By Wayne Saalman IF 21ST CENTURY NEWS CYCLES have been dominated by any one ideological perspective it is that of right-wing extremism. From the violence perpetrated by fundamentalist religious zealots to that of the numerous vicious uprisings of armed political authoritarian sympathizers guns have blazed and bombs have blown. …

By Wayne Saalman [Photo by Kayle Kaupanger] THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALMOST ALL conspiracy theories in the West these days, many historians contend, goes back at least as far as the split between the Pagan, Hebrew, Christian and Muslim faiths in earlier epochs. As these historians have pointed out, once…

By Wayne Saalman [Photo by Erik McLean] IF WE HAVE A HIGH DEGREE of empathy for others, if we have compassion for every human being on the planet and for every living creature, as well as for the planet itself, everything changes for the better. Our fellow human beings are…

By Wayne Saalman [Photo by Kal Visuals] WHAT WE SECRETLY BELIEVE, or profess to believe, whether to ourselves alone or to others in private, or again to others in a public setting, says so much about who we really are. …

By Wayne Saalman [Photo by Xuan Nguyen] EVEN WITH STANDING ON the proverbial shoulders of giants, few of us seem to be able to perceive that every social, political and religious institution on this planet is as much founded on a thread of fiction as on a myriad of facts…

By Wayne Saalman [Photo by Ben Neale] THE JOY OF JETTING OFF to distant cities and foreign lands immersed in the excitement of anticipation was once a luxury that millions of us took entirely for granted. Not anymore. Now we find ourselves pondering the idea of wandering through exotic cultures…

By Wayne Saalman EXTREME CHALLENGES REQUIRE EXTREME MINDFULNESS. Certainly in the midst of a pandemic there is no other choice. After all, this viral horror presents us with a life and death challenge, one that has upended virtually everything in our lives. …

By Wayne Saalman [Photo by Brittani Burns] IN HIS CLASSIC WORK, ECSTATIC RELIGION, author I.M. Lewis wrote that, “Out of the agony of affliction and the dark night of the soul comes literally the ecstasy of spiritual victory.” Humanity is collectively in such a dark night of the soul at…

By Wayne Saalman [Photo by Etty Fidele] CALL IT “CRINGE TV”, call it a world gone crazy, but what we are seeing on the tube these days is anger, chaos, violence, mass unrest, political division and the lethality of a pandemic to boot. …