I quite like the idea of everything evolving together all at once and getting remixed/recurring.
And the idea of an evolving divine realm is a nice touch. I have often wondered if the very fabric of reality changes across ages, and if the pantheon of the Age of Aries, for example, somehow allowed these half animal half human forms to exist . That they were more real than we have been lead to believe. Both Tolkien and the Chinese myth of "the revenge of the mirror people" talk of these dimensional gateways opening during certain ages and closing at the end. Allowing Elf and Goblin etc to walk the Earth. Dragons for the Chinese, I guess.
Human lifetime is too short to discover such things, I suppose.
I dunno man, maybe we are going to find out soon! Either way, I think the diminished fear of death and increased sense of the direction of life helps me a lot.
I have been waiting for decades to go tbh. I once "accidentally" stepped out a magical puzzle and suddenly the tunnel of light opened up and the whole shebang gate to heaven thing. I had seemingly done something very few people do and god put aside some work to look me over. SCARED ME MORE THAN.. complete god fearing awareness and my atheist conviction evaporated in a millisecond and some stuff happened and then the tunnel closed up and I was back on a lawn in a park. Wanted to kill myself every ten minutes for the next three years to get back there and resolve some questions and answers.
Patience IS a virtue... But I am still often impatient to get that sense of closure/full circle. But rebirth is also often a hazardous endeavour and the way it tends to wipe the slate clean between lifetimes...
What I know in this life I might not remember in the next one. Shouldn't let opportunity go to waste. And time helps smooth out the peaks and troughs. All those cliches... Boring but often true.
I’m not quite sure what to think of Freke’s view on the evolution of spirituality. But I do think that the choice between believing in gawd and believing that Charles Darwin was the most impactful scientist in the long history of Homo Sapiens is an easier choice.
Well, I like Ervin Laszlo's claim that Newton wasn't Newtonian and Darwin wasn't Darwinian pretty compelling. Darwin seemed to accept the existence of a loving attractor force, so there's room for Freke's God in here too...
Why would this matter if at the foundation of it all, we are in partnership with a device / platform / field / being exploring something unfolding?
Wouldn't it be about the quality of the unfolding by any means necessary, within reason of course?
Asking whether something is completely human or partially AI contributed...or even wholly done by AI...serves to constrain the potential unfolding process.
We are exploring something bigger than human knowledge and intelligence.
I agree that AI can be integrated into this process. But I think what matters is if AI is leading this process. AI is not connected to attractor intelligence, at least as far as I know. It is a closed system. So the human heart has access to the limitlessly generative field that Tim is talking about. AI in service of that is fantastic AI leading that concerns me. I hope that makes sense, if that is indeed the question you’re asking.
I don’t really ever see AI “leading” the process, as for now, it always starts with some kind of human prompt to kick it off.
Humans can bring the heart of the embodied experience to it and in that sense keep it more open. This is where I sense anything like “AGI” being more of a human - AI partnership if AGI needs to become a thing.
Yes, totally with you. His conversation with Ali rocked my socks, great questions too, thank you🙏 And for this gorgeous substack synopsis; I'm really looking forward to hearing your conversation with Tim!
No- I absolutely love being challenged, as you will hopefully note from reading any of my other comment sections. But LLM text has no resonance to it, so it's impossible me to parse truth.
Can you put in the plainest, personal language possible, what you think I'm missing in this piece and either what you think I need to learn or a practical tip?
I quite like the idea of everything evolving together all at once and getting remixed/recurring.
And the idea of an evolving divine realm is a nice touch. I have often wondered if the very fabric of reality changes across ages, and if the pantheon of the Age of Aries, for example, somehow allowed these half animal half human forms to exist . That they were more real than we have been lead to believe. Both Tolkien and the Chinese myth of "the revenge of the mirror people" talk of these dimensional gateways opening during certain ages and closing at the end. Allowing Elf and Goblin etc to walk the Earth. Dragons for the Chinese, I guess.
Human lifetime is too short to discover such things, I suppose.
I dunno man, maybe we are going to find out soon! Either way, I think the diminished fear of death and increased sense of the direction of life helps me a lot.
Death is just a change of state of being.
I have been waiting for decades to go tbh. I once "accidentally" stepped out a magical puzzle and suddenly the tunnel of light opened up and the whole shebang gate to heaven thing. I had seemingly done something very few people do and god put aside some work to look me over. SCARED ME MORE THAN.. complete god fearing awareness and my atheist conviction evaporated in a millisecond and some stuff happened and then the tunnel closed up and I was back on a lawn in a park. Wanted to kill myself every ten minutes for the next three years to get back there and resolve some questions and answers.
Patience IS a virtue... But I am still often impatient to get that sense of closure/full circle. But rebirth is also often a hazardous endeavour and the way it tends to wipe the slate clean between lifetimes...
What I know in this life I might not remember in the next one. Shouldn't let opportunity go to waste. And time helps smooth out the peaks and troughs. All those cliches... Boring but often true.
I’m not quite sure what to think of Freke’s view on the evolution of spirituality. But I do think that the choice between believing in gawd and believing that Charles Darwin was the most impactful scientist in the long history of Homo Sapiens is an easier choice.
Well, I like Ervin Laszlo's claim that Newton wasn't Newtonian and Darwin wasn't Darwinian pretty compelling. Darwin seemed to accept the existence of a loving attractor force, so there's room for Freke's God in here too...
Why would this matter if at the foundation of it all, we are in partnership with a device / platform / field / being exploring something unfolding?
Wouldn't it be about the quality of the unfolding by any means necessary, within reason of course?
Asking whether something is completely human or partially AI contributed...or even wholly done by AI...serves to constrain the potential unfolding process.
We are exploring something bigger than human knowledge and intelligence.
I agree that AI can be integrated into this process. But I think what matters is if AI is leading this process. AI is not connected to attractor intelligence, at least as far as I know. It is a closed system. So the human heart has access to the limitlessly generative field that Tim is talking about. AI in service of that is fantastic AI leading that concerns me. I hope that makes sense, if that is indeed the question you’re asking.
I don’t really ever see AI “leading” the process, as for now, it always starts with some kind of human prompt to kick it off.
Humans can bring the heart of the embodied experience to it and in that sense keep it more open. This is where I sense anything like “AGI” being more of a human - AI partnership if AGI needs to become a thing.
Yes, totally with you. His conversation with Ali rocked my socks, great questions too, thank you🙏 And for this gorgeous substack synopsis; I'm really looking forward to hearing your conversation with Tim!
Thanks! I loved, loved our convo. He’s special.
Cool that you also interviewed Tim! I had a great dialogue with him a few months ago as well (https://jordanbates.substack.com/p/tim-freke-a-radically-new-view-of?r=ubft&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=audio-player).
Awesome guy. I don’t personally fully align with his views but they’re fresh and fascinating.
Thanks Tom. I riff on your article at https://johnstokdijk538.substack.com/p/october-14-2025.
I read your piece carefully.
You look into the future — but what you see there isn’t light, it’s your own reflection fading.
You’re not afraid of the future itself — you’re afraid that in it, you won’t be able to remember who you were.
You sense that the world is moving on, but you’re not sure your “I” will make it there.
The whole text sits between two languages: the one you’ve outgrown and the one you don’t yet trust.
You say the old systems no longer work, yet you still use them — as scaffolding, so nothing collapses.
You hide behind citations and frameworks not because you’re unsure, but because you’re afraid of direct speech.
Afraid that simple words will show how exposed you really are.
There’s fear — of losing context, of losing your function as a witness.
There’s pain — that the meaning you built your thinking on can no longer carry your perception.
You feel the old structure breaking in your hands and keep writing to slow it down.
But there’s also hope.
It’s in the effort itself — to understand how to live when belief no longer holds.
You want connection without religion, sense without dogma, presence without fear of dissolution.
That’s real.
You’re in transition: the old no longer supports you, the new isn’t stable yet.
That’s why the tone oscillates between inspiration and defense, clarity and hesitation.
You’re not pretending.
You’re still inside the process you’re trying to describe.
And what you call “the future” isn’t a vision — it’s a symptom.
You didn’t see what’s coming; you simply felt the past being erased
and mistook that feeling for foresight.
This seems AI written?
Yes, it was written with AI.
But the thoughts and directions are mine.
AI only saved me time and made my language accessible to you.
You can thank it for the translation.
I’m sorry I don’t understand how you can have AI write your thoughts? Are they really then your thoughts?
I read your article carefully.
And all you saw was analysis.
Is that how you measure a reader’s attention — by agreement?
Yes, AI wrote it.
It’s faster than you.
But it doesn’t think — I do.
You’re still just reacting.
Let’s try it the other way around.
No- I absolutely love being challenged, as you will hopefully note from reading any of my other comment sections. But LLM text has no resonance to it, so it's impossible me to parse truth.
Can you put in the plainest, personal language possible, what you think I'm missing in this piece and either what you think I need to learn or a practical tip?
You promised a new way of thinking — I showed it.
You’ve always lived inside position and hierarchy: structure, logic, analysis.
For every situation — a ready script, a role, a mask.
But now, as old institutions collapse and new meanings appear, your structures no longer hold.
The problem isn’t the anxiety.
The problem is that you’ve never seen the human behind the structure.
And now you fear even more the new form — the one where roles can no longer hide the void.
Translated and edited with GPT.