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Thompson is currently offering a series of seminars in June 2006 ("Poetry and Speculations on the Meaning of Western Civilization ") and September 2006 ("Forms of Consciousness") at the Crestone Zen Center in Crestone, Colorado {Link without Title} . INFLUENCES Thompson is influenced by the Hindu Vedantin Sri Aurobindo , British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead , Swiss cultural historian Jean Gebser , and Media Ecologist Marshall McLuhan . He practiced Paramahansa Yogananda 's Kriya Yoga for several years. His objective is to create a "a meta-industrial horizon for our future" through the resacralization and re-mythologization of Science , Social Science , and the study of History . In 1972, he received Darshan from The Mother , Sri Aurobindo 's Consort . Thompson has expressed admiration for the Esoteric philosophy of Rudolf Steiner , the mystical Evolutionism of Teilhard De Chardin , the Mother Goddess Anthropology of Marija Gimbutas , the Autopoetic Epistemology of Francisco Varela , the Endosymbiotic theory of Evolution of Lynn Margulis , the Gaia Theory of James Lovelock , the Complex Systems thought of Stuart Kauffman , the novels of Thomas Pynchon , and mystic David Spangler . He subscribes to the Buddhist Metaphysics of Dependent Origination , which depicts all Phenomena as arising in inextricable relationship to each other. TEACHINGS Since the 1960s, Thompson's work appears to have been motivated by the idea that the various intellectual and artistic disciplines have similar Epistemic standing: :Science wrought to its uttermost becomes myth. History wrought to its uttermost becomes myth. But what is myth that it returns to mind even when we would most escape it? :::—''The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture'', 3 The concept of ''performance'' is central to Thompson's work. It seems to be his view that an Integral thinker shouldn't create yet another Philosophical Theory . Instead, one's work is a performance that occurs in a particular time and place. Performances either open new horizons for the future or close them down, and should be judged on that basis. :As fiction and music are coming closer to reorganizing knowledge, scholarship is becoming closer to art. Our culture is changing, and so the , or the reviews of non-existent books by Stanislaw Lem , are examples of new art forms of a society in which humanity live, not innocently in nature nor confidently in cities, but Apocalyptic ally in a civilization cracking up to the universe. At such a moment as this the novelist becomes a Prophet , the composer a Magician , and the historian a Bard , a voice recalling ancient identities. ::— ''The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture'', 4 INTERESTS Thompson is fascinated by Sumerian Epics , including ''How Inanna brought the Mes from Eridu to Uruk '', ''Inanna's descent to the Netherworld'', and the '' Epic Of Gilgamesh ''. He sees these epics as formative of Western Civilization . He has also written on Venus Figurines and the Upper Paleolithic Great Mother goddess cult, artifacts from Çatal Hüyük , and the Babylonian Creation Epic '' Enuma Elish ''; on Homer , Hesiod , Sappho , and the '' Book Of Judges ''; on the Hindu '' Rig Veda '', '' Ramayana '', '' Upanishads '', '' Bhagavad Gita ''; and on the '' Tao Te Ching ''. He has written book-length treatments of the Easter Rising of 1916 and Quetzalcoatl . Thompson considers fellow Irishman James Joyce 's stylistically experimental Novel '' Finnegans Wake '' to be "the ultimate novel, indeed, the ultimate book," and the climactic artistic work of the modern period and the rational mentality. Thompson is fascinated by Los Angeles , where he grew up, and Disneyland , which he considers to be LA's Essence . OUTLOOK Thompson sees the contemporary period as a Dark Age , characterized by unpredictable climate patterns and storms, the worldwide emergence of new Virus es, and Terrorism . This dark age should precede Gebser's Integral period, which will be characterized by a Planetary Consciousness , a Noetic Polity , and a Chaos-dynamical mentality. However, Thompson believes that another possible – indeed likely – outcome is the destruction of human civilization through techno-tribal warfare and/or environmental catastrophe. If that happens, he believes that cosmic evolution will continue, eventually lifting another species or entity to advanced intellectual and spiritual levels. :Or could it also be Wallace Stevens ' :necessary angel of our ashen earth-- :the tragic angel of a new Dark Age. :Between the Ancient and the Classical :came the Archaic Aegean Dark Age . :Between the classical and Medieval :arose the Eurasian Gothic Dark Age . :Now between the global and the Gaia n :comes the Dark Age of dying religion. :Whatever it is we spend on Klieglights , :American movies are played in the dark. :::— from "Cambridge Rant" {Link without Title} CRITICISMS OF OTHER WRITERS AND FIGURES Thompson has harshly criticized the Integral philosophy of Ken Wilber , Postmodern Literary Criticism , Artificial Intelligence , the technological Futurism of Raymond Kurzweil , the contemporary Philosophy Of Mind theories of Daniel Dennett and Paul Churchland , and the Astrobiological Cosmogony of Zecharia Stichin . He has also dismissed the approaches of " Nihilist " Friedrich Nietzsche , Harold Bloom , and Allan Bloom as irrelevant to the crisis of the present age. He is also displeased by the Bush Administration :
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