Seeing the Bigger Picture: psychedelics and sense-making with Alexander Beiner of Kainos

How do we shed the shackles of modernity and step into a new set of stories that could help us grow into the fullness of our potential?

Alexander Beiner is one of a small band of people in our culture who is shaping the cutting edge of possibility, crafting new ideas of who we are, at the deepest levels of our Self and out into the widest view of our place as conscious nodes in the web of life.
Ali is an author, journalist and facilitator focused on bringing new ways of seeing and being from the margins of culture into the mainstream, through writing, and by creating transformative experiences that invite us to find ways to evolve and thrive in the chaotic times we live in. He's the author of The Bigger Picture: How psychedelics can help us make sense of the world that details his part in a psychedelic clinical trial that took him deep into what it is to be human and he has recently launched Kainos, an alternative media platform and studio on both Substack and YouTube. He says of it, 'in an age of upheaval, we tell stories that help people make sense of the world and imagine new futures. Our films, articles and experiences combine cultural sensemaking with hope, imagination and impact.'

He's an executive director of Breaking Convention, Europe's longest-running conference on psychedelic medicine and culture and was also one of the founders of Rebel Wisdom, which ran from 2017-2022 and explored the cutting-edge of systems change and cultural sensemaking.

This is where we need to be: the edge place where spirituality meets psychology and mythology, where culture meets politics meets our desperate yearning to grow up and become the good enough ancestors we know we can be.  We need path-finders, people who have the courage to stretch out beyond the edges of our being and Alexander is so clearly one of these - his explorations of what makes us human in the psychedelic realm merge with his documentary making and Kainos takes up where Rebel Wisdom left off, delving deeply into the nature of the moment and how we might become more than we are.  This was a genuinely inspiring conversation in a series that I hope is helping you to make sense of these times, to accept that the old system is gone and that something truly generative could arise - if we all take part in its making. 

Alexander Beiner website https://www.alexanderbeiner.com/
Kainos on Substack https://beiner.substack.com/
Alexander on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-beiner-b9aa8b19/
Kainos on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@StudioKainos

Books mentioned
Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Some
The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker