The startling truth about individualism few want to hear - Lian Brook-Tyler and Jonathan Wilkinson
Episode 545, released 22nd April 2026.
Lian Brook-Tyler and Jonathan Wilkinson, Wild Sovereign Soul co-founders, trace how the rise of individualism severed our connection to community and spirit, what Jung's individuation actually meant before it was reduced to self-improvement, and what these times are really calling us to.
Lian and Jonathan sit down together for their monthly, free-flowing conversation honouring the path of the Wild Sovereign Soul. It's challenging to live in this crazy modern world, the Wild Sovereign Soul path is what we know will help.
Each month, they meet live themes from the modern world head on, weaving together what they're currently consuming and creating, how wildness, sovereignty, and soul are showing up in their own lives, along with questions from listeners and the team, and the patterns they're seeing across our students and clients. There is room for curiosity, disagreement, and humour, alongside reflections drawn from their own experiences and initiations, as well as insights from ancient wisdom traditions, astrology, Gene Keys, shamanism, and more.
The show offers grounded perspective, practical insights, and stirring activations for staying soul-led, aware, and responsive inside a modern culture that continually asks us to flatten and deaden ourselves. Each episode is also an invitation to journey deeper with the themes within the Wild Sovereign Soul community, UNIO.
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Or if you prefer to read: Scroll right down for the transcript
In this episode, Lian and Jonathan explore how individualism became the water we swim in, tracing the distance between what Jung meant by individuation and what it has been flattened into, drawing on Kabbalah, shamanism, David Deida's three stages, and Dr. Jeffrey Martin's cross-tradition research into what union actually looks like when people get far enough along any genuine path. They look at how the self-development world inherited Jung's language while losing his meaning, and how that has left many people cycling through spiritual frameworks in the same way they once cycled through self-help.
From there, the conversation opens into what might be reclaimed, what the shaman's role reveals about service and the whole, and what it means that the word "individual" once meant something that could not be divided from everything around it.
Listen if you have poured time, energy and money into a spiritual or personal path and sometimes find yourself wondering whether you are actually moving somewhere, or mostly just getting better at thinking about yourself.
What you’ll receive from this episode:
What the true cost of individualism is, not just for the individual, but for our relationship to community, spirit, and the whole
Why individuation, as Jung understood it, has almost nothing to do with becoming more your separate self, and how the gap between that and how it is now used has fuelled a culture of self-obsession
How almost every mystical and religious tradition, however different their language, can converge on the same destination when followed far enough
What the traditional shaman's role reveals about what goes missing the moment any path of soul becomes primarily about personal development
Resources and stuff Lian spoke about:
Register your interest for the upcoming Wild Sovereign Soul Pilgrimage here.
Join UNIO, The Community for Wild Sovereign Souls: This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul’s calling to truly live your myth.
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Subscribe (BTW, it’s absolutely FREE) to the show on your favourite platform or app by clicking the relevant button below… That way you’ll receive each episode automagically straight to your device as soon as it’s released!
Thank you!
Lian & Jonathan
Episode Transcript:
Please note: We are a small team and not able to check through the transcript our software provides. So you may find some words are out of place and a few sentences don’t make complete sense. If you do see something utterly ridiculous we’d love you to let us know so we can correct it. Please email any howlers with the time stamp to team@bemythical.com.
Lian (00:00)
Could the rise of individualism be the very thing that cuts us off from the soul path we thought we were walking? Hello, my beautiful soul seekers. This month, Wild Sovereign Soul co-founder Jonathan Wilkinson and I are sitting down together to trace how the rise of individualism severed our connection to community and spirit. What Jung's individuation actually meant before it was reduced to self-improvement and what these times are really calling us into.
And this is perhaps the first time we've really just kind of recorded whilst having a back and forth conversation. And then obviously are now sharing it with you. We didn't plan this at all other than deciding the theme that we're going to talk about. And so we'd love to know what you make of this. It's going to be very spontaneous, very free flow, but we felt that you would appreciate hearing the kind of back and forth that we have on all kinds of topics.
Together we explore how individualism became the water we swim in.
Tracing the distance between what Jung actually meant by individuation and what it's been flattened into. Drawing on Kabbalah, Shamanism, David Deida’s' Three Stages, and Dr. Jeffrey Martin's cross-tradition research into what union or enlightenment can look like when people get far along enough any genuine path. It doesn't actually matter what tradition it is.
We look at how the self-development world inherited Jung's language whilst losing his original meaning and how that's left so many people cycling through spiritual frameworks in the same way they once cycled through self-help. From there, the conversation opens into what might be reclaimed, what the shaman's true role reveals about service and the whole, and what it means that the word individual once meant something that could not be divided from everything around it. So listen, if you have poured time, energy and money into a spiritual personal path and sometimes find yourself wondering whether you're actually moving somewhere or mostly just getting better about thinking about yourself. Before we jump into all of that good stuff, if you've just arrived here, welcome. If you've come back, welcome home.
And if you keep finding yourself here without subscribing, your soul clearly knows what it's doing. Honour that call, go ahead and subscribe. And if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world and your heart longs for guidance, kinship and support, come join us in Unio the community for soul seekers.
Unio is the living home of the wild sovereign soul path where together we reclaim our wildness, actualise our sovereignty and awaken our souls.
You can discover more and walk with us by hopping over to wildsovereignsoul.com slash Unio or click the link in the description.
And if you're called to go even deeper on your Wild Sovereign Soul Path, come join us for the upcoming Wild Sovereign Soul Pilgrimage, a three month immersive online group journey home to soul. You can register your interest at wildsovereignsoul.com slash pilgrimage. And now back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.
Lian (03:25)
Hello. Welcome back to the show, Jonathan. As I constantly say, it seems weird inviting you back on or welcoming you back on, but what else does one say?
Jonathan (03:38)
Thank you. It is beautiful as ever to be back and with consistency as well I might add. So I think this is the third month in a row. yeah, I'm loving the consistency and long may it continue.
Lian (03:52)
Long may it. And the idea of consistency and coming back around reminds me of our word of the day, which could turn out to be the word of the decade pilgrimage, but we'll come back to that a bit more in a moment. So before we dive in to all of the good stuff that we're planning to dive into, Just wanted to celebrate we are now Wild Sovereign Soul in all of the ways we have now rebirthed across not only the podcast which obviously went first at the beginning of the year I think it was we are now also wildsovereignsoul.com which still gives me an absolute thrill to say. We are Wild Sovereign Soul across socials and so it feels really good it's been absolutely a labour of love, hasn't it? mean, my goodness, just doing the about page yet again for how many times it's been over the years that we've done an about as page, but all of it has felt really just compounding this sense of alignment. this is exactly where we should be, where the work has been calling us. And so, yes, I just want to take a moment to celebrate that we are now fully and wholly Wild Sovereign Soul.
Jonathan (05:16)
Indeed, it feels so good, so good, so new, even though it's, it's not like it's new and fresh to us, but just having you speak that out, can feel the almost like the actual for real start of that next chapter. And those beautiful souls that will be heading on over to wildsovereignsoul.com and hopefully taking the journey through that We're rather biased, but very beautiful and soulful website. yeah, taking that journey through the homepage and to the about us page. And yeah, we believe it's something special and we hope you do too.
Lian (05:59)
Yeah. Yeah. It, and talking of that word journey, there is now a kind of nice sense of begin your journey at wildsovereignsoul.com or indeed the podcast then wildsovereignsoul.com and then into taking the very first pilgrimage, the wild sovereign soul pilgrimage with us. And so we're going to say more on this later, I suspect, but we are in the throes of planning the very first wild sovereign soul pilgrimage which is an online group immersion into coming home to your soul. And so again we'll say a bit more about that later but just wanted to mention that has been just so alive for us and this idea of pilgrimage. But again I'm going to try not to say anything more now because we no doubt will deeper more into that. Is there anything you want to add to that before we dive into the question we're going to work with today?
Jonathan (06:57)
Only that we're not hanging about with this one. We're aiming to kind of start this in around a month from the recording of this podcast. yeah, it'll be coming out pretty soon. So when you're listening, watching this, go check it out sooner rather than later. yeah, we're starting the pilgrimage pretty soon.
Lian (07:23)
Yes. So we are going to explore the question, I guess, the idea of what we might say is the true cost of the rise of individualism in this crazy, crazy modern world. And this isn't something that we're delivering as a this is our answer, it's not intended as a teaching, I'm sure there will be kind of teaching within it, it is genuinely a conversation between the two of us. And even when we began to talk about this as a question for us to journey with, we started to have a conversation that we're like, oh my goodness, we should have been recording, the conversation is quite meta, the conversation about this is a conversation. So I'm just going to give that little… intro really to us even choosing this as a theme for today. And then let's let's set sail where that takes us. So it was you that came up with this as a suggestion that like, how about we journey through this idea of individual individualism, how it's become almost like the norm as a orientation in today's modern world. And there is a there's a hidden cost to that that mostly isn't being spoken about. The irony is, as soon as you said that to me, was like, isn't being spoken about? It feels to me that I've heard people talking about this non-stop for the last, I don't know, five years or so. And then it was really interesting, recognising that it just happened that I had been in… training courses with teachers where that had been a real theme of conversation. And so it had really, created this biased view of it being something everyone was talking about when actually it was much more sort of, within those circles in particular. So we're going to get into why that might be the case and all the whys and wherefores, but first I'd love to hand back to you, for you to share why this is something that just felt really alive and juicy.
Jonathan (09:44)
So as Lian was saying, is something we have spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours in exploration together, let alone on our own. it's the destination we're going to set sail in is by far nothing new, but it's something that we cycle around, again and again and just asking that question. Okay, so where is this now in where are we? Towards the end of April 2026. And what are those true costs? And for me, I had a few things that would come up that was really having me really openly questioned things in a way that potentially I haven't done before, considered them in a way and Like Lian said, coming into this, this is one of those things that we do all the time, but there's not normally a mic or a camera recording this. we always have these conversations and it's been like, we should have recorded that. That would have been an amazing podcast. So our hope and our intention is that this will provide such a rich exploration as these things normally do. But yeah. We'll see that that's the beauty of this. I don't necessarily know myself where we're going to go, where we're going to get to, but there are some threads which are dangling at least for us to start this journey.
Lian (11:23)
So do you want to, if you're happy to, begin with just giving your sense as to what's meant by this idea of individualism?
Jonathan (11:37)
Sure. So, certainly in this modern world where individualism is actually something that has become celebrated, almost like held up, being lauded being independent is a place to get to, a place that has these riches and rewards for us. And the reality is rarely that that is the case. it's providing this sense and there's always kind of two sides, two poles to whatever we're going to speak to. one of speaking to it in terms of what's somewhat obvious, I'd like to think to most of our listeners is that through this creating a sense that you don't need anyone else, just yourself, you don't even need a connection to spirit, to God, creator, whatever you want to call that creative force behind life. You literally just need yourself and everything in your life is created just from yourself. And it can, there are obvious, obviously exceptions to this, but when we've got a whole society of people that are operating from this narrative, this cultural conditioning that we're receiving very much kind of from a top down perspective, we naturally create a sense of separation, of disconnection. And as humans, we're just not programmed to be programmed. We're just not created to be lone wolves. As a whole, we're just not. It just doesn't work, doesn't work for us individually, doesn't work for society. And so it really ends up creating or can most of the time create this sickness of self-obsession, narcissism. as children, we are naturally narcissistic. We believe everything in the world is the way it is in some shape or form down to us and our actions, or non actions, we innocently place ourselves at the center of everything. And normally through a more, let's say natural indigenous life way, that wouldn't be the case. We would grow into sovereignty as we've spoken a lot about on the podcast. That's something we would evolve into. However, in this modern world, when we don't have that, that level of nihilism of narcissism continues uninterrupted, potentially throughout the existence of one's whole life, creating a level of, as I said, self obsession that has society be a profoundly sick place. so the kind of the diagnosis of the problem itself, I think there's, yeah, a very kind of clear and agreeable basis for and the prognosis and the prescription for that is obviously something we'll explore, but that's what's feeling Alain's sort of presence initially, if there's anything you would like to add to that at the outset.
Lian (15:23)
I feel like ready to just dive into the conversation almost as if we're not recording and see where it takes us.
Jonathan (15:29)
I
Lian (15:35)
There were several different things that was occurring to me. Some of them sound like I'm contradicting what you've just said, which isn't my intention. It was just the kind of my mind was going to the, yeah, but blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but blah. And so working backwards, I was like, I think sometimes there can be nihilism, but I wouldn't say that's necessarily the...
Certainly in the circles, the wider circles that we're in, so you could say sort of the deeper circles we're in are ones that are very focused on paths of soul and spirit, but then kind of rippling out into, say for example, self-development, personal development, self-help kind of fields, which I suspect we'll touch in on in moment. I don't think they… have a sort nihilistic viewpoint, it's almost like the meaning of life is individualism, the meaning of life is the pursuit of success. It's inherently the context of individualism is also giving this meaning to life that is based on achieving the pinnacle of individualism, that was just occurring to me. Then there was almost like that becomes the God, doesn't it? That becomes the new God. I was then pondering how this word, I remember actually a couple of years ago, I had one of our longtime students coming on the show as part of one of those sort of medicine conversations.
I've had where I'm speaking to them about their path of turning their wounds into medicine. And at the end, bless her heart, she made a slip and she meant to say what she'd learned about the path of individuation, but she accidentally said in individualization, mind, you know, in words start to become meaningless. What word have I just said? So she slipped up. and said basically the topic of this conversation, individualism instead of individuation. And I was like, this is the challenge, even though was just a word slip in her instance, there is...
I think there's many different reasons we've ended up where we are culturally with the rise of individualism, but certainly as much as I adore Jung, his work, think taken at a surface level and being misunderstood, and even to an extent, maybe like the very design of it, it can absolutely lead to this idea of individuation is… like a facet of, I keep going to say the word and then thinking I'm saying the same word, individualism. And it's a really interesting nuanced thing because if we look at today's world, people who, for example, are on the path of individuation, whether that's through a strict Jungian path or some other kinds, because we lack a connection to true community because many people lack a true sense of connection to spirit. It becomes the path of individualism, even if that wasn't the intention. It's that we lack the context for individuation to be what it truly should be, should be in quote marks, like what it is intended to be, that rise into sovereignty and into soul.
Jonathan (19:38)
Hmm.
Lian (19:42)
And it becomes another way to become this disconnected individual.
Jonathan (19:48)
Yeah, would you mind, I know you just alluded to it there and saying rise into soul and sovereignty, but would you mind just giving the listener and the viewer a sense of what young meant by that term individuation?
Lian (20:01)
Yeah, I can do and I'm probably, I'm probably going to paraphrase and use probably more like our terminology and maybe a bit of Kabbalah terminology mixed in. excuse, none of this is meant to be like going on record as a young spokeswoman. But I would say simply put, and actually there's an excellent book that's by my teacher, my Kabbalah teacher, Mike Bais, his teacher, that has written an amazing book that actually kind of overlays Jungian philosophy over the top of the cabaletry of life. And so because I'm familiar with that way of looking at it, it's become one of the same in my mind in a way that perhaps other people wouldn't see quite like that. So I just want to give that context because I've gone quite deep because I love Jung so much and then would love to be able to map, that is saying this and this. I was funny, funny enough thinking earlier how a few years before that, I'd been mapping Mahir Baba's path against Jung. And I was like, I haven't done that against the Kabbalah as well. So I was just pondering that earlier, funny enough. So coming back to your question.
I would say that it's this idea of what we might call the ego or that separate self is how most people are walking around not really even knowing there's much else beyond that. Jung through you could say, know, of course he was very influenced initially by Freud, but then also starting to spend time with indigenous shamans, starting to see a truth in the ancient tradition of alchemy, started to realise there's something deeper that's available or true for humans that we might call the soul or what he would call self with a capital S. And so his work really simply, overly simply put is to know that self, that deeper self, the higher self. So from a Kabbalah perspective, that would be going from Yesod, which again would be ego, into Tiferet, which would be like the point of soul consciousness. It's actually a triad, but the point of consciousness is Tiferet. And that's, again, really overly simply put, is the point of Jung's work. And of course, because this takes us into the realm of much more complex things, even, you know, mysticism, his work has been very much reduced to something that is akin to kind of self-improvement, you know, his ideas, his work, some of it wasn't, again, he started to realise towards the end of his life that his own philosophy of psychology had actually been taken without him realizing from Kabbalah. He didn't realise that until towards the end of his life. the, of course, whether you say it's Jung's work or work that he kind of discovered and then renamed and brought a lot more to, this idea of say archetypes or inner masculine and inner feminine has been popularized and pulled out by its roots. People often don't even realise this idea of say synchronicity.
That's a Jungian term. People use it and probably don't even know that it's come from his work and it has a much deeper meaning. It isn't just like, that's cool. That's synchronistic. It has a much deeper meaning. And so the reason I banged on about this is when, when we talk about this idea of individuate, individuation in a Jungian sense, it's just worth recognising that there is so much more to that than this idea of, I'm just becoming myself, which is, is sort of been popularized to sort of mean that, which again, isn't hence why it's fueled this rise of individualism.
Jonathan (24:16)
Mm.
Yeah, beautifully said. Thank you. And I think that really tees up that age old quest to know thyself and how in this modern world we touched on it, I think earlier is this self improvement, self development, self fixing trap that we can find ourselves in in this modern world where to
there's a great quote, I forget who it's from, is, you'll never find yourself by trying to fix yourself, or you'll never know yourself by trying to fix yourself. And that's where, again, so much of this modern day rise of individualism, of being independent, is about acquiring these skills or seemingly fixing something that's broken. it ends up, yeah, steering people much further away than the path of individualism.
Lian (25:03)
Hmm.
Jonathan (25:26)
then they would be on the path of individuation to be able to truly know themselves. yeah, that's the really interesting times we live in that I don't think we have ever been in a situation before. And in many ways, I think this has come from the information age. We have had these huge swings in from being of our lineage, our like actual physical lineage, which we could clearly trace back and really immersed in that to suddenly being going through the, uh, where are we in the sixties and the fifties that the counter culture age where psychedelics and all of a sudden we're opened up to all these different mystical teachings, plant medicines, and just almost just drowning in information where we've got so many feet and so many things that it has spiraled, I think many, people naturally into this just never ending cycle of trying to fix themselves rather than trying to know themselves. And that is one of the things that I think is really at the heart of so much of where people can steer themselves off track from the path of
Lian (26:48)
Mmm.
Jonathan (26:51)
of soul and actually ultimately, because at the heart of this is what's in good of the whole. And as for those who will see when they go on our new website, wildsovereignsoul.com, it says, come home to your soul in service of the whole. Because this is really, and this is something we believe is we're not here to just do it on our own or be successful on our own. If it isn't in service of the whole, it isn't in the greater good of society of the world, if it isn't a win-win, often it isn't a win. that, again, is something that is all too prevalent in this modern world and is only growing. I just wanted to add that to what you said, if there's anything you would like to add on the back of what I shared.
Lian (27:45)
Yeah, what just came to mind actually, which leads us into the territory of something we were also discussing as part of all this religion versus say mystical traditions, where I was, what just came to mind when you were saying kind of where we had been and then this kind of explosion of all these different, like very, mind conscious expanding things that happened in the 60s. And I don't know if you recall David Deida's three stages that suddenly came to mind. And I was like, yeah, this is, this is in a different way. Obviously, his three stages specifically about relationships, and particularly heterosexual relationships.
I was like, yeah, the same is possibly, it could be mapped to what we're looking at today culturally where pre 1950s, I'll mirror it with his stages and then what I just saw about our stages at the same time. So David Deida's stage one is those kind of 1950s, pre 1950s, very stereotypical, what we think of when we think of a man and woman in a marriage where it's, you know, very traditional man is breadwinner, woman is housewife. and they have a very, rigid dynamic. These stereotypes are formed and then validated and imposed upon. And, know, nothing outside of that is seen as desirable or maybe even possible. And then alongside everything that you just said was happening in terms of relationships that was also happening where we had this, this reinvention of what it meant for women to be women and men to be men. And very much this idea of very different expectations on each other where of course with the rise of feminism, feminism, And then how that rippled into relationships, it was very much seen, there was a kind of, you're just equals, you're sort of the same. And it isn't that men need any particular role or have any particular traits that they should bring into a relationship, same for women, you are very much equals and can do and be the same things. And that's the stage two. And then... mapping it to what I was just seeing here, is this idea of we've gone from a stage one, these very traditional roles for each of us. putting aside relationships, where most people were probably part of a religion. So in this part of the world, you know, probably some form of Christianity. You very much had a very rigid role in your society. I'm not talking about of course, you know, ancient cultures, I'm talking kind of, you know, modern Western cultures, had a very
Jonathan (30:59)
pre-industrial revolution.
Lian (31:00)
Yeah. No, yeah, I'm talking kind of post-industrial revolution. Yeah. So you would have, you know, this idea of what it means to be a good daughter, a good mother, a good father, you know, a good employee, very, very rigid roles at stage one. Stage two, everyone's kind of like breaking out of that and kind of running to the pinnacle of individualization and
Jonathan (31:03)
sorry, I meant to yes.
Lian (31:28)
that's prized, that scene is like, yay, just like again, stage two relationships, like we're equals, suddenly it's like, we're equals and I am my own person and know, that I don't have to be dictated to by my community or my family or my church. And going back to David Deida's work at stage three, that's when union becomes possible, or at least in the work of that, what is there to be reclaimed and honoured?
And what is there to be let go of, transcended, recreated for these times where one might still want to honor this idea of what it means to be a woman and how, just these are examples, I'm not saying like this is the idea for everyone, to be in this devotion to what does it mean to be a woman? What does this mean about the divine feminine? What does the role does that have in my life?
What role does that have in my relationship? Same for example, for a man. And that's his stage three relationship. But better mind, I've not looked into his work for at least six, seven years. So this is all off the of my head. I think I'm roughly right, but anything that I've, I've missaid it's because of that. And then coming into like stage three culture, which is what I see we're here, is like, this is really interesting. Cause we are, what can we learn from the conditions of our past and not necessarily our ancient past, but again, you know, like say pre 1950s, where we did have church, did have village, we, know, not the true village of our indigenous times, but we did have more community, we did have a role within our community compared to today.
We've then learned all of this idea of like, and there is this idea of this, you know, this self that I'm being called into. So what does stage three mean for us? What could that allow us to have? I'm sorry, I've just now brain's gone into like spiral dynamics or the rest of it, keeping it simple. That's what is an interesting thing and takes us back to the conversation we were in where...
religion could be seen as how we related to religion at stage one. And then Jungian thought, and I'm not gonna bring mysticism into it quite yet, is kind of like the part of what was happening at stage two. And then at stage three, what could we reclaim from? Again, this idea of religion, what can we take from what Jung was inviting us into and thinkers like him?
and the first we've reached is, as I saying, really mysticism. How do we bring those together in a way that is right for these times?
Jonathan (34:26)
I just had a quite a vivid image of almost someone, because it's oppression that kind of has the forces the soul out to reject it and kind of run away and had this image of someone breaking off the shackles, but then taking everything off all their clothes, everything, and like getting to the furthest reaches of the pole, and then realizing, something feels off, and then turning back and thinking, maybe maybe some of these would be helpful in serving. so that just tends to be the human response, you know, when we feel oppressed, when we feel restricted or rigid, or we've come through world wars, and then people are severely hurt, and they weaponize things such as religion, such as community, such as, you know, insert the blank in a way that is so far actually removed from its healthy
Lian (34:56)
Mmm.
Jonathan (35:24)
balanced symbiotic nature that has us as humans become part of the whole, that has us actually look to our neighbor, our family, our spouse, whoever it is, with as much love and importance as for ourselves, as we would do in nature itself. It's those. And again, it's very innocent that we've ended up where we are. But now
Lian (35:42)
Mmm.
Jonathan (35:52)
I do feel more than ever we've been called to actually, okay, let me just kind of look back. And even though some of these things feel like they've really hurt me in the past, let's maybe just try them back on again from a different place and maybe separate from everything that seems attached to it. And cause this is the thing we don't know what's the right way. It'll be different for everyone. Everyone's soul has come here for their own wonderfully unique path. But
Lian (36:01)
Mmm.
Jonathan (36:21)
usually it's in service of what is good and what is good for the whole. And yeah, it's, it's these are fascinating, very challenging times to live in, but fascinating times in terms of that, that exploration that we're being called to, to soften our edges, to really let go of what we've gripped so tightly onto to thinking is wrong and just, you know, throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. So yeah, that, that really came.
Lian (36:46)
Mmm.
Jonathan (36:51)
came to mind and heart when you were sharing what you shared.
Lian (36:54)
Yeah. Yeah. I really, I think that's such a good point. I mean, in some ways what we're talking about is in a really more, kind of archetypal and energetic perspective is two ends of a shadow pole. And then what, what we're being called into to transcend that. and what you just said there in that people, whether this is an individual or just this cultural soup that we're in.
People have felt hurt by say religion, have actually been hurt by religion and yet, and so we've kind of bounced right over to the other side of the shadow pole and yet what if there is something to reclaim in that relationship to community and to spirit that religion showed, it had something there that we can learn from even today.
There is something I think really helpful recognising that, yeah, this isn't just people are bored with religion, you know, there is real pain there. There's something honest in that thing.
Jonathan (38:11)
Yes. And that I can feel the significance within all of this of what we have all been given. And that is free will, the ability to choose to have sovereignty. Even though few are actually truly sovereign, they still have somewhat agency and free will to make those decisions and in a way that they, in many ways they haven't been able to before. There's, speaking to what I have been contemplating recently is that, what if... what if we were created with the freedom of choice, with the freedom, with free will, so that we would be capable of choosing to give that or some of that away to divine will, to this greater will, rather than this separated sense of kind of mind, if that makes sense. And it's something that is really something I'm spending quite a bit of time trying to be with. Because again, in certain religious contexts, there is that giving one's personal will over to God's ut there's also in many other contexts, just giving, just aligning. Like when you view an animal in nature, we talk about reclaiming your wildness so often.
And for good reason, because we're really talking about that state of naturalness. so in this modern world, we're so far removed from what even a sense of that naturalness is for many of us. And it's like, if we were in that, again, indigenous life way, in that state of naturalness, how would we relate to our free will? Would we see and hold it in the same way we do and prize it in the way we do? Or would we see that as part of a greater will, a greater
Lian (40:10)
you
Jonathan (40:28)
unifying force that we're meant to actually align with, not reject, not see as oppressing or whatever we may have innocently come into relationship with it. And that's one of the areas around this that I'm finding rather fascinating at the moment. And I'd love to know your sense.
Lian (40:51)
Hmm. What was occurring to me was a couple of things. that of course in mystical traditions like the Kabbalah, they may not use the word will. Certainly in, let's say, the occult hermeticism, the word will itself is used, the notion of true will, which very much has that… connotation that you're talking about, there is a divine will that you could say sort of filters into the individual soul and then can filter, if we're open to it, of, you know, allow it to reshape the ego. ⁓ And then say, for example, again, from a mystical perspective, there is again that notion that you are the work is really to be in alignment with divine will. And there isn't because it's so clear that the divine is at the kind of top of the tree or is the North Star. You couldn't really separate this idea of this. This over here is my own will and this over here is let's say God's will.
There is a just knowing that the path means that the two are intrinsically linked. the work is, I suppose, really overly simply put, is to transform one's consciousness to know oneself as that.
Jonathan (42:28)
Because at the heart of that, again, something we speak to often is union. And so we could take someone who say from a mystical tradition has reached a level of individuation, where they are at one with whatever, however you would wish to describe that. And we could take someone from a religious context, who is touched by the divine and again, at one in that civic state of divine love of union.
And they're both in a very similar energetic quality. And they're not usually, let's say, heavily focused on their personal will, their personal choice. They have reached some place of union whereby they have been freed or liberated into a much lighter, divine, beautiful, satiating place, let's say, whichever side you want to go, you can look at both sides and see, huh, the end destination, or what would the place to get to in union is still has the same experience. And again, it doesn't have that focus, maybe none at all, on individualism, on that sense of independence, let's say.
Lian (43:55)
Mm. The, What just came to mind when you were saying that is Dr. Geoffrey Martin's work, which when he first began, I think his work sort of taken many twists and turns since, but when I first came across his work, it's probably now coming up to 10 years ago, he had done a research study.
interviewing people from all kinds of traditions, very, very different. So some might be Christians, some might be Buddhist, some might be, I don't know, basically, you you name the different spiritual paths, traditions, religions, most of them would have probably been represented at least once. And these were people who they'd use different words according to their own tradition, but they'd use different words for, know, whether that be enlightenment, awakened, know, acidic state, whatever, they'd use their own word for that. And he was asking them questions that were kind of tradition agnostic to describe their state. Sorry, it's a bit of a pun using the word agnostic there, as in, you know, how their experience of life was, what they felt, what they experienced, how they saw it.
And then he mapped it onto these stages, different stages to David Deida. If I recall correctly, I think he had four stages and then there was a kind of like two paths that were like a fifth stage. I think I have this right. And they were varying degrees of using that word union, varying degrees of that union happening.
where at the kind of furthest stage, was more what we would probably deem as something like enlightenment. The earlier stages were more kind of feeling, you know, sense of connection, happiness, satisfaction. So went through these stages. And the reason that came to mind is just as you're saying, even though they might have a different idea of their state and certainly different words to describe it. So someone coming from a much more traditional kind of religious path wouldn't consider themselves as being, say, enlightened or being at one with God wouldn't have seen themselves as kind of being in a oneness state. They'd probably describe it as, I don't know, feeling the hand of God or feeling I don't know, I'm making this up, so please no one be offended if I've just said something that just really isn't how it's been said. But you get what I mean? There would be still this sense of a separation between them and God, where via a different route, they would consider themselves kind of saturated with spirit, so their less and less is this idea of there's them and then their spirit. And in some ways, it probably doesn't matter.
As his work says, they can all be mapped onto these stages and the experience is much the same, even if their way of seeing what's happening is something they would consider being quite different to someone that's in the very similar state, but through a different tradition. All paths lead back home, in other way of saying it.
Jonathan (47:19)
Yeah, exactly. was, was that, that, that was coming to mind, we've spoken about that in the past, but I couldn't remember the person's name of those studies. But yeah, exactly that. That's a great example of these, these states of being that we can get to that can be, can be described and experienced seemingly quite differently. But when you witness them, when you're in the presence of someone like that. And one of the benefits of this information age is we actually have lots of footage of people in these states of being. And I spent quite a bit of time recently observing many people in these states and I can feel this sense of similarity in them, even though there can be certain differences and Yeah, what doesn't seem to be be present, like I said, is this, yeah, strong sense of independence. It is is some form of union. It is some form of connection to something divine, holy, beautiful, whatever, however, however you want to want to speak that, even if someone from a, let's say, Sam Harris perspective would describe it as, you know, like I said, the opposite of religious but just some meditative state of bliss, let's say.
Lian (48:54)
So there's one final thing that came to mind that I want to share and then unbelievably the time has basically gone. This has flown by. And I do want us to have just a chance to at least touch on the pilgrimage before we close. But something that one of my first shamanic teachers often used to say was because we were training in shamanism, but within a modern context, obviously. And then because there was also the, the Wirra, the indigenous Mexicans that we were lucky enough to be connected to and also learning from, he would, he would make the point that, again, this is paraphrased, that
In a culture where, you know, in a traditional culture, in a shamanic culture, the shaman's role kind of only makes sense in connection to the whole, in connection to the people in the community, in connection to, in context of the land, other beings, of course, spirit. It is, by its very nature, it's something that is so intrinsically linked to that context, to the whole.
you couldn't have this idea of a shaman being this kind of, yes, look at me, I'm this great individual. Like it just wouldn't make sense. and certainly my, in the minds of saying, like, I'm talking definitely only in a traditional context. And, whereas of course being honest about the fact we are learning from those cultures, but we are in a modern culture.
Jonathan (50:28)
Well, I don't know, there's maybe a few in the modern era that might align with that.
Lian (50:52)
And our minds have been shaped according to that modern culture, according to this idea of individualism. And so would we talk a lot about this and how even when we're learning something that isn't about becoming more and more of an individual, our minds are wired to look for that, to want that. And so… people will come to, this is not at all me or him or anyone else, kind of as a criticism, but people will come to, say for example, a shamanic course, instead of really seeing it as like, how can I come back to that way of being in synergy with the whole, it's almost like another form of self-improvement. It's very psychologized. It's very much kind of about going back to your point earlier, how can I fix myself through? shamanism through this work of becoming a shaman.
Jonathan (51:48)
Yeah, it's almost like instead of,yeah, instead of the focus being on service to someone else, and someone may have that intention, they end, it ends up primarily being of service to the self, of service to what the self wants to get from this life, rather than, you know, like you were describing, these indigenous shamans that, and this is, this is the thing, they didn't see this as a great role. It was quite the opposite. It was quite a,
Lian (51:53)
Mm.
Mmm.
Hmm.
Jonathan (52:16)
yeah, I'd much rather be whatever the other roles in society would be, but it was very clear that they had come here with that. And whereas, yeah, fast forward into 2026, and many of the people who are gravitating towards that, it's, it's in a very, different way. And I think that whatever, whatever it is, that's the precision of what we're being called into, individually, I think it comes back to those virtues, those qualities within us, that is to, again, not place ourselves at the centre of everything or place ourselves above anything or anyone else. Don't obviously go to the opposite end of the shadow pole and, you know, into deflation. Try and find that balance of sovereignty, but ultimately be loving and kind to your neighbor to whoever it is, see the soul within each person. it's those, it's those qualities and traits that I think if we make sure we don't take them off their rightful place, which is that North star, which is that that's guiding us, hopefully, which, which has been severed through everything we do, we have such a better chance at finding ourselves in alignment with our soul, rather than this consistent, persistent missing the mark as well intended as it may be, because we've been separated and we just know if you want to, as anybody who wants to control someone, how would you do that? You would separate them up, you would divide them. They are naturally therefore much more susceptible to darker forces, let's say, than those that are together in a whole, whereas again, paradoxically, it's communicated to us that would be safer being independent, being somehow stronger. And again, there's a situations where that is true. We're talking about, you know, where most people can find themselves in this modern world. so I think I'd just like to finish with that is just focus on what ultimately is in greater service to the whole.
Lian (54:21)
Hmm.
Jonathan (54:41)
and that will rarely, rarely steer you wrong, I would say.
Lian (54:46)
Hmm. I was just thinking how the, as you know, I love words so much and they can show us where we went wrong, but also how we can kind of come back to the root so often. before we start recording, I was looking at the root of the word individualism, which is of course taken from the word individual. And It's from the Latin root individuus, which is taken from, um, in, which is not and divi-duous, which is divisible. And so originally meant something that could not be divided. Um, and so I was thinking it's so interesting that it comes from this idea of you could say oneness, everything's connected, but then over time it then became the word to describe a single person, or entity that is divided from the group. The irony of that.
Jonathan (55:48)
Wow. Isn't that the case with so many things like that? Yeah, it feels like every week or every other week, we are mainly Lian because she researches a lot of the roots of these words will present something like that, that's been lost.
Lian (56:07)
It's like if we really came back to true individualism, like again using the Latin, it's like a tongue twister now, so many different words that are kind of similar sounds, but the idea of individuous where we can't be divided from the whole, that would be maybe the true and the old star for us.
So we are over time, but let's just quickly say a little bit more about the pilgrimage. which again, it gives me thrills every time I say that word. Is there, is there anything that you would like to say about what we've got in store and what we already know about it? I thought before we do, I'll just say this because I've got it clear and in front of me. So we're talking about.
The Wild Sovereign Soul Pilgrimage, which is an immersive online group journey home to soul. really very much everything we've just been talking about. And we know that we're going, haven't got the exact date and time sorted yet. We should have that probably by the time this goes out, but we're looking that it'll likely be the week commencing the 18th of May. And the link for that is wildsovereignsoul.com slash pilgrimage.
But yes, over to you. Is there anything you'd like to add?
Jonathan (57:36)
hmm.
I think this is just a something very, special indeed. And this is something that is timeless, ageless that we are trying to bring back. And it's on these pilgrimages that we would get to really know thyself to understand who we are, what we've come here for, are now a place in the order of things. And that comes from going through for us the wild sovereign soul path, that of reclaiming your wildness, actualizing your sovereignty and awakening your soul and what that looks like in this modern world. And so it's for us, it's very much a modern day pilgrimage, but really grounded in the most ancient timeless of wisdom traditions and it is so needed. talking to this, this culture we find ourselves in of this self help or trying to fix ourselves, we're looking constantly for this one and done. Whereas really, that's, that's not how in the past, we would view a pilgrimage, we would view this journey of soul like this is but a pilgrimage until it ends and it doesn't stop this cycle. And so we we have really created this, not as just this one-off course, but as the cornerstone of our teachings to be able to take people at least once a year, if not twice a year on these cycles, these pilgrimages that allow them to really find themselves in this modern world, which as we talk about often, is really, really challenging. So, Yeah, I could say much more. But in the interest of time, I'll leave that there. But is there anything you'd like to add?
Lian (59:42)
I was just reflecting as you were sharing that, again, this idea of it being a cyclical pilgrimage, you know, say for example, once a year, and how in this modern world where we've so become disconnected with the true cycles, the natural cycles of time, the planet, the solar system, I mean, Thankfully, people are starting to come back to that. And certainly in the work that we do with people, that's very much, know, invitations that we're constantly giving to do so. But I was thinking how...
Having this cyclical way of being able to join something with the intention, like this is my cycle to go deep into my wild suffering soul path. It's not that I'm not doing it the rest of the year, but once a year, coming back to the power of cycles, how they hold us, how they call us into something, how they guide us, how things become possible because we're in that holding of a particular cycle and how beautiful that will be. And for us too, you know, we're in the pilgrimage right now. And when we're on this pilgrimage, We do everything with even more intention when it comes to reclaim our wildness, actualise our sovereignty and awaken our soul, because this is the pilgrimage and this is the cycle we're in. And this is what is here to either resources, the community, everything that helps guide us on this pilgrimage. That's just, it just, I've sort of pictured it all just suddenly coming to life and that cyclical nature of it in particular, what that provides that just a one-off thing, which is wouldn't.
Jonathan (1:01:36)
Yeah, and then as you're saying that I just want to squeeze one other thing in is the beauty that for us, like, like I said, going on this, like you don't step in the same river twice, you never go on the same pilgrimage. And because you're never the same person. And this is for us as we've been creating this, we've really been in the, that's the beauty in the
Lian (1:01:48)
Mmm.
Jonathan (1:02:04)
majesticness of it because often as in the roles we do, we can create courses and then you do the same thing again, but with a pilgrimage, it will never be the same even for us as guides on this pilgrims, as four pilgrims on this pilgrimage. And it's the same for everyone journeying with it. And just like any book that you can, any really special book where you'll go back and reread it and there'll always be something there like the angels have been in and restructured the words around. That's, yeah.
Lian (1:02:26)
Gene Key's being a prime example of that. Yeah.
Jonathan (1:02:33)
Exactly.
That's the essence of a pilgrimage. And that again is something we've lost touch with, not just going on one, but again, honoring that cyclical nature, not just seeing you've, I've got to do this again. It's like opening oneself up to, wow, what am I going to uncover and find about myself that I've not been ready to be with? it's, yeah, as you can tell from both of us talking to it, it's something that we're
Lian (1:02:40)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Jonathan (1:03:02)
incredibly excited about and can just feel how powerfully and much needed this is for all of us souls journeying in these interesting times.
Lian (1:03:15)
Yeah, so exciting. So I'll give the I'll give the URL for that again. I'll be I'm sure when I come to do the outro in the future, I'll be mentioning it again. But hey, I just love saying the words and I love saying our new domain. So here we go. WildsovereignSoul.com slash pilgrimage. Come join us on the pilgrimage.
Okay, I guess that's us coming to a close.
Thank you for being part of this conversation, Jonathan. It's the first one that we've kind of just really not planned anything and just had a conversation like we do. I enjoyed it. Hopefully it's been something that's been enjoyable and useful for those of you listening. And thank you so much for… being with us on this meta pilgrimage of life.
Jonathan (1:04:12)
Yes, thank you, Lian It was beautiful and a privilege as ever to get to journey in such ways and where we've been just feels very much like to be continued. You know, we'll continue to share how we journey with what we've explored today and hopefully you'll be able to join us on the pilgrimage and journey with it in a much deeper way. yeah, for now, thank you and hopefully we'll see you soon.
Lian (1:04:43)
I really hope you enjoyed this episode. We certainly enjoyed having the conversation knowing we were going to share it with you. And here were some of the takeaways. The true cost of individualism runs deeper than most realise. It's not only personal isolation, it is the severing of our relationship to community and spirit and to any genuine sense of the whole. That severance has a cost that no amount of individual growth can repair.
Individuation as Jung understood it has really nothing to do with becoming more of this idea of a separate self. The gap between what he meant and what the self development world made of it is not a small misreading. It really is the difference between a path towards union and a more sophisticated form of self obsession. Across mystical and religious traditions that appear to have almost nothing in common, the same destination keeps appearing when people follow that path far enough. The language absolutely changes, the doctrine differs, but the experience of union of something larger than the individual self keeps emerging in very much the same recognisable way. The traditional shaman's role only makes sense inside of its context, inside that web of relationship to community, to land, spirit.
And the moment that role gets lifted out of that in this modern culture and placed in service of our kind of own sense of what's going to develop myself, something goes missing. And it's not because we as individuals aren't important, it's because the whole is what that path was always for. If you'd like to hop on over to the show notes for the links, they're at wildsovereignsoul.com slash podcast slash five four five.
And as you heard me say earlier, if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world and long for guidance, kinship and support, come join us in Unio, the community for soul seekers. You can discover more and join us by hopping over to Wildsovereignsoul.com slash Unio now. Let's walk the path home together. And if you're called to go even deeper on your wild sovereign soul path, come join us for the upcoming wild sovereign soul pilgrimage.
A three month immersive online group journey home to Soul. You can reach your interest at wildsovereignsoul.com/ pilgrimage. keep getting a thrill every time I say that.
And if you don't want to miss out next week's episode, head on over to your podcasting app or platform of choice, including YouTube and hit that subscribe or follow button. That way you'll get each episode delivered straight to your device, auto magically as soon as it's released.
Thank you so much for listening. You've been wonderful. I'll catch you again next week. And until then, I'm sending you all my love and blessings as you walk your wild sovereign soul path.