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.)
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