Heart Yoga Radio

PATHOLOGICAL IRRATIONALISM IN THE UK AND BEYOND

In this rambling rant, we attempt to outline a mass and individual psychology of Thatcherism and trace its fallout in our current situation. We note that science denial which is prevalent on social media is also often promoted by extreme right wing people. We the move on to a suggestion that Thatcher's denial of the social character of human existence is an example of the same pathological irrationalism that is a core feature of historical fascism. (Click the link to by me a coffee.) [Free. 59 minutes.]

DESIRE & ULTIMATES [YES & NO 7]

This podcast was recorded earlier this year in February [2019]. It continues with considerations of the matter of desire, in this case focusing on our appetite for achievement. I suggest that our 'spiritual endeavours' almost inevitably fall into the same pattern as our ordinary acquisitiveness and can have a self-defeating tendency. I recommend a light touch with these drives and indicate what this approach opens up. [Free. 17 minutes.]

DESIRE, ACTION, TIME [YES & NO 5]

In this podcast, I continue to explore the matter of human desire. I relate it to our embeddedness in time, to suffering and to our motivations to act. [Free. 26 minutes.]

ART, FREUD, LACAN

In this podcast, I return to the matter of art - what is it? I draw critically on arguments from Freud and Lacan, both of whom return to art again and again. [Free. 22 minutes.]

VIKING INTENSITY

This podcast is a mischevious engagament with a fagment from the TV series Vikings in which a protagonist confesses his desire to live each moment with the maximum possible intensity. [Free. 25 minutes.]

ON TABOOS

This podcast is a rambling discussion which seeks to elucidate the nature of taboos. This involves considering law, superstition, transgression, the unconscious and Freud's metapsychology. We find ourselves questioning the coherence of the notion of the unconscious whilst at the same time finding it almost indispensible. Do we have to have taboos? We conclude that theoretically a society could be without taboos but that it is unlikely in the near future. However, minimising the play of irrational forces is thought to be desirable. The one thing that taboos have in their favour is their connection with the transgressive element in erotic jouissance. Contains a discussion of swearing and an account of a tantric exorcism. [Free. 38 minutes.]

THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART FOUR: POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY

In this podcast, we refer to the last scene of The Matrix in which Neo speaks directly to the hegemonic machines and explicitly draws attention to the political dimensions of the film. This scene invites us to understand the real-apparent binary as the opposition between the concrete political situation of slavery and exploitation and the ideological mystification which prevents the victims from throwing off their chains or even realising that they are in them. This leads us to a discussion of the attempts to make good the lacuna in Marxism around the details of ideological mystification by theorising a Freudian-Marxism. Dramatis Personae: Freud, Marx, Hegel, Lacan, Zizek, Fromm, Reich, Marcusse, Engels. The final scene [3 minutes 31 seconds] is here:-  https://youtu.be/aTL4qIIxg8A. See the blue pill - red pill choice in this four minute clip: https://youtu.be/zQ1_IbFFbzA. [Free. 39 minutes.]

CONSIDERING CULTS

In this podast we attempt to characterise 'cults' and identify psychological processes that sustain them. This broadens out a little into considerations of dominance and power dynamics in general. [Free. 30 minutes.]

THE BELOVED

We launch this podcast with a reading of Rumi's poem Choose Love which serves as a perfect door-way into a discussion on love. intoxication, separation and oneness.

[Free. 21 minutes.]

YOGA'S COUNTER-CULTURAL ROOTS

In this podcast, we explore Yoga's counter-cultural roots in the ancient Saivite-Dionysian religion. [Free. 38 minutes.]