Best Jeff Salzman Podcasts (2025)

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Emily Herring: Henri Bergson, The OG Evolutionary 1:02:45

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6M ago1:02:45

1:02:45

Once upon a time, French philosopher Henri Bergson was the most celebrated public intellectual in the world. People stood in long lines just to get a glimpse of his lectures. He took the culture by storm, and had enormous influence on early 20th century thought across multiple fields. Then, Europe descended into war, the zeitgeist changed, and litt…

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Keith Thompson: How UFOs Challenge Our Worldview 1:42:22

12M ago1:42:22

1:42:22

On this episode of Thinking Ahead, we return to the fascinating subject of UFOs, or UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon) as they are sometimes called. I've already done a couple of podcasts on this topic (if you’d like a more introductory episode, I’d recommend listening to my interview with journalist Ross Coulthart). This conversation venture…

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Wayne Pacelle: The Campaign to Save Colorado's Big Cats 1:08:33

1y ago1:08:33

1:08:33

Regular listeners of this podcast may know that I have a special affinity for cats—house cats, certainly, but also the magnificent wild cats that still roam the American West. So when I learned recently that in my home state of Colorado, it’s still legal for trophy hunters to shoot hundreds of these beautiful creatures every year, I was horrified. …

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The Business and Spiritual Journey of John Mackey 2:07:37

1y ago2:07:37

2:07:37

John Mackey, cofounder of Whole Foods Market, is one of the great entrepreneurs of our time. But the story of how he built the iconic grocery store is just one thread in the tapestry of his rich and interesting life, which he discusses candidly in his recent memoir The Whole Story. This fascinating tale spans his remarkable life and career, from hi…

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Sean Lawlor: Navigating the Psychedelic Renaissance 1:54:45

1y ago1:54:45

1:54:45

Today, we are in the middle of a sea change in the perception and use of psychedelics unlike anything that has occurred in recent decades and probably going back many centuries, at least in Western history. In fact, one probably has to go back to the early Christian era to see psychedelics so commonly used and accessible. And while there are a lot …

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Bobby Azarian: The Beauty of Evolutionary Thinking 1:36:49

1+ y ago1:36:49

1:36:49

On this episode of Thinking Ahead, we’re discussing one of my favorite subjects, evolution. Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist, a science journalist, and a true evolutionary. His book The Romance of Reality explores the evolution of the universe and life, purpose, complexity, and consciousness with rich vision that far transcends the all-t…

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The Return of Red Trump 37:05

2y ago37:05

37:05

A year away from the US Presidential election, Ankur Delight and I ponder the spectre of Donald Trump being the odds-on favorite to win. Our muse this week is Rick Wilson, the founder of the Lincoln Project, who sounds the “Never-Again Trump” alarm in his recent Substack article, Red Caesar and the Next Regime. As Wilson points out, “Red Caesar” is…

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Jonathan Haidt’s “Stupid America” 38:26

2y ago38:26

38:26

Is America really getting stupider? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the case in his influential essay in The Atlantic Magazine titled “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”. I challenge his thesis from an integral perspective. Growing from a cultural conversation dominated by a modern worldview to one where many…

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Hot Takes on a Movie, a Play and Pronouns 21:57

2y ago21:57

21:57

In this episode, I take another look at the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once in light of its popularity and controversy – including in the integral community. I also consider how taking one new perspective on the play, The Realistic Joneses by Will Eno, turned it from infuriating to infatuating. And more on the ongoing saga of pronouns. Enjo…

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, Covenant Marriage and Porn 34:17

2y ago34:17

34:17

On today’s Daily Evolver Live (every Thursday @ 10am PT on YouTube) Ankur and I discussed the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson. He’s a fundamentalist Christian who supports Trump and the election deniers. He’s also for Covenant Marriage and against porn, two views that may be evolutionarily potent. Ankur and I tease apar…

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New Rules of Postmodern Debate 44:42

2y ago44:42

44:42

If a debate isn’t about facts and arguments, what is it about? In this episode I look to a high school debate Tournament of Champions for the answer. As you will hear this next generation is Green, they’re mean, and they are discovering new territories of being human that are essential for the coming Integral stage.…

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The United Auto Workers Deal - The Daily Evolver Live with Ankur and Jeff 27:48

2y ago27:48

27:48

Ankur Delight and I talk about the major new deal the UAW struck with the Big Three automakers in the US. The three pillars of the deal are 1) a 25% wage increase, 2) equalized pay for the same job, and 3) the ability to strike in response to plant closings. All represent a further move into green postmodern culture. But, Ankur objects, did we need…

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What Really Helps? The Kosmo-centric View 42:55

2y ago42:55

42:55

Hey folks, In this episode, Ankur kicks off our discussion by asking: “What can we do for Israel and Palestine? What really helps?” We discussed a Kosmo-centric view and how it transcends (and includes) the world-centric view of green postmodernity. Also the evolution of empathy, the role of meditation, Sam Harris’s “presentism” error and more. Enj…

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Israel and Palestine: A Developmental View 59:44

2y ago59:44

59:44

Transcending the dueling perspectives of history, politics, religion and race, the insights of cultural development offer a more integrated, evolutionary understanding of wicked geopolitical problems like the conflict in the Middle East. PART 1 of this podcast is my talk to the Developmental Alliance, a monthly Zoom group sponsored by the Institute…

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Russel Brand and the Evolution of Sexual Politics 24:11

2y ago24:11

24:11

Ankur and I take an integral look at the Russel Brand sex scandal and how it is raising consciousness. We talk about: Presentism: a moving target * The power (and limits) of consent * Green sexuality’s great contributions and what it keeps in shadow * Cancellation, big media, and the evolution of collective consciousness * The emerging practice of …

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Prigoshin and Guiliani: The Wages of Red 26:29

2y ago26:29

26:29

We saw a powerful eruption of red warrior consciousness in the recent saga involving mob boss Vladimir Putin and his renegade enforcer, the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. Rudy Guiliani is also playing with fire. Ankur Delight and I find the integral threads. – Jeff SalzmanBy Jeff Salzman

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David Brooks to Elites: “Are We the Baddies?” 47:01

2y ago47:01

47:01

Hey folks! The New York Times has published two major columns by columnist David Brooks criticizing the modern meritocracy and the postmodern therapeutic culture. What if We’re the Bad Guys Here? Hey America, Grow Up! It’s always interesting when somebody stops and tries to see the world of their opponents and I deeply appreciate Brooks and the New…

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What is Evolution Doing to Us? 28:47

2y ago28:47

28:47

In this episode, Ankur Delight and I reflect on the power and purpose of emergence in our own lives and culture. For Ankur, this conversation was sparked as a result of a recent road trip. For me, I contemplate what I am drawn to as I enter semi-retirement. Hope you enjoy!By Jeff Salzman

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Barbie: Pink Via Green 44:00

2y ago44:00

44:00

Hey folks, Barbie tells the story of the cultural evolution of women in three stages. In the traditional world girls play with baby dolls, practicing the sacred roles of domesticity and motherhood. The Barbie doll, introduced in 1959, represents a modern sensibility, first as a fashion doll with which girls could express themselves, then as a femin…

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The Next Stage of Moral Development 25:03

2y ago25:03

25:03

Evolving your consciousness means enlarging your circle of moral consideration. Who is inside your circle and who is “the other”? In this episode, Ankur Delight and I look at the moral development of humanity, and the integral challenge of including people of different worldviews.By Jeff Salzman

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The Evolution of the Afterlife 25:30

2y ago25:30

25:30

Taking a little summer break from the news, Ankur Delight and I turn our attention to a subject that has fascinated – and terrified – human beings since day one: what happens when we die? What might the integral answer to that question be? Enjoy the episode! Ankur Delight – 10,000 Heroes podcast Jeff Salzman – The Daily Evolver podcast ____________…

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What Are You Watching? - Some hot takes on movies and TV 52:21

2y ago52:21

52:21

Hey folks! In this episode, I look at the evolutionary significance of our emerging mediaverse, with its gusher of entertainment coming to us from all over the world. How do we navigate it? We ask our friends! In that spirit I offer: My favorite TV series of all time My least favorite movie of the year, and why it’s my fault The Flintstone Effect: …

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American Grievance and Gratitude 21:56

2+ y ago21:56

21:56

This week Ankur and I share our 4th of July experiences and chart the different routes we took to a more integral appreciation of America. Enjoy! – Jeff Ankur Delight – 10,000 Heroes podcast Jeff Salzman – The Daily Evolver podcast Lee Mead’s Anthem (for a taste of integral patriotism)By Jeff Salzman

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Amiel Handelsman: Race and Maturity in the American Experience 1:19:04

2+ y ago1:19:04

1:19:04

The topic of race is never far from our lips when we are talking about the American experience. And yet, the complexities, confusions, minefields, and missteps that often confront those who work to overcome America’s racial legacy can make this a subject that people shy away from. That’s why my guest today is such a breath of fresh air. He’s taken …

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Are The Kids Alright? - Dr Keith and I look at teen depression 47:13

2+ y ago47:13

47:13

Hey folks, welcome to another episode of The Shrink and the Pundit, where Dr Keith Witt, integral psychotherapist extraordinaire, joins me to take a look at our next generation: the kids, teenagers and people entering their twenties. Are they okay? Dr Keith and I explore this question through the lens of cultural development. I hope you enjoy! Jeff…

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Not Your Grandfather’s Nazis - The Role and Prospects for Ukraine’s Right Wing, with Jeff Salzman and Ankur Delight 21:56

2+ y ago21:56

21:56

In this short episode, we bring an integral lens to a controversial New York Times story, “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History”. Jeff Salzman, The Daily Evolver Podcast Ankur Delight – 10,000 Heroes podcastBy Jeff Salzman

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Seeing and Being Seen: The Practice of Conflict and Mediation 20:07

2+ y ago20:07

20:07

In this episode, Jeff Salzman and Ankur Delight look at the culture war and explore exciting new insights Ankur has gained from training with mediation master Ken Cloke.By Jeff Salzman

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Labor Strikes, AI & Getting Off the Couch: The Next Workplace Emerges 44:37

2+ y ago44:37

44:37

In this episode, Jeff Salzman and Ankur Delight look at some of the questions involving the emerging workplace: Will artificial intelligence be able to create? How do we integrate the goals of achievement and growth with the goals of equity and sustainability? What is the role of people who can’t or won’t fit into the system?…

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Maher, Musk & the Woke Mind Virus 49:32

2+ y ago49:32

49:32

Hey folks, As integral practitioners, we have insights that help us harmonize cultural polarities, which is why it’s too bad Bill Maher didn’t invite me on his recent show with Elon Musk where they decried the “woke mind virus”. Woke is the activist/fanatic arm of the emerging mass culture of postmodernity. Every stage of human development has acti…

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Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon & the Evolution of the News 40:26

2+ y ago40:26

40:26

A brand new iteration of “This Week in the News”. Ankur Delight, who hosts one of my favorite podcasts, 10,000 Heroes, joins me to bring an integral take to the headlines of the week. This week, we look at the big shakeup in the mainstream news media. Days ago, and within an hour of each other, Fox News and CNN fired two of their biggest stars: Tuc…

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Peter Zeihan And The Missing Piece In Public Discourse 46:30

2+ y ago46:30

46:30

Hey folks, This week I look at a rising star in the mainstream commentariat: Peter Zeihan. To me he is a good example of a proto-integral thinker in that he is a master synthesizer, weaving compelling narratives about our world that include economics, demography, geography, politics and history. He gives me a far more integrated understanding of a …

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Chatbot’s Paean to Integral & Trump Goes to Court 53:49

2+ y ago53:49

53:49

This week I look at the hubbub surrounding the introduction of large language chatbots, the latest evolutionarily-potent development in artificial intelligence. A long-time listener asked ChatGPT to write a poem expressing Ken Wilber’s developmental stages. The result (below) is mind-blowing. How is it possible for a machine to create three verses …

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What Integral Brings to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - Guest: Diane Musho Hamilton 44:37

2+ y ago44:37

44:37

The DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) movement is one of the leading edges of cultural evolution, installing green postmodern values which in part seek to correct hidden power imbalances regarding race, gender and identity in American institutions. My guest today is Diane Musho Hamilton, who has been on the front lines of the DEI movement for o…

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Green Art, Stage Debate, Ukraine/Russia - Fireside Chats with Jeff Salzman 52:27

2+ y ago52:27

52:27

Hey Folks, In this Daily Evolver I explore a variety of topics: A telling difference between green art and integral art – Learn more about the Lost Birds music here. Yes, stages exist but maybe the spiral is spiked Traditionalism’s hot war on modernity in Ukraine Ghosts: an integrally-flavored tv comedy! This episode is recorded from the live “Fire…

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Brad DeLong: Are We Slouching Toward Utopia? 1:15:59

2+ y ago1:15:59

1:15:59

Too often, the questions that we ask about our own time-period reflect a limited understanding of history. For example, consider the question: why is there still poverty and inequality? It’s a worthy question, but an even better one might be: How did so many societies, against all odds and without historical precedent, escape poverty and become wea…

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Steve McIntosh: Does Human Nature Evolve? 1:15:06

2+ y ago1:15:06

1:15:06

Steve McIntosh is already a regular guest on this podcast, and that’s no accident. Steve and I have been collaborating for many years, and we even cofounded the Institute for Cultural Evolution almost a decade ago. Steve is the President of the think tank and continues to build it, even as he releases important intellectual content, including his w…

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AVATAR, BROS AND OUR SKIN - Where Woke Goes Right and Wrong 36:04

2+ y ago36:04

36:04

In this episode, I take a look at three cultural artifacts that present worldcentric ideals of sustainability, egalitarianism and gender fluidity through an ethnocentric lens of good versus evil: Avatar: The Way of Water – James Cameron’s latest movie in his great green myth of Pandora, a pristine planet attacked by modernity (and a few pre-trans f…

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Integral Conversations: Culture Wars and Human Progress with Jeff Salzman 1:37:12

3y ago1:37:12

1:37:12

As my regular listeners will know, I’m deeply influenced by the perspective known as Integral philosophy, and in particular, the insights it affords us into how human culture has evolved—and is still evolving today. This perspective informs the conversations I have on this podcast, to one degree or another. But every now and again, I get the opport…

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Elon Musk: Spiral Wizard? - An Integral Take on the Multi-Dimensional Man 43:19

3y ago43:19

43:19

In this episode, I analyze Elon Musk through the lens of developmental theory, which maps the “spiral of worldview evolution” within people and cultures. There are three major worldviews currently in contention in our culture: Traditional (order and conformity), Modern (secular and rational), Postmodern (sensitive and egalitarian). They all have go…

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Edward Chancellor: Money, Financial Bubbles, and the Price of Time 1:15:16

3y ago1:15:16

1:15:16

Inflation. Recession. Bubbles. Interest rates. Sovereign debt crisis. Today, everyone’s financial portfolio is falling and that makes people upset about markets and economics. But being angry or frustrated about the market is easy, understanding how and why we arrived at this point is much more challenging. I was recently helped along in my journey…

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Tom Mustill: How to Speak Whale 1:21:29

3y ago1:21:29

1:21:29

What would you do if a whale landed on top of you—and you lived to tell the tale? That’s exactly what happened to wildlife biologist and filmmaker Tom Mustill in 2015, when a breaching humpback whale came crashing down on his kayak in California’s Monterey Bay—an event that was caught on video and quickly went viral. And what Tom did was to embark …

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Diana Pasulka: Religion, UFOs, and the Experience of the Uncanny 1:19:36

3y ago1:19:36

1:19:36

In the 2019 book American Cosmic, scholar Diana Pasulka offers a surprising and original perspective on one of my favorite topics: UFOs. She proposes that UFOs and the obsession with them has become a type of post-secular religion. She even shows that modern accounts of UFO encounters closely resemble religious visions of yesteryear. But one of the…

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Transgenderism and Abortion 1:10:05

3y ago1:10:05

1:10:05

In this episode, Dr. Keith and I take on two hot-button issues in the culture wars, each of us coming up on different sides of key issues. Hopefully our disagreements will be as illuminating to you as they were to us. Transgenderism: The ever-increasing awareness and practice of gender fluidity, particularly among young people, is fueling the cultu…

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The Enchantment of Science 1:02:54

3y ago1:02:54

1:02:54

In this episode, Dr. Keith and I notice a growing attempt in the culture to bring meaning and purpose into the realms of science. We focus on English scientist Rupert Sheldrake, who argues that “science should be set free” from the boundaries of mechanistic materialism. Sheldrake is well known for his theory of the morphic field, an evolving collec…

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The Three Sources of Suffering 1:02:44

3y ago1:02:44

1:02:44

There are at least three distinct sources of human suffering, all related, and none reducible to the others. They are: Nature—the unique combinations of temperaments and constitutional strengths and weaknesses that each of us is born with. Trauma—the Big T and small t traumas that are ubiquitous in human development, and which leave us more sensiti…

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HEXACO: The Quality that Leverages All Others 1:06:09

3y ago1:06:09

1:06:09

Dr. Keith and I marvel at an exciting new (to us) typology system developed by Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton: the HEXACO system. Lee and Ashton researched the popular 5-factor system and identified a new human trait, honesty/humility, which determines the adaptiveness and social worth of the other five. Briefly, the HEXACO factors are: H—honesty/hu…

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Playing and Fighting: The Keys to Sociability 1:44

3y ago1:44

1:44

In this episode, Keith introduces me to his theory of human sociability. As he sees it, human relationships can be seen on a spectrum of playing and fighting. Playing is a cooperative activity with an agreed-upon set of rules. Sometimes play is pure fun, and sometimes winning/losing dynamics are painful. But any engaged activity under an external s…

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Meredith Angwin: Energy, Carbon, and the Growing Fragility of our National Grid 1:11:11

3y ago1:11:11

1:11:11

When we think about energy, we often forget one critical element—the grid. Most of us depend every day on our national grid to supply the energy we need for our life and work. And our need for electricity continues to grow and is likely to increase further over the coming years with, among other things, the move to electric vehicles. So how do we b…

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Christopher Leonard: Did the Fed and Easy Money Break the American Economy? 1:29:40

3y ago1:29:40

1:29:40

If you’ve followed this podcast for a while, you’ll know that I’m something of an economics nerd, and occasionally I indulge this passion by choosing guests who can offer insight into our past, present, and future through a financial lens. I was particularly excited to speak with journalist and author Christopher Leonard because he speaks to issues…

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Integral Conference: What’s the Future (WTF?) - A visit with conference hosts Lynn and Jose Fuentes 22:29

3y ago22:29

22:29

In this short episode, I am joined by Jose and Lynn Fuentes, who are producing an exciting conference for the integral community this November in Sedona, Arizona. The event is called Integral: What’s the Future and What Can We Do About It? It is designed in the spirit of a lineage of powerful gatherings that I (and perhaps you) participated in many…