The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Meaning Crisis 🗺️

Plant Medicine, Meaning 3.0, and the Roadmap to Reclaiming Our Future

It’s known by many names…

Moloch. The Meta-Crisis. Complex systems collapse. Infinite growth on a finite planet. Coordination failure. Tragedy of the commons. Reptilian overlords. 

Some call it the Meaning Crisis. 

While each term points to something unique, they fuse underneath a broad, ambiguous, nebulous feeling that something is not going the way it should be.

You may feel this in your own life now.

Those quiet moments in between distractions, when the numbness wears off and you’re hit with the chaotic clarity that something deeply disturbing is afoot.

The collective psyche feels it too.

How many people believe the ‘progress’ narrative at this point? Where are the stories of wonder, hope, and inspiration? Where is the safe home for you to return to lay your head at night? Where are the brothers and sisters who have your back, who help raise your children, who attend equally to your needs?

Somewhere along the way these have been lost. 

And with it, our sense of meaning.

We find ourselves in a crisis of meaning.

What is the way through? What am I to do? How can I address this in my own life, and maybe, just hopefully, try to help others address it in their lives too?

Jamie Wheal—founder of the Flow Genome Project and best known for his work on harnessing flow states—proposes an elegant antidote in his book Recapture the Rapture: Meaning 3.0.

Meaning 3.0 is the antidote and the evolution.

The video below with Jamie is a fantastic overview.

Meaning 1.0, 2.0, 3.0.

The sources of stability, structure, and collective meaning of our past have gone haywire, dissolving into irrelevancy, or worse, mutating in ways that no longer serve our collective psycho-spiritual needs.

Meaning 1.0 was top-down, centralized, traditional, organized religion.

Meaning 2.0 was bottom-up, decentralized, modern liberalism. 

We no longer turn to these as readily as we once did. We no longer find enduring value from them. And filling the void are the bi-polar answers of increasing fundamentalism or devastating nihilism. Neither of these are sustainable solutions.

So what are we to do? Where are we to go? Where is Meaning 3.0?

Wheal argues that Meaning 3.0 is to be found in a flywheel effect of 3 core pillars: ecstasis, catharsis, and communitas.

These core human needs—metaphysical hope and inspiration, deep healing and witnessing, and profound connection with other humans—are what Meaning 1.0 and 2.0 gave us, and it is these shoes that we need to fill. 

Plant medicine work, particularly intentional retreats, are among the most potent experiences I’ve found that work on all 3 of these simultaneously.

Plant medicine retreats often offer:

• Transcendent experiences of inspiration, awakening, and passion.

• Deep psycho-somatic healing of trauma, physical, mental, or emotional ailments.

• Profound witnessing and human connection with other like-minded, brave souls.

• The clarity, rest, and spaciousness needed to define and enter the next chapter of life.

Your task is to tinker with the Meaning 3.0 Toolkit.

Tweak the dials of inspiration, healing, and community, find what works for you, and tell the rest of us about it.

Clean your wounds. Find your purpose. Pursue it with passion. Get support from real relationships. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Over time, momentum and meaning are built in ways you can’t even begin to imagine. Even better, engage with the communities of practice, the tribes already implementing and experimenting with these.

You don’t have to do it alone.

I know it feels overwhelming to start on work like this by yourself. It was for me. But over the years, I’ve crafted practices and techniques that have allowed me to integrate my shadows, clean my wounds, rise into leadership, and pursue my dreams with earnest ambition.

I’ve created the protocols used by the largest psychedelic therapy company on the planet, and crafted intimate experiences that have helped hundreds of beautiful humans reclaim their power, purpose, and passion.

It is possible. And we’ll take it one step further:

We have built the core Apotheosis curriculum on top of these 3 pillars.

Over 8-weeks together—including one week in the Mayan jungle for our signature in-person plant medicine retreat—we are providing the playbooks, systems, activities, and exercises to build your own Meaning 3.0 toolkit.

We equip you with the skills, resources, and ideas necessary to build an unshakeable foundation of meaning in your own life and help you become a pillar of strength, support, and inspiration in your community and for those around you.

If you are ready to address the Meaning Crisis head-on, and if you are excited about seriously playing the game of personal evolution, I invite you to join us. 

We are already 50% full for the upcoming retreat in November.

There is still time. If you have a spark of curiosity and excitement, I encourage you to apply and get on a no-obligation discovery call.

You never know, it might be the beginning of something meaningful.

Over the next week, I’ll dig into these 3 pillars in more detail, and give you a few activities you can do on your own, immediately.

With love and power,
Eric Brown & the Apotheosis team.