Stuart Davis - Viking Youth Dialog (free download available)

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:34:33 GMT

I just listened to a great dialog of Stuart Davis talking with a couple of the guys in the Viking Youth (hmm, I guess that makes it a trialog...) I found it very entertaining and feel it makes a good podcast introduction to the integral worldview. A 38 minute version of the dialog is available to Integral Naked subscribers (including those joining for a free introductory month to engage in an orgy of listening, watching and downloading Integral Naked content) here, and a 54 minute version is available for free at the Viking Youth Power Hour podcast site here. (I think the extra length in the Viking Youth Power Hour version is comprised of music they throw in here and there.)

This is the description on the Viking Youth website:

The Vikings Get Naked with Stuart Davis

We take a different approach with the Viking Youth this week as Viking Brian and Viking Mat talk to rock n' roll super hero Stuart Davis about the origins of the vikings, the power of Ken Wilber's Integral Models, the treasures and dangers of the shadow, and the future of community and the internet. We also managed to shoehorn a few extensive rants about Burning Man as well.
Stuart and the rest of the Integral crew will be in Chicago March 25 & 26 for a Weekend Experential Training (WET), come out and join the Vikings for a skinny dip into the deep recesses of your big bad brain.
This show was recorded by Cory at Integral Naked and edited by Viking Alex. Thomas Shade did the voice overs. Outtro music is "It's Hard to Think, When Your Mind is Blank" by DJ Screw.

	Authentic Irreverence: Trolling for Spirit in America Viking Youth Stuart Davis

The Viking Youth Power Hour, voted the best podcast (do-it-yourself internet radio show) in Chicago by Newcity magazine, is a weekly sojourn into the realm of... well, whatever the heck is on the Vikings’ minds—be it politics, UFOs, taco dips, artificial intelligence, or kundalini yoga. It’s all fair game. Together, they unabashedly explore challenging, important questions such as “Is consciousness trying to destroy its host?” For these four thirty-somethings who consume enough whiskey on-air to give their listeners a buzz, the answer is probably “Yes.” In this dialogue, we are joined by Viking Brian and Viking Matt.

One of the topics the Vikings like to explore is what they call “A New American Mysticism,” the subject of a recent VYPH. In their own words: “This week we set our rugged boat toward an understanding of what is needed to pull this world from its present spiritual cluster fuck. Fundamentalism ain’t the answer. Atheism is just another dogmatic faith. Science sure isn’t enough to account for all our peculiar experiences... It’s a high falutin goal to say the least, but this week the Vikings do their best to discuss... the different technologies we have adopted to maintain our interactions in the divine without getting our sleeves caught in the hogwash of the holy.”

They aren’t alone in this kind of experience. A recent study at UCLA showed that about 75% of college juniors consider spirituality an “important” or “very important” part of their lives—but they can’t talk about it to their professors, and they are embarrassed by their fundamentalist friends, so they remain essentially “in the closet” about their spirituality. Young people across the country want the “holy” without the “hogwash,” and right now it’s just darn hard to even find a place to talk about these things. One of the goals of Integral Spiritual Center is to start campus outreach programs and offer a context in which these kinds of conversations can begin.

Put another way, the Vikings are talking about a spirituality of “show me.” Don’t tell me what to believe, show me the technologies (practices, methodologies, etc) that evoke the experiences you base your claims on, and I will make my own decisions about the validity and meaning of those experiences. An integral approach to spirituality would likewise support an experiential and experimental exploration of spiritual practices. What many people find satisfying about an integral approach is that they can use the “integral map” to help them understand how all of these different experiences relate to each other, without feeling that they are being coerced to do one thing over another. Indeed, the Integral Map is just a map—how you travel the territory is up to you—but it does appear to be the most complete map of human experience currently available.

Stu and the Vikings go on to talk about UFOs, Burning Man, and potentially dire consequences of filling a Mountain Dew bottle with anything other than Mountain Dew.

We invite you to join in on this unusual, irreverent tour of the search for meaning in a post-postmodern context....

(To learn more about an integral approach to spirituality, check out “What Is Integral Spirituality?” and Integral Spiritual Center. And if you happen to live in the Chicago area, check out the Integral WET Weekend happening there March 25th and 26th, and Stuart’s show on the 25th.)

	transmission time: 38 minutes
	keywords: Viking Youth Power Hour, Integral WET Weekends, Buddhism, Zen, kundalini yoga, Aleister Crowley, Satanism, states and stages, Integral Methodological Pluralism, Father Thomas Keating, Brother Wayne Teasdale, Pastor Sean Olaoire, Newcity magazine, Bell, podcasting, Burning Man, Hurricane Katrina, “What Is Integral?,” A Theory of Everything, psychedelics.
	most memorable moment: “We were all at a party with our friends, and Jason basically freaked out, went into a closet, found a Viking hat in there, and declared it the sovereign state of ‘Vikings in the Closet.’ It’s a long story....”

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Gaia: The Integral Pod - Media Musings - Stuart Davis - Viking Youth Dialog (free download available)

Stuart Davis - Viking Youth Dialog (free download available)

The Vikings Get Naked with Stuart Davis