Cognitive Immunology and Soulcraft™
Antidotes to Wétiko
What is Cognitive Immunology and Soulcraft™?
Soulcraft™ is a modern version of the ancient art of learning, growing, and maturing across a lifetime into a multidimensional Self solidly at home on Earth and as part of the cosmos. It is a process of shedding the adolescent ego-self and expanding into an ecological mode of being.
Cognitive immunology is the thread of this work that helps us remember what it means to be truly, naturally human in a world that often sacrifices human qualities in favor of technological advance. Wetiko (an Algonquin/Cree term), the "mind virus," is the mechanization of human cognition, which causes a literal dis-ease (lack of ease) in our mind-body systems, manifesting in all the standard symptoms that the medical industrial complex pathologizes as "mental illness" or "disorders." But in truth, there's nothing wrong with you; these symptoms merely indicate that we must reclaim our genuine humanity, our vital life energies, and we can naturally heal ourselves.
I offer online and in-person sessions.
(Ask me about garden walk sessions if you're in the Denver area.)
Contact me here to arrange a call or learn more.
Soulcraft™
- grow beyond the confines of an ego-centric adolescence into a eco-logical maturity
- develop a holistic, ecological Self that incorporates soulful and spiritual levels of being
- discover and manifest your unique purpose and calling in life
- liberate creative energies from the excessive domestication of civilizational society
- move beyond limiting patterns and beliefs rooted in survival responses to past harms (i.e. resolve trauma)
- unlock latent energies, manifest creative abilities, and actualize repressed potentials
Soul is fundamentally a biological concept, defined as the primary organizing, sustaining, and guiding principle of a living being."
~Thomas Berry
Cognitive Immunology
- expand your embodied intelligence
- reclaim your authentic mind and cognitive autonomy
- inoculate yourself against parasitic ideas, infectious ideology, and cancerous concepts
- become your own expert: know yourself better than any external expert or authority possibly could
- become so solid in your holistic Self that the manipulative influences of society do not sway you off your path and rob you of joy
Who is this for?
Soulcraft™ and cognitive immunology are for anyone called to a life beyond the confines of a consumer-conformist society myopically fixated on illusory ideals of material success and social approval won at the expense of one's true uniqueness and genuine happiness. It is for those who have felt the pull of their wild cosmic nature inviting them to step out of their ego-centered comfort and into the timeless journey of Soul. It is for anyone numbed and exhausted by the mindless repetition of uninspired work in modern society. It is for those who know, somewhere deep inside their own indigenous homelands of their bodies, that they were born to serve a unique purpose in this life, and they're tired of being an anonymous statistic manipulated by inhuman technologies and corporate algorithms. It is for anyone who has tasted real life and wants to be someone who cultivates that realness in their daily life and the lives of those they commune with.
In short, it is for anyone who has not succumbed to the cynical pessimism of a social world that has conflated the pathology of an inhuman industrial order with the core nature of humans as such, but rather still believes that humans, at their best, are intelligent and constructive parts of a sacred natural world and cosmos.
How does this work? What does this entail?
Holistic, multidimensional "Self" cultivation
We moderns are faced with the necessity of rediscovering the life of the spirit; we must experience it anew for ourselves. It is the only way in which to break the spell that binds us."~ C.G. Jung
- this aspect of Soulcraft™ and cognitive immunology concerns the intentional cultivation of what the eco-depth psychologist Bill Plotkin calls the "three-dimensional Self." In this approach, "Self" does not mean just the ego self, the individual "I" that most modern psychology and pop-psy "self-development" is concerned with. Instead, the multidimensional Self is a complex, ecological being who incorporates an individual ego and 1) its social relations, 2) a spiritual intelligence, and 3) a soulful rootedness in tangible nature. This multidimensional, ecological Self belongs equally to their social worlds, the more-than-human natural worlds, and the cosmic level of existence all at once.
- This process can entail a variety of modalities including resolving trauma; overcoming compulsive or addictive patterns; starting or advancing creative pursuits; developing one's mythopoetic identity; cultivating the ritual and ceremonial aspects of daily life; dreamwork; and expanding one's connection to the natural world.
~~~
"Somatics"
"There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy." ~ Nietzsche
- More than just physical movement, "somatics" as I approach it involves the entirety of our cognitive experience, of which the "physical body" is just one element. I use the term "somatics" as shorthand for working with holistic energy patterns than manifest on various levels that modern western science has simplistically categorized as "physical," "mental," "emotional," "perceptual," and so on.
- Our best sciences now show that these rigid categories (often defined mutually-exclusively, as in "physical" meaning non-mental, and "mental" meaning non-physical) do not accurately convey how we really work, and what we really are. Literally everything in human life is part of our cognitive experiencing, and everything is ultimately and fundamentally patterned flows of energy. As the leading metabolic neurocognitive researcher Martin Picard, PhD puts it: "So, what are you? Are you a molecular machine? Or are you an energetic process? And I think the truest answer...the answer is that you're both. But if you ask, 'what is most fundamental?' What is most fundamental is not your physical existence, it is actually you as an energetic process, as a flow of energy."
- In other words, "somatics" is the experience of working with the multidimensional patterns of energy flow that constitute us, with the goal of creating a robust, dynamic, adaptive, integral alignment of those patterns so that we experience ourselves and the world as a holistic continuity. This is the basis of all health, which literally means wholeness. ("Health" derives from the Old English hælþ, meaning "being whole, sound or well.")
~~~
Cognitive Immunological Enhancement
"Most of us have, of course, no very definite intellectual temperament; we are a mixture of opposite ingredients, each one present very moderately. We hardly know our own preferences in abstract matters; some of us are easily talked out of them, and end by following the fashion or taking up with the beliefs of the most impressive philosopher[/influencer/podcaster/thought leader/politician/scientist] in our neighborhood, whoever he may be."
- In a world where our attention is relentlessly manipulated by countless streams of information, communication, and perception, we now face threats to the health and vitality of our cognitive systems, much like our physical bodies face threats of infection from bacterial and viral pathogens.
- The pervasiveness of digital technologies and virtual media environments presents unique challenges to maintaining the onto-epistemological coherence and communicative congruence that constitutes cognitive health, individually+socially. The reality is, most people in modern society have been infected by "mind viruses" that take the form of parasitic ideas, infectious ideologies, and cancerous concepts. These cause the "cognitive diseases" and their symptoms that the medical industrial complex has labeled "mental illness," "mental disorder," or other pathological "conditions," such as depression/anxiety, compulsive and addictive behaviors, psychological trauma/PTSD, insomnia, social-relational difficulties, existential despair, etc. None of these actually reflect some "problem" that you "have," they are symptoms of a cognitive disease (literally a dis-ease, lack of ease in our bodymind system) caused by these "mind viruses."
- Cognitive immunology is an emerging science that serves to strengthen and fortify our cognitive immune systems by helping people learn to think critically, independently, and autonomously in a world pervaded by misinformation, fake/false news, and scientific manipulation (yes -- the sciences themselves [the people and institutions conducting and publishing scientific research] have been infected by these diseases).
- Sadly, it is not enough to simply trust someone just because they are a credentialed expert or professional scholar, academic, or scientist. As explained by Marcia Angell, MD, the first woman to serve as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine (one of the most respected medical journals in the world), and now Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor."
- Cognitive immunology involves inoculating ourselves against the many forms of intellectual, communicative, and perceptual pathologies that threaten our cognitive health and wellness. It supports us in adaptively navigating the endless streams of ideas and content that vie for our attention and invite or demand our belief and trust. It helps us reclaim our cognitive agency and autonomy so that we are not easily swayed by tricksters selling parochial ideologies and exploitative narratives packaged and disguised as facts or divine declarations.
Ultimately, all three of these streams run together. Cultivation of our holistic Self, somatic experiencing, and cognitive immunology are all geared toward helping you find your most unique, authentic, solid, and sustainable identity and place in the world. This is vital if we want to experience a life of genuine purpose, joy, meaning, and satisfaction.
Soulcraft™ is a registered trademark of William B. Plotkin