In this conversation with philosopher Robert M. Ellis, we explore the Middle Way and its surprising overlap with the Third Attractor. Robert describes the Middle Way not as compromise or simply finding a position between two extremes, but as a practical way of avoiding absolutism, widening our perspective and remaining open to reframing our assumptions. We talk about judgment and optionality, the relationship between individual and collective change, ethics, archetypes, metaphysics, and the challenge of acting decisively without turning our beliefs into absolutes. We also explore where Robert and I disagree, particularly around metaphysics, while arriving at remarkably similar conclusions about how we might navigate an uncertain future. And towards the end, we turn to AI and Robert’s deep concerns about its impact on human thinking and our collective future.Robert M. Ellis is a British philosopher, founder of the Middle Way Society and originator of Middle Way Philosophy, a cross-disciplinary account of judgement under uncertainty drawing on Western philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and systems theory as well as Buddhist practice. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Lancaster, spent twenty years as an ordained Buddhist before leaving the tradition, and is the author of Absolutization, The Five Principles of Middle Way Philosophy, The Buddha's Middle Way and The Christian Middle Way. He runs Tirylan House Retreat Centre in Wales.https://www.robertmellis.net/Daniela Bomatter is a Swiss-born evolutionary practitioner, facilitator, and former technology executive whose life bridges the worlds of systems transformation, spiritual awakening, and human development. After a successful career in software engineering and leadership, including serving as CEO of SwissEnergy at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, she left public life in 2016 to dedicate herself fully to the path of spiritual realization and conscious evolution. For seventeen years, she studied and worked closely with spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen, becoming a senior practitioner and teacher of Evolutionary Enlightenment.Daniela is the co-founder of Manifest Nirvana (https://www.manifest-nirvana.com) and lives in Tiruvannamalai, South India, where she leads retreats, online programs, and global dialogues exploring the intersection of awakening, culture, and collective transformation. She is the creator of the “Co-Creating the Third Attractor” Podcast (https://3da.manifest-nirvana.com ) , a integral inquiry into the future of human civilization, and the author of The Viratya Myth Begins (https://www.viratya.com). Through her writing, teaching, and conversations, Daniela invites people to discover a way of being that embraces both timeless presence and evolutionary becoming, holding the paradoxes of our age with depth, responsibility, and wonder.
Discover the Third Attractor with Jenny Andersson and learn how we can align human activity with ecological boundaries.Jenny Andersson, founder of The Really Regenerative Centre, joins this conversation to discuss the practical shifts required for a sustainable future. We examine how shifting our focus toward regenerative leadership and bioregionalism allows communities to steward their own places effectively. By prioritizing ecological boundaries over traditional political lines, we can start building a future grounded in wholeness.This dialogue explores the Third Attractor as a vision already being seeded through local experiments. We look at how new economic models can move us beyond competition, emphasizing the inner development needed alongside outer structural changes. This is an invitation to consider how your own community can participate in this necessary collective evolution.Subscribe for weekly explorations into systems thinking, and share one aspect of regenerative living you are curious about below.Jenny Andersson is the founder and director of The Really Regenerative Centre, which she launched in 2020 after thirty years in international development, brand strategy, communications and sustainability design. She designs learning journeys on regenerative leadership, economics and bioregionalism for organisations, municipalities and communities, working from the premise that human activity should be organised around ecological boundaries rather than political ones. She led a global inquiry for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation into what allows communities to steward the regeneration of their own places. She holds an MBA from London Business School and an MSc in Psychology, is a qualified Regenesis Regenerative Practitioner, and was a founding member of the design team for Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics Action Lab. Her place is Midhurst, Sussex.https://reallyregenerative.org/Daniela Bomatter is a Swiss-born evolutionary practitioner, facilitator, and former technology executive whose life bridges the worlds of systems transformation, spiritual awakening, and human development. After a successful career in software engineering and leadership, including serving as CEO of SwissEnergy at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, she left public life in 2016 to dedicate herself fully to the path of spiritual realization and conscious evolution. For seventeen years, she studied and worked closely with spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen, becoming a senior practitioner and teacher of Evolutionary Enlightenment.Daniela is the co-founder of Manifest Nirvana (https://www.manifest-nirvana.com) and lives in Tiruvannamalai, South India, where she leads retreats, online programs, and global dialogues exploring the intersection of awakening, culture, and collective transformation. She is the creator of the “Co-Creating the Third Attractor” Podcast (https://3da.manifest-nirvana.com ) , a integral inquiry into the future of human civilization, and the author of The Viratya Myth Begins (https://www.viratya.com). Through her writing, teaching, and conversations, Daniela invites people to discover a way of being that embraces both timeless presence and evolutionary becoming, holding the paradoxes of our age with depth, responsibility, and wonder.
What does it take to build a truly pro-social world?In this conversation, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson brings Darwinian evolution into dialogue with the vision of the Third Attractor. We explore why cooperation is one of evolution’s greatest achievements, why good intentions alone are not enough, and how groups can create the conditions that allow people to work together for the common good.Drawing on multilevel selection and Elinor Ostrom’s groundbreaking work on the commons, David explains the core principles that enable groups to become cooperative, resilient and self-governing. We also explore the relationship between inner transformation and social structures, the limits of individualism, and how cooperation might expand from small groups to communities, nations and ultimately the whole planet.At the heart of the conversation is a hopeful possibility: perhaps a more pro-social future does not need to remain a utopian ideal. We already know a great deal about the conditions that make cooperation possible. The challenge is to begin putting them into practice.0:00 Co-creating a Pro-Social World5:29 Bridging Inner States and Outer Actions9:06 Tracing Intellectual and Spiritual Lineages15:44 The Evolutionary Biologist's Perspective22:24 Respecting Indigenous Wisdom26:34 Understanding the WEIRD Cultural Bias37:56 The Evolutionary Dilemma of Altruism48:38 Elinor Ostrom and the Commons1:12:30 A Blueprint for Global Flourishingabout David Sloan WilsonDavid Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University, where he taught from 1988 until his retirement in 2019. He is the leading proponent of multilevel selection theory, developed with philosopher Elliott Sober in their book "Unto Others," which argues that natural selection operates on a nested hierarchy of units: genes within individuals, individuals within groups, groups within populations. Cooperation, on this account, is a real evolutionary outcome rather than disguised self-interest, but it survives only where the conditions at the higher level hold. He founded the Evolutionary Studies program at Binghamton to unify disciplines under evolutionary theory, and co-founded the Evolution Institute and Prosocial World, which applies multilevel selection alongside Elinor Ostrom's design principles to help real groups function as cooperative units. His books include "Evolution for Everyone" and "Atlas Hugged."https://davidsloanwilson.worldhttps://www.prosocial.worldabout Daniela BomatterDaniela Bomatter is a Swiss-born evolutionary practitioner, facilitator, and former technology executive whose life bridges the worlds of systems transformation, spiritual awakening, and human development. After a successful career in software engineering and leadership, including serving as CEO of SwissEnergy at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, she left public life in 2016 to dedicate herself fully to the path of spiritual realization and conscious evolution. For seventeen years, she studied and worked closely with spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen, becoming a senior practitioner and teacher of Evolutionary Enlightenment.Daniela is the co-founder of Manifest Nirvana (https://www.manifest-nirvana.com) and lives in Tiruvannamalai, South India, where she leads retreats, online programs, and global dialogues exploring the intersection of awakening, culture, and collective transformation. She is the creator of the “Co-Creating the Third Attractor” Podcast (https://3da.manifest-nirvana.com ) , a integral inquiry into the future of human civilization, and the author of The Viratya Myth Begins (https://www.viratya.com). Through her writing, teaching, and conversations, Daniela invites people to discover a way of being that embraces both timeless presence and evolutionary becoming, holding the paradoxes of our age with depth, responsibility, and wonder.
What if consciousness is not produced by the universe, but is the ground from which the universe emerges?In this conversation, physicist and author James B. Glattfelder explores ideas from The Sapient Cosmos: the “will to complexity,” consciousness as fundamental, and evolution as a movement toward greater awareness. We talk about idealism, psychedelics and non-ordinary states, quantum physics, AI and consciousness, and what it could mean to live in a participatory universe.At the heart of our conversation is a hopeful possibility: that the future is not simply something that happens to us. By recognizing our interconnectedness, taking responsibility, and learning to listen more deeply, we may become conscious participants in an evolutionary process that is still unfolding.James B. Glattfelder is a theoretical physicist turned complexity scientist, with an M.Sc. in theoretical physics and a Ph.D. in complex systems, both from ETH Zurich. In 2011 he co-authored "The Network of Global Corporate Control," which mapped ownership across some 43,000 transnational corporations and identified a small cluster of firms, mostly banks, holding disproportionate influence over the global economy. He spent sixteen years in finance and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich. His books include "Decoding Complexity," "Information, Consciousness, Reality," and "The Sapient Cosmos," which argue that the ontology of reality is information-theoretic and participatory, and that physicalism was a metaphysical choice rather than a scientific finding. He lives in Zurich.https://jth.ch/jbgDaniela Bomatter is a Swiss-born evolutionary practitioner, facilitator, and former technology executive whose life bridges the worlds of systems transformation, spiritual awakening, and human development. After a successful career in software engineering and leadership, including serving as CEO of SwissEnergy at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, she left public life in 2016 to dedicate herself fully to the path of spiritual realization and conscious evolution. For seventeen years, she studied and worked closely with spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen, becoming a senior practitioner and teacher of Evolutionary Enlightenment.Daniela is the co-founder of Manifest Nirvana (https://www.manifest-nirvana.com) and lives in Tiruvannamalai, South India, where she leads retreats, online programs, and global dialogues exploring the intersection of awakening, culture, and collective transformation. She is the creator of the “Co-Creating the Third Attractor” Podcast (https://3da.manifest-nirvana.com ) , a integral inquiry into the future of human civilization, and the author of The Viratya Myth Begins (https://www.viratya.com). Through her writing, teaching, and conversations, Daniela invites people to discover a way of being that embraces both timeless presence and evolutionary becoming, holding the paradoxes of our age with depth, responsibility, and wonder.
How do we create a future that is neither collapse nor techno-utopia? In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, Daniela Bomatter speaks with Ivo Mensch about what it really means to co-create the Third Attractor.Rather than treating the Third Attractor as a fixed destination, Ivo sees it as a way of navigating: a living orientation that helps us respond wisely to each moment while remaining open to an unknown future. Together they explore why holding paradoxes, rather than resolving them, may be one of the defining capacities of an emerging consciousness. The conversation moves through some of today’s most important questions: the limits of individual development, the need for coherent rather than merely cohesive communities, and why spirituality must once again become deeply engaged with culture rather than remaining an individual pursuit. They discuss the role of grand narratives, world-making, and the challenge of building shared visions without turning them into rigid ideologies. NoteGPT_Transcript_ThirdAttractorIvo.txtA central theme is Ivo’s work on unlearning. Drawing on neuroscience, systems thinking, and contemplative practice, he argues that our deepest assumptions about reality, identity, time, and progress unconsciously shape how we perceive the world. Genuine transformation begins not by adding new ideas, but by loosening our attachment to old mental models so that new possibilities can emerge. This is a conversation for anyone interested in systems change, metamodernism, integral thinking, collective intelligence, spirituality, and the practical work of creating a more coherent future together.Ivo Mensch works where contemplative practice meets cultural change. He is a founding member of the Emerge Institute in Stockholm, where he directs Research and Consilience, and he previously built the Praxis strand at Perspectiva, the London-based charity describing its work as a hundred-year project on the relationship between systems, souls and society.His research examines innovation in spiritual practice, particularly interbeing, working toward what he calls a spiritually informed sociology built around the body, time, imagination and logos as the fundamental dimensions of change.The underlying question is not what practice does for the individual but what it makes a culture capable of perceiving and doing.He is an ordained monk in the Soto Zen lineage and has practiced in the Diamond Approach for over a decade. As an author and coach, he designs practices and courses for navigating long arcs of cultural transition and shifts in consciousness. He is a certified Integral Development Coach, trained in Aletheia group unfolding, and writes at his Substack, Increasing Life, on culture, technology, consciousness and collective action.A large part of his focus is unlearning: what people working to change the world need to release before anything new can take hold, and what forms of education actually support that.Emerge Institute: https://emergelakefront.orgPerspectiva: https://systems-souls-society.comHis Substack, Increasing Life:About Daniela BomatterDaniela Bomatter is the host of Co-Creating the Third Attractor, a podcast exploring the consciousness, culture, and leadership needed for humanity’s next stage of evolution.A former CEO of SwissEnergy in Switzerland, Daniela is now Co-Founder of Manifest Nirvana and founder of the Manifest Nirvana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai, India. Inspired by the teaching of Andrew Cohen and Evolutionary Enlightenment, she facilitates dialogues, retreats, and communities dedicated to conscious evolution, regenerative culture, and collective awakening.Find all conversations:https://3da.manifest-nirvana.comManifest Nirvana:https://manifest-nirvana.com