Episode 436 - In the River of Time

Living Myth

Michael Meade

Transformation, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Genius, Education, Myth, Soul, Culture

4.9 • 944 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode of Living Myth begins with recent scientific reports which seek to explain why humans may be inclined to put their trust in leaders who claim to be strong and omniscient and will submit to those who are manipulative and deceitful. Studies in anthropology and psychology reveal age-old biases that lead people to believe what others believe in order to “fit in” and idealize and imitate those who appear to be highly successful.

These “hardwired” biases become activated during times of radical change and become amplified when collective levels of uncertainty and fear increase. The modern use of vast digital networks that can unleash floods of disinformation and falsehoods provokes the age-old fears and biases that can manipulate entire societies. The use of mass methods of communication are just the latest tactics in the long history of humanity's struggles over truth and trust and the willful misuse of power in ways that benefit the few at the expense of the overall community.

Michael Meade invokes the old idea that timeless problems can only be solved with timeless solutions. In order to avoid being overwhelmed by uncertainty and confusion we must look, not to the contemporary mainstream of life, but to the timeless streams of myth and imagination. As the fabric of life becomes frayed and time seems to be running out, timeless things that can alter the course of history try to slip back into human awareness. Despite our fears and misleading biases, we are also the inheritors of the capacity of the human soul to imagine a more unified world and find ways to reconnect to life’s innate capacity to transform and renew from within, precisely when all seems about to be lost.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining him for two upcoming events: his free online event “Surviving Uncertainty by Growing Your Soul” on Thursday, May 22 and his new online workshop “Paths of Awakening in Uncertain Times” on Saturday, June 14.

You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 675 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles.

Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well and thank you for your support of our work.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Living Myth podcast with Michael Mead,
0:15.0	where this shifting, changing world is looked at from a mythic perspective. This episode begins with recent scientific reports, which seek to explain why humans may be inclined to put their trust in leaders
0:29.6	who claim to be strong and omniscient, and will submit to those who are manipulative and deceitful. Studies in anthropology and psychology reveal
0:40.3	age-old biases that lead people to believe what others believe in order to fit in and
0:48.3	idealize and imitate those who appear to be highly successful. These hard-wired biases become activated during times of radical change,
0:58.0	and become amplified when collective levels of uncertainty and fear increase.
1:03.0	Mead invokes the old idea that timeless problems can only be solved with timeless solutions. In order to avoid being overwhelmed by
1:12.7	uncertainty and confusion, we must look, not to the contemporary mainstream of life, but to the
1:19.7	timeless streams of myth and imagination. I tend to read modern research papers and scientific reports, both to see what new ideas might be forming,
1:45.9	but also to make note of what old ideas and ancient understandings are being forgotten.
1:55.7	Recent research reports in Britain suggest that more than half of those between the ages of 13 and 27
2:04.5	would prefer the United Kingdom to be an authoritarian dictatorship. That result shocked a lot of
2:13.5	people already concerned about the rising threat of autocracy across the world.
2:19.4	The report went on to describe how the way that humans evolved predisposes us to place our trust
2:27.7	in those who appear strong and claim to be powerful, and also in those who are opportunistic and even manipulative
2:37.0	and Machiavellian. Recent ideas in anthropology and primatology argue that these tendencies
2:47.0	developed because our ancestors, like most primates today, lived in groups that were dominated
2:55.9	by aggressive alpha males. They also conclude that another part of our inner wiring evolved to
3:06.7	counter and limit the influence of the strong man type
3:11.9	as humans learned to cooperate with each other and organize together.
3:18.0	Of course, since every development has its shadow side,
3:22.9	the researchers point to another set of features
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Meade, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Meade and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.