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Idealism on Spiritual Leadership & Ethics

How do we organise and teach spirituality ethically in today's world?

Recording details

Date: 20 May 2025

Duration: 2h 2m

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Chapters

0:00:00 Idealism, religion and spiritual responsibility

0:10:17 Can philosophy give us permission for religion?

0:15:22 Seeing through the game without withdrawing from life

0:20:21 What does a religious myth point towards?

0:25:17 What if the truth cannot be said directly?

0:30:17 Can reform lose something spiritually essential?

0:35:21 Sexuality, belonging and religious institutions

0:40:22 Bernardo’s experience in Cologne Cathedral

0:45:07 The cross as an image of the human condition

0:50:21 Can ritual make the banal feel profound?

0:55:30 Inviting insight rather than pushing belief

1:00:34 When outward certainty masks inner doubt

1:10:33 What remains when we step outside our stories?

1:15:12 Beneath our ambitions: the will to meaning

1:20:40 Why reach is not always the right reason

1:30:04 Should spiritual teaching require training and safeguards?

1:35:14 Where should professional boundaries begin?

1:40:21 Spiritual transformation and the role of initiation

1:50:40 Is spiritual comfort sometimes an anaesthetic?

1:55:12 Bernardo’s case for licensing spiritual teachers

2:00:43 What a polished public image may conceal

In this session we discussed idealist perspective on religious institutions & ritual, (to render the banal profound) and life as your greatest spiritual teacher:

  • Ambassadorship vs activism 
  • The value idealism can bring to religion
  • Can there be change in or by Catholicism? 
  • Should spiritual teaching be a regulated profession? 
  • The modern version of beheading is anaesthetised culture

We'll be continuing the conversation next week.

You may also enjoy these thoughts on the subject that Bernardo penned some years back:

A suggestion for Church reform
This is the homepage of philosopher and computer scientist Bernardo Kastrup, with links to his biography and most of his works.
Bernardo Kastrup

I hope to see you there!

Amir

Speakers
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Bernardo Kastrup

Analytic idealism

Bernardo Kastrup is the Executive Director of Essentia Foundation and Founder/CEO at AI systems company Euclyd BV. His work has set off the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence).

As a scientist, he has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the ‘Casimir Effect’ of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). He has also been creatively active in the high-tech industry for almost 30 years, having founded parallel processor company Silicon Hive (acquired by Intel in 2011) and worked as a technology strategist for the geopolitically significant company ASML. Most recently, he has founded AI company Euclyd BV.

Formulated in detail in many academic papers and books, his ideas have been featured in Scientific American, the magazine of The Institute of Art and Ideas, the Blog of the American Philosophical Association and Big Think, among others. His most defining book is Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A straightforward summary of the 21st-century’s only plausible metaphysics.

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