HS 113 - Wetiko: The Greatest Epidemic Sickness Known to Humanity with Paul Levy

Jason Hartman interviews author and artist, Paul Levy, regarding his intense experience with what was deemed bi-polar mental illness, his spiritual awakening, and the journey to free himself from the psychiatric world.  Wetiko is an indigenous term used by Native Americans to describe spiritual evil. Due to an intense personal trauma suffered a few years before, Paul had a life-changing spiritual awakening in 1981 that was misdiagnosed as a chemical imbalance and manic-depressive (bi-polar) illness. He was hospitalized numerous times and told he was having a severe psychotic breakdown and would have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. Paul explains how he became aware that, indeed, he was not suffering from a mental illness, but a spiritual awakening (Wetiko) and found spiritual teachers that helped him through his spiritual breakthrough. For more about his amazing story, listen at:  www.HolisticSurvival.com. Paul talks about one of the chapters in his book, “Vampire Squid Economics,” which he describes as a perfect symbol of what happens when Wetiko gets into business. An artist, after the trauma of his shamanic break-down/through, he became a certified art teacher. Due to his intense interest in the work of C. G. Jung, by the end of the decade he found himself the manager of the C. G. Jung Foundation Book Service in New York, as well as the advertising manager for the Jungian journal Quadrant. In the fall of 1990, he moved to Portland, Oregon. In 1993, after many years of struggling to contain and integrate his non-ordinary experiences, Paul started to openly share his insights about the dream-like nature of reality. He began giving talks and facilitating groups based on how life is a shared waking dream that we are all co-creating and co-dreaming together. He is the founder of the ‘Awakening in the Dream’ Community in Portland, Oregon. He facilitates a number of ‘Awakening in the Dream Groups’ every week, which are groups of people who are awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality who are realizing that they can come together in a way that helps everyone deepen and stabilize their lucidity even further. A wounded healer in private practice, he assists others who are also awakening to the dream-like nature of reality. Paul is a pioneer in the field of spiritual emergence. A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for over 30 years, he has intimately studied with some of the greatest spiritual masters of Tibet and Burma. He is the author of The Madness of George Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis. Paul’s website is www.awakeninthedream.com.