Cultivating Virtuosity: Integrating Philosophy into Everyday Life
Release Date: 11/22/2025
Dante, Blake, and the Power of the Imagination
Dr. John Vervaeke
In this episode, John welcomes Mark Vernon to discuss his two books, 'Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey' and 'Awake: William Blake and the Imagination'. They explore the profound psychological, philosophical, and spiritual insights offered by Dante and Blake, touching upon topics like pilgrimage, the imaginal, and the role of the imagination in renewing perception. Mark shares his experiences and how these works resonate with contemporary cognitive science and spirituality. The conversation delves deep into understanding the connections between ancient wisdom and modern...
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Cultivating Virtue in Educational Practice with Ethan Hsieh
Dr. John Vervaeke
To learn directly from Ethan Hsieh, John Vervaeke and Taylor Barratt, The Lectern is partnering with 5ToMidnight to offer a long form hybrid (online/in-person) practice program called TIAMAT-X. This program brings a full ecology of practices, endorsed by The Vervaeke Foundation to help you develop the capacity to… perceive what matters regulate in real time and act with clarity …through a cohesive method that weaves together mindful dialogue, embodiment, imaginal practice, and disciplined mindfulness. Learn more about the program here: In part three of the...
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Silk Road Seminar - Nicole Baden
Dr. John Vervaeke
Thank you for joining us LIVE for this special Lectern Launch Event with Nicole Baden and Dr. John Vervaeke. Nicole Baden is a contemplative teacher, somatic practitioner, and long-time collaborator within the ecology-of-practices community. Her work focuses on integrating embodiment, meditative discipline, trauma-informed techniques, and transformative dialogue into cohesive pathways for personal and interpersonal growth. Nicole’s teaching draws from a diverse lineage of contemplative traditions while remaining grounded in modern cognitive science, offering students practices that cultivate...
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LIVE TIAMAT X Q&A with Ethan Hsieh
Dr. John Vervaeke
Learn more about the program here: Led by Ethan Hsieh, John Vervaeke and Taylor Barratt, The Lectern is partnering with 5ToMidnight to offer a long form hybrid (online/in-person) practice program called TIAMAT-X. This program brings a full ecology of practices, endorsed by The Vervaeke Foundation to help you develop the capacity to... • perceive what matters • regulate in real time • and act with clarity …through a cohesive method that weaves together mindful dialogue, embodiment, imaginal practice, and disciplined mindfulness. Learn more about the program here:...
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Cultivating Virtuosity: Integrating Philosophy into Everyday Life
Dr. John Vervaeke
Led by Ethan Hsieh, John Vervaeke and Taylor Barratt, The Lectern is partnering with 5ToMidnight to offer a long form hybrid (online/in-person) practice program called TIAMAT-X. This program brings a full ecology of practices, endorsed by The Vervaeke Foundation to help you develop the capacity to… perceive what matters regulate in real time and act with clarity …through a cohesive method that weaves together mindful dialogue, embodiment, imaginal practice, and disciplined mindfulness. Learn more about the program here: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/tiamat-x In part two of the...
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Lectern Live Launch Event — Reflections, Updates, and a Major Announcement
Dr. John Vervaeke
In this livestream, John relected on the past year, walk through important updates to the Lectern platform, preview upcoming courses, and share a major announcement: Led by Ethan Hsieh, John Vervaeke and Taylor Barratt, The Lectern is partnering with 5ToMidnight to offer a long form hybrid (online/in-person) practice program called TIAMAT-X. This program brings a full ecology of practices, endorsed by The Vervaeke Foundation to help you develop the capacity to… perceive what matters regulate in real time and act with clarity …through a cohesive method that weaves together mindful dialogue,...
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A Thorough Critique of Popular and Psychological Accounts of Meaning of Life
Dr. John Vervaeke
This is John’s second video essay, and it delivers a thorough critique of contemporary theories of meaning in life. With his student Arjun Arora assisting, John dismantles the standard psychological and folk categories — purpose, coherence, significance, and mattering — showing why they fall short of capturing the depth of what “meaning” actually is. Arjun Arora is a cognitive science and physics scholar whose work bridges science, philosophy, and the search for meaning. As a student collaborator of Dr. John Vervaeke at the University of Toronto, Arora explores questions at the...
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Silk Road Seminar - Jonathan Pageau
Dr. John Vervaeke
Thank you for joining us for our monthly Silk Road Seminar! Today’s guest is Jonathan Pageau is a Canadian artist, writer, and public thinker exploring the patterns that unite art, symbolism, and meaning. As an icon carver and lecturer on symbolic thinking, Jonathan has become a prominent voice in the growing movement to recover traditional ways of seeing the world. His work brings together theology, myth, and modern culture to help audiences rediscover the sacred patterns underlying reality. He is the host of The Symbolic World, a popular podcast and YouTube channel where he examines...
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Virtuosity as a Way of Life | Ethan Hsieh and the Tiamat Process
Dr. John Vervaeke
Something is coming: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/p/whatnext What if mastery isn’t about perfection—but about transformation? In this episode of The Lectern, John Vervaeke is joined by Ethan Hsieh to explore how the cultivation of virtuosity—typically associated with the arts—can become central to philosophical and existential growth. Ethan introduces his Tiamat process, a three-tier developmental framework integrating performance training, cognitive science, and dialogical practice. Together, they explore what it means to live a deliberately developmental life, moving...
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Silk Road Seminar - Elizabeth Oldfield
Dr. John Vervaeke
Thank you for joining us for our monthly Silk Road Seminar! Today’s guest is Elizabeth Oldfield. Elizabeth Oldfield is an experienced leader, writer, consultant and podcast host with a passion for intelligent public engagement on issues of reconciliation, identity, and healing our common life. She is currently working with a range of organisations and individuals as a coach and consultant focused on building clarity, courage and connection. Elizabeth appears regularly in the media, including BBC One, Sky News, the World Service, and writing in Prospect Magazine, UnHerd and The...
info_outlineLed by Ethan Hsieh, John Vervaeke and Taylor Barratt, The Lectern is partnering with 5ToMidnight to offer a long form hybrid (online/in-person) practice program called TIAMAT-X. This program brings a full ecology of practices, endorsed by The Vervaeke Foundation to help you develop the capacity to…
perceive what matters
regulate in real time
and act with clarity
…through a cohesive method that weaves together mindful dialogue, embodiment, imaginal practice, and disciplined mindfulness.
Learn more about the program here:
https://www.5tomidnight.org/offerings/tiamat-x
https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/tiamat-x
In part two of the Lectern Dialogues series, Ethan introduces two ex-participants, now facilitators-in-training, Rens and Ellie, as the discussion continues on how to bring virtuosity to virtue and transform philosophical understanding into a way of life. The focus is on Ethan's TIAMAT process, a three-tiered pedagogical approach integrating performance and cognitive science into living practices. The conversation dives into the importance of overcoming habitual thought patterns, unlocking agency, and the participatory nature of this transformative work. Through shared experiences and reflections, they contrast the program's approach to that of traditional therapy, emphasizing complexification, relational ontology, and distributed trust and empowerment. The episode illustrates the depth and communal aspects of Tier 2 of TIAMAT and its impact on personal growth and relationships.
Ethan Hsieh
Ethan Hsieh is a facilitator, educator, and philosophical practitioner whose work bridges performance, cognition, and transformative pedagogy. As the creator of the TIAMAT process—a three-tiered developmental framework—he integrates insights from performance practice, cognitive science, and dialogical philosophy to help individuals cultivate virtuosity as a way of life. Through immersive training containers and collaborative inquiry, he guides participants in mapping their inner experience, expanding their relational capacities, and enacting what he calls “postures of presence.” Ethan’s approach emphasizes participatory learning, metacognitive mapping, and the cultivation of agency through shared practice. His work with the collective 5toMidnight seeks to foster deliberately developmental communities grounded in relational ontology, where philosophical understanding becomes lived transformation.
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00:00 Welcome to the Lectern
01:00 Introducing Ethan's collaborators: Rens and Ellie
02:00 The TIAMAT process: Integrating virtuosity and virtue
03:00 Ethan's journey and collaborations
07:30 Rens’s and Ellie’s backgrounds and contributions
11:00 Meta maps and philosophical frameworks
12:04 "Meta maps are a kind of structure for your metacognition to be able to at least have touch points to map your experience."
15:00 The role of participation and feedback
26:00 Therapy vs. TIAMAT: a comparative discussion
40:00 Exploring ambiguity and complexity
42:30 Therapy and empowering agency
46:00 Deliberately developmental civilization
47:30 Shadow work and its misconceptions
52:00 Tier two dynamics and personal growth
01:06:00 Facilitating and participating in growth
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Follow John Vervaeke
https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com
https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john
https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke
https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke
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Thank you for watching!