C. Derick Varn is the author, poet, and educator. He is the co-host of No Royal Road, Vulgar Complexity, Pop the Left, Diving Into The Wreckage, and Gaming Materialists. He is the author of Apocalyptics (Unlikely Books, 2018) "Liberation and All That Bright Etc." (Mysterioso Books, 2022). 

Varn Links:

patreon.com/varnvlog

www.youtube.com/@VarnVlog

***

Host: Ben Hawes

Music: terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes/Jungjungle

Listen to the Liminauts on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-liminauts/id1693709563

Listen to the Liminauts on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/144rinVS6oyTC0xTQoDlGL?si=XjRJxuP5TbyuVp5HvpxTPQ

Subscribe to Ben's Substack: https://draggingthecorpse.substack.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Liminauts, my guest is Robert Zevin. Zevin grew up in a family made of jewish refugees from Poland and the Ukraine. One side started the World Publishing Company, at one point the largest publisher of the King James Bible, while the other ran a Borscht Belt resort in the Catskills that became a refuge for Jewish communists and other leftists during the Depression. This intersection of entrepreneurship and radical politics shaped Zevin’s career from the start. In the late 60s as a professor of economics at Columbia, Zevin got involved with the United States Servicemen's Fund which was responsible for The FTA Show, an anti-war counterprogram of troop entertainment to oppose Bob Hope's USO tour. Then, in the 1970s and along with Robert Schwartz, Zevin helped invent the idea of socially responsible or sustainable investing, which is now a 30 trillion Dollar segment of investments known as ESG.

Robert Zevin is also my grandfather, so I hope you enjoy this very special episode as much as I did.

**If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider giving us five stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. It will help the show get in front of new listeners! Much appreciated -- Ben**

Here is an interview with Robert about socially sustainable investing and the origins of ESG on Bloomberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRWxFNqaciA

Here's a trailer for the rereleased F.T.A.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWAbhonmCOg

If you want info on the United States Servicemen's Fund and the GI coffeehouses, here's the wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Servicemen%27s_Fund

Watch on The Liminauts channel on YouTube.

Subscribe to Ben's Substack

Host: Ben Hawes

Music: terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes/Jungjungle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My friend Dr. Asher Walden is a former Zen monk who received his BA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago and his PhD in Theology from Drew University. His dissertation was on the moral metaphysics of Schopenhauer and the Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi. He taught undergraduate philosophy and religions courses for over ten years, and has published scholarly articles and a monograph on comparative religion and philosophy. His desire to understand consciousness has led him to research & write on idealistic philosophy and the ontology of realms encountered during psychedelic experiences. He is currently working in the applied sciences, and has developed a self-guided divination system for use in the integration of psychedelic experiences called the Empyrean Age Integration Deck.

Find some of Asher's most recent writings here: https://www.essentiafoundation.org/author/

Asher's Empyrean Project: https://empyrean-project.com/

Watch on The Liminauts channel on YouTube.

Subscribe to Ben's Substack

Host: Ben Hawes

Music: terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes/Jungjungle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Formerly a Zen Buddhist nun in the Kwan Um school of Zen, Ji Hyang Padma is currently the Buddhist Chaplain at Tufts, Northeastern, and Brandeis Universities. With a doctorate in transpersonal psychology, she also offers spiritual counseling, Reiki and astrology readings in private practice. Dr. Ji Hyang is the author of two books, Living the Season: Zen Practice for Transformative Times, and Field of Blessings: Ritual and Consciousness in the Work of Buddhist Healers. We talk about the challenges of monasticism in America, and what Buddhist meditation has to do with health, intuition and subtle energy.

**If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider giving us five stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. It will help the show get in front of new listeners! Much appreciated -- Ben**

Ji Hyang Padma's sites

Resources for those experiencing spiritual emergencies or need help integrating spiritually transformative experiences:

https://www.spiritualemergence.org/

https://aciste.org/

https://www.mountainpath.org/post/spiritually-transformative-experiences

Watch on The Liminauts channel on YouTube.

Subscribe to Ben's Substack

Host: Ben Hawes

Music: terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes/Jungjungle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I catch up with Rev. Mark Unno, my former thesis advisor in college, about Buddhism, community, and what a Buddhist-based social action could be in the face of global crises. Rev. Unno is Professor of Buddhist Studies & Department Head of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon, specializing in Pure Land, Zen, and Shingon Buddhism. He is the 14th generation minister of Shin Buddhism in his family. He is also the President of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies.

**If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider giving us five stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. It will help the show get in front of new listeners! Much appreciated -- Ben**

Mark Unno's Page

Watch on The Liminauts channel on YouTube. 

Subscribe to Ben's Substack 

Host: Ben Hawes

Music: terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes/Jungjungle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John G. Myerson, Ph.D., Lic. Ac., is A psychotherapist, acupuncturist, martial arts teacher, Zen teacher, and practitioner of shamanic therapy. As one of the first Presidents of the New England School of Acupuncture or NESA, Dr. Myerson played a crucial role in legalizing and professionalizing the nascent acupuncture profession in the 70s and 80s. I first met John as a student at NESA and became his patient and student, so in our conversation I try to get him to pull back the curtain to show how all this stuff works and what the true meaning and nature of healing is.

**If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider giving us five stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. It will help the show get in front of new listeners! Much appreciated -- Ben**

Watch on The Liminauts channel on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aczSCRUdHHE

Dr. Myerson's books can be found here on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3OnFSGj

Subscribe to Ben's Substack: https://draggingthecorpse.substack.com/

Host: Ben Hawes

Music: terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes/Jungjungle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt Christman is a co-founder and co-host of the podcast Chapo Trap House, a mix of political comedy and straight up journalism that skewers mainstream politics from a raucous Left perspective. Matt is also a history podcaster, having co-hosted both the Hell of Presidents and Hell on Earth podcasts, and is a co-author of New York Times bestseller The Chapo Guide to Revolution. He’s also a regular vlogger on Twitch, among many other projects.

Ben and Matt discuss Matt’s spiritual awakening during the 2020 Covid lockdown, and what might be required of our sense of self and our spirituality for revolutionary social change to occur that would benefit the many and preserve human life in a sustainable way.

**If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider giving us five stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. It will help the show get in front of new listeners! Much appreciated -- Ben**

Watch on The Liminauts channel on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aczSCRUdHHE

Chapo and Hell on Earth: https://www.chapotraphouse.com/

Cushvlog: https://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse

Hell of Presidents: https://www.stitcher.com/show/hell-of-presidents

The Chapo Guide to Revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chapo_Guide_to_Revolution

Subscribe to Ben's Substack: https://draggingthecorpse.substack.com/

Host: Ben Hawes

Music: terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes/Jungjungle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Kohl is an osteopathic physician, radiation oncologist, Zen teacher (aka Dae Do Soen Sa), yoga instructor and alternative medicine practitioner. He has been developing a healing modality called Selfunwinding for greater than 7 years, based on the work of John Barnes and others. Bob defines his Selfunwinding practice in these terms:

"By reconnecting into our sensations and feelings, and beginning to allow the the body to move, release, and reintegrate from our hidden and fragmented patterns we are startled awake into the experience of functioning more within the whole of our being."

We discuss his multiple roles as a healer and teacher and how he has bridged these many worlds, as well as issues of energy and movement that may be encountered during meditation that are often not discussed widely in Zen meditation circles and what they might signify, and what to do with them.

Dr. Kohl's Selfunwinding site: https://selfunwinding.com/

Furnace Mountain Zen Center: https://www.furnacemountainzen.org/

Support Ben on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheLiminauts

Subscribe to Ben's Substack: https://draggingthecorpse.substack.com/

Music: Terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I catch up with Curt, a long-time comrade from the Zen trenches. We discuss what it's like to be a Zen Master, what the responsibilities of being on the path mean vis-a-vis social action and politics, especially for those on the revolutionary Left, and whether Buddhism can accurately be described as a nonviolent religion. 

Curt's Zen page: https://www.mindisbuddha.org/

Furnace Mountain Zen Center: https://www.furnacemountainzen.org/

Support Ben on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheLiminauts

Subscribe to Ben's Substack: https://draggingthecorpse.substack.com/

Music: Terjerselfanewone by Ben Hawes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.