Hidden Ways Of Knowing

Since the birth of Rebel Wisdom, we’ve been asking what it takes to thrive in the chaos of the times. One thing we’ve learned is that traditional thinking won’t cut it. It’s time to shake things up and experiment with radically different perspectives. But they aren’t easy to find. They’re hidden in the relations between things, in ancient wisdom and theories forged at the edge of the conversation. Now, we’re inviting you on a shared journey to experience some of them first-hand in a process unlike anything we’ve created before.

Explore

Explore hidden ways of knowing found in dialogue practices, ancient wisdom and theories from the edge
Play with new perspectives on culture, complexity and challenging topics
Practice Warm Data, Aboriginal memory techniques, Emergent Dialogue, Jazz for Group Flow & Psychedelic Sensemaking
Experiment and craft your own process
Apply what you learn to meaningful action in your life and projects

Experience

A unique hybrid process combining real world and online
An immersive journey with live tuition from a world-class faculty, work in small groups and live practice sessions
A written travel guide including key theories, reading lists and exercises
Access to exclusive films with faculty

Dates

Hybrid Retreat: September 11 & 12 (3:00pm UK / 10:00am US East / 7am US West)
Practice Sessions: September 16, 23, 30 and 7 October

Price

Single: £395 / $550
Pair: £600 / $830
Group of Three: £750 / $1030
Group of Four: £900 / $1250

Faculty

Nora Bateson

Nora Bateson is a systems theorist and President of the International Bateson Institute. A writer, filmmaker and the daughter of celebrated anthropologist Gregory Bateson, she’s the brains behind a new way of understanding complexity: Warm Data.

Warm Data is a technique designed to uncover how information changes across contexts. It’s based on the insight that our attempts to make sense of reality – a deeply contextual, ecological whole – have parsed into alienated components, neglecting the complexity that enables its true function and meaning.

Nora Bateson

Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta

Tyson Yunkaporta is decoding indigenous wisdom and applying it to complexity, systems thinking and sociology. An academic and critic, he’s is a member of the Apalech Clan and the recent author of ‘Sand Talk’, a pioneering book that reveals the essential insights present in Aboriginal knowledge systems.

His research on Aboriginal memory techniques, haptic cognition and reverse anthropology offer a rebellious approach to reframing Western thought systems by combining them with alternative perspectives.

Tyson Yunkaporta

Greg Thomas

Greg Thomas is a jazz musician, Integral theorist, CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, and the innovator of ‘cultural intelligence’: a new frame that helps people navigate the complexity of diverse tribes that make up the modern identity landscape by focusing on values, flow and integral thinking.

Thomas’ work uses the idiom of the Blues – the spiritual soundtrack to African-American experience, the building block of modern rock – as a powerful route to collective intelligence and group flow.

Greg Thomas

Pamela von Sabljar

Talk to someone, really talk to them, and you notice something: that there’s an emergence. There’s information encoded in the relationship, and it becomes known with enough care and attention. Pamela von Sabljar, a global speaker and facilitator, has spent her career understanding how we can create the right conditions for this kind of dialogue.

Her work provides a framework for collective sensemaking in which considered conversation enables a greater presence and deeper sense of meaning.

Pamela von Sabljar

Alexander Beiner

Alexander is co-founder of Rebel Wisdom as well as a mindfulness instructor, Holistic Counsellor and facilitator. After learning from some of the leading minds in the ‘sensemaking space’ for several years and commenting on cultural developments, he became inspired to design ‘Hidden Ways of Knowing’ to bring together the theories, perspectives and practices that are often left out of the conversation – but that may be essential for making sense of the world.

Alexander Beiner

More to Come…

Why we Created this Experience

One way to see the world is as a tapestry of interdependent systems. They can be as small as our own families, as large as a society or as encompassing as the biosphere. As the world grows increasingly complex and our existential risks increase, making sense of how these systems evolve, adapt and change is becoming an essential human skill.

Usually, studying complexity means immersing yourself in theories, diagrams and post-it notes. And while theories are important, they can only take us so far: the map is not the territory. The territory is unpredictable. It’s chaotic and dangerous. The systems we’re part of aren’t like engines, and we can’t rely on a schematic to understand how they work. As Nora Bateson points out, they’re more like organisms; evolving, learning and adapting while we’re trying to make sense of them.

In Hidden Ways of Knowing, we’ll be getting our hands dirty and stretching our cognitive muscles. Playing and inquiring as we expand our perspective to see more of the patterns hidden in the world around us. In the process, we’re bringing together some of the most rebellious voices in the study of systems, culture and complexity with new theories and practices that have never been combined.

What You’ll Learn

Explore the practice of Warm Data, which helps us perceive how information changes across contexts. Learn how wisdom encoded in indigenous knowledge provides a radical new way of understanding complex systems. Drop into an Emergent Dialogue, which opens our eyes to unspoken patterns that arise when we make sense together. Listen to the wisdom of the Blues and gain a new lens on dynamics around identity, culture and race.

As well as these practices, you’ll also gain a theoretical scaffolding to help you apply them to meaningful action in your life and projects. But it’s up to you to decide what that looks like.

You might be inspired by Tyson Yunkaporta to practice an Aboriginal memory technique shown to be more effective than the famous ‘Memory Palace’ method in a recent study. Or explore the concept of haptic cognition by storing information into an object you craft by hand. Perhaps you’ll decide to apply Nora Bateson‘s Warm Data practice to a specific project and get to grips with the theory behind it. Or if that isn’t your style, you could immerse yourself in music and the Black American intellectual tradition with Greg Thomas to see how aesthetics and history jam together to build culture.

Every week, we’ll have a live session hosted by Pamela von Sabljar where the whole group will be able to practice emergent dialogue to make sense together. You’ll also have the opportunity to work in a smaller ‘pod’ or three other participants (in person or online) to compare notes, experiment with practices and support one another.

How it Works

The structure of the course is a weekend retreat hosted online, followed by four online practice sessions. But there’s a twist – you can either tune in solo and join a pod of others online, or meet up with others in real life to do the weekend retreat and / or the practice sessions together.

Having run transformative in-person retreats as well as online courses, we’ve seen how profound both can be. Online courses allow us to connect with people from around the world, remove the travel barrier so we can learn from world-class faculty, and create authentic connections that can have a big impact our lives. At the same time, there’s no denying that real-world contact is irreplacable. That’s why we’re experimenting with combining the best of both worlds.

The Online Experience

We’ve designed Hidden Ways of Knowing as a hybrid experience for everyone. Without giving too much away, parts of the process will see us stepping away from our screens to go outside, connected online but very much present in the world and with each other.

Even if you aren’t meeting up with others, you’ll still have an immersive experience and work in small groups of others around the world. We also encourage you to carve out some time just for you on the weekend – making sure you aren’t disturbed and have space to reflect. In short, treat it like a two day weekend away, even if you’re staying in your bedroom.

The In-Person Experience

For an even deeper level of immersion, you also have the option to go through the process with a group of others in real life. It could be a friend, people you’ve been hanging out with in the Rebel Wisdom Digital Campfire, or another platform. All you need is to do is agree a place to meet. One person might host in their home, a co-working space, or you could even rent an Airbnb for the weekend – we leave that up to you. In the process, you’ll also save up to 60% on your ticket. We’re also looking at ways to connect people in the same area who book solo but want to link up in person – please get in touch if that’s of interest. We also have a limited number of concession places available which you can apply for here.

All the practices and exercises in Hidden Ways of Knowing have been designed to work just as well in person as online. If you are meeting up in person, you’ll also receive an additional guide to help you with logistics, timings and processes.