From ‘Political Organizing is not Therapy’ by Clementine Morrigan open.substack.com/pub/clementi...

“I wrote a piece called Political Organizing Is Not Therapy, arguing that organizing spaces aren’t equipped to meet people’s …unprocessed emotional needs. People often show up expecting the collective to do that work instead of doing it with a therapist.” jacobin.com/2026/07/canc...

This morning I’m thinking about the question: how does one understand a religious, or mystical experience from an atheistic, secular, or agnostic perspective?

Great use of the aulos. 4/5

Great thread.

This morning I'm thinking about the question: what can the human sciences and the natural sciences learn from one another?

Is Anthropology Hopelessly Politicized? • “These people who are philosophers or whatever feel completely comfortable criticizing a discipline they don’t really understand.” www.chronicle.com/article/is-a...

Started watching the documentary series The Dark Wizard on free solo, high liner, & BASE jumper Dean Potter. The combination of mystical experience and mental illness is very familiar. youtu.be/h7gTjnio7oQ?...

“The ideology of analytic philosophy is that of liberalism.” - Christoph Schuringa, A Social History of Analytic Philosophy • I loved this book and wholeheartedly disagree with this quote; a tension that is thoroughly thought provoking. . . . #analytic #philosophy #history #books #reading

This morning I'm thinking about the question: what does the diagnosis of a postmodern condition have to do with the triumph of the therapeutic - if anything at all?

This morning I'm thinking about the power of deleting a superfluous adjective.

This morning I’m thinking about the question: what happens when social norms change within traditional institutions?

Famed documentarian Errol Morris talks about worming his way into speaking with notorious serial killer Ed Gein (1906-1984) - model for Norman Bates of Psycho fame - with whom he discussed Freud; “He was disturbed by Freud.” says Morris. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t...

Psychedelic documentary that charts John C. Lilly’s early scientific explorations of isolation & invention of the isolation tank, his move into dolphin communication, & eventual cosmic psychosis. Examines Lilly with a curious & critical eye. boxd.it/KkEm

Looking out onto Georgian Bay from the Niagara Escarpment hiking the Bruce Trail.

This morning I’m thinking about the question: what happens to mystical experience when it is instrumentalized for psychotherapeutic ends?

“I don't believe this is one of the thoughts of Chairman Mao but breaks, good or bad, do come when you least expect them.” - David Niven, The Moon’s A Balloon

“Don’t call me honey, honey.” music.apple.com/ca/album/whe...

“Today, difficulties that a mere two or three years ago would have passed for private matters-for conflicts between students & teachers, workers & employers, or marital partners, for conflicts between individual persons-now claim political significance[.]” J. Habermas, 1968

I read two articles this week lamenting the state of objectivity in the social sciences and the influence of political activism. Good thing there was a book written nearly 60 (!!!) detailing the phenomenon and what is to be done. Highly recommended.

It’s #letterboxdfriday. I’m posting my #lastfourwatched. boxd.it/1jnCv

This morning I’m thinking about the reconciliation of mystical experience and mental illness.

L’Obelix poutine w/ Montréal smoked meat at la Banquise, Montréal.

A pun for some philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, and computer scientists.

Always a good day to read Rilke!

Montréal used book store finds.

A very fun, very Canadian movie enjoyed on the 2026 edition of the national holiday. boxd.it/HG9a

This morning I'm thinking about some of the damage done by polemics in mental health discourse.

The former Allan Memorial Institute in Montréal where CIA backed MKUltra mind control experiments under auspices of Ewan Cameron were performed in the 60s on unwitting patients with LSD and half-baked ‘psychic-driving’ theory. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_M...

Canada Day visit to Montréal landmark Schwartz’ Deli.

The vocations of politician, scholar, & scholar-politician / politician-scholar. • The War for Sociology: Should scholars be activists? A famously left-leaning field is divided by Stephanie M. Lee in The Chronicle of Higher Education www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

It is out and OPEN ACCESS: "The Senses: Perception and Experience" (Cambridge University Press, Elements: Philosophy of Mind, ed. by @keithfrankish.com) #PhilSky #booksky #HPBio #philosophy #cogsci www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Notes towards a mental breakdown • from the Atrocity Exhibitions by J. G. Ballard

It's been a difficult and somewhat frustrating morning explaining de-transcendentalized mystical experience to myself.

Hahaha, oh my. I recently also heard a fellow scientist proclaim: This computational model of neural nets reminds me of the neural nets in brains (that we modeled with computational neural nets)

“I take it that the final destination of the 20th century, and the best we can hope for in the circumstances, is the attainment of a moral and just psychopathology.” - J. G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition

2021. Got a few senior male colleagues who said they were not content with my verdict. But also many more junior women colleagues who said this is what led them to discover Hesse. So...

‘The "young conservatives" recapitulate the basic experience of aesthetic modernity. They claim as their own the revelations of a decentered subjectivity … In France this line leads from Georges Bataille via Michel Foucault to Jacques Derrida.’ - Jürgen Habermas, Modernity - An Incomplete Project

Self-portrait with bird’s nest. . . . #selfportraitwithblank

“Kant is not driving the bus. A lot of people got there first.” (Re: universal rights) An excellent episode on the Levellers. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/i...

Last four watched boxd.it/1jnCv #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #letterboxedfriday

Just heard of the death of David Cayley, whose broadcasts on Charles Taylor, René Girard, and Ivan Illich in the 90s on CBC radio’s Ideas sparked my intellectual curiosity. An incredible treasure trove of interviews and broadcasts. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/d...

OMG, the before and after pictures in this article are unbelievable! 👍

From Pat Churchland’s Conscience.

This morning I’m thinking about postmodernism , Sokal, and the science wars.

Every time I think of Peirce I am amazed that he isn’t discussed as often, or more so than the likes of Aristotle, Kant, et al.

Incredible. Science! www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

RIP Bob Thurman • I’ve had this copy of Bob Thurman’s translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead since ‘94 when it was first published. I had no clue that he was the Thurman that fathered Uma. Thanks to a master. May he be delivered from the between and find perfect Buddhahood.