• Wheal observes an evolution in our capacity to make meaning over time — which he refers to as Meaning 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. In his framing, Meaning 1.0 is represented by institutionalized religion, which (in theory) promised salvation but at the cost of inclusion. Meaning 2.0 is represented by liberalism, which (in theory) promised inclusion but at the cost of salvation. Meaning 3.0 must therefore offer inclusive salvation — a capacity to make meaning that is democratically available to everyone, simply by virtue of being human.
  

• The Alchemist's Cookbook is Wheal's playful term for the five ingredients which provide inclusive salvation: breath, movement, music, sex, and substances. These ingredients for meaning-making have been present in cultural traditions since we've been human, and even across species. They can be thought of as primal psycho-technologies or psycho-social technologies — technologies designed to enable psychological and social capacities.
  

• Social media is being used to weaponize the meaning crisis by fringe groups like the Incel community and QAnon, in order to bond over rightful grievances but in a way that often wrongly attributes root cause and appropriate action. On the flipside, social media can be leveraged to address the meaning crisis and re-knit bioregional tribes, as is done by groups like Transition Towns and the 2000-Watt Society.
  

• A Meaning 3.0 way to respond to misinformation, polarization, and the other challenges we discuss on this show would 'Aikido' or 'yes-and' the grievances of these fringe groups, but then rightfully attribute root cause and appropriate action. An example of this is the Facebook profile picture 'frame' that says, "I have a healthy distrust of authority and I'm vaccinated."
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• At the core of Wheal's belief in addressing the meaning crisis in order to address the meta-crisis is an invitation to make better art — to be mindful and creative about the stories we tell, because they shape the future we create. He says, "we're all living the blues right now. The question is...are we doing it to music, or are we doing it in the ditch?"
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Recapture the Rapture Website

Website for the book, which contains links to research cited in the book along with tools for building our own versions of Meaning 3.0‍

Recapture the Rapture Toolkit 

Culture architecture toolkit designed to help us find inspiration, healing, and connection for ourselves, our communities, and the world‍

Ancient Cave Drawings and Early Human Language Linked in New Study

National Geographic article about the study of what Wheal calls "prehistoric IMAX's" -- the discovery that cave art is often closely connected to the acoustic properties of the cave chambers in which it is found‍

Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language‍

Book by  anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, which contains his research on the trance dances of the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert

Examples of 'inclusive meaning making'

Profile picture frame — distrust of authority and COVID vaccination
Venn diagram #1 — considering COVID's implications for public health, the economy, governmental power, and social justice justice
Venn diagram #2 — racial justice and non-violence