Accessing The Liminal Space of Surrender And Transformation: A Talk With Crazywise Documentary Filmmaker Phil Borges

Crazywise Documentary Filmmaker Phil Borges joins Joel for a discussion of Phil's life post Crazywise and together they explore mental health and its relation spirituality, beginning with how does one define spirituality. 

Phil's history of experiences into spirituality, beginning with the death of his father and Phil's Aunt returning from a psychiatric hospitalization to Phil's home when Phil was a boy.

Also discussed, Phil's career development and choice and his search for meaningful work; from Orthodontistry to Photography and shooting covers of Romance Novels, Phil begin an ascent into work and exploring indigenous cultures.

His first project was working on a project in Tibet which he meet a young man identified as a Tulku (i.e., channeler of the Nachung Oracle, the Oversoul Protector of the Tibetan People Culture and Heritage). 

Phil interviewed the Tulku and learned how he came to his position in the Tibetan community.

The indicators of this position were seen in his Tibetan Community as positive signs of a gifted person and included mood swings, personality changes, hearing voices, and seeing visions.

This mental health crisis was the mark of a gifted person in Tibetan community. 

In other work, Phil worked with Amnesty International and the Samburu Tribe in where he met a young woman who at 14 started hearing voices and seeing vision.

Her grandmother recognized she had the gift to become a predictor, healer, and shaman in her community and took her under her wing and mentored her and these gifts into a skillset to benefit the community.

As Phil worked with many indigenous communities he began to interview the shaman, seers, healers, and predictors of these communities and found about 85% of the shaman had an an initiation into the path of the Shaman by a mental health crisis, defined by what the West would call psychosis. 

The community understood the mental health crisis as the beginning of a process of developing a person to become a leader, healer, and teacher in their community, and an elder would take them under their wing and mentor and guide them.

The mental emotional crisis is known by many shaman as 'The Little Death' or Ego Death.

Phil also in his career worked with neuroscientists to research the pathways of the brain.

Sudden awakening versus slow awakening was discussed across cultures (i.e., Mahayana school of Soto and Rinzai).

Phil also discusses his own experiences with psychedelics and micro-dosing and the importance of integrating those expericences into daily life require effort and work.

Phil and Joel discuss that we each have a specific kind of work and the human's journey is to search and find what that work might be. 

Liminal Space was defined as a threshold or a doorway and rebuilding after a breakthrough.

Phil reflects on his life now and his work on his memoirs documenting where his quest for meaningful work took him through his life.

 

 

Biography

Phil Borges, has been documenting indigenous cultures and striving to create an understanding of the challenges they face. Phil has spoken at multiple TED talks; including TED in 2007, TEDxRainier in 2012 and TEDxUMKC in 2013 and hosted television documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic.