Spirit in Action
The Whole-Brain Path to Peace - James Olson
James Olson is the author of The Whole-Brain Path to Peace about the role of left and right brain dominance in the polarization and reunification of America. It's an investigation into the effects of brain perspective on government, corporate life, war, and our personal lives. James Olson is a management-trained philosopher with studies in business, engineering, art, eastern and western religion, yoga, qigong, neuro-linguistic programming, philosophy and brain perspective. Plus, he's a former farmer & church deacon.
- Broadcast on:
- 25 Dec 2011
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - We've got a very interesting subject for you today on Spirit in Action. James Olson is the author of The Whole Brain Path to Peace. And on the front cover, you can read that it's about the role of the left and right brain dominance in polarization and reunification of America. And also that it's an investigation into the effects of brain perspective on government, corporate life, war, and our personal lives. I hope that wets your appetite. The author James Olson lists himself as a management trained philosopher with studies in business, engineering, art, Eastern and Western religion, yoga, jigong, neuro-linguistic programming, philosophy, and of course, brain perspective. He's a former farmer and church deacon, so you can see his experience and perspective are far and wide. Before James Olson joins us by phone from Northern California, I want to musically introduce you to the right and left brain polarities we'll be talking about. The individual and competitive versus communal and loving. With a song from Peter Mayer, "All the World Is One" and then we'll meet up with James Olson. Right now, Peter Mayer. ♪ You can say that you stand apart ♪ ♪ Put a fence around your yard ♪ ♪ You can build a tall, round part ♪ ♪ Guarded with the gun ♪ ♪ You can dig yourself a moat ♪ ♪ Burn the bridge and burn the boat ♪ ♪ It won't matter that much, you know ♪ ♪ 'Cause all the world is one ♪ ♪ All the world is one ♪ ♪ You can march in a big parade ♪ ♪ Every independence day ♪ ♪ You can raise up your own flakes ♪ ♪ Sing your own anthem ♪ ♪ It'll ring out in the air ♪ ♪ With the other anthem's there ♪ ♪ To the winds of the earth declare ♪ ♪ All the world is one ♪ ♪ All the world is one ♪ ♪ Going ask the Buddha when he's sitting under the tree ♪ ♪ Go ask all Whitman when he's looking out at the sea ♪ ♪ Ask Alan Shepard when he's standing up on the roof ♪ ♪ Staring at that pearl of blue ♪ ♪ Asking that I'm in the breath you take ♪ ♪ Ask the one about the river bay ♪ ♪ Ask a strand of DNA ♪ ♪ It's written in your blood ♪ ♪ One life running in your veins ♪ ♪ One life from one big bay ♪ ♪ You can try and separate it ♪ ♪ All the world is one ♪ ♪ All the world is one ♪ (gentle guitar music) ♪ Going ask the Buddha when he's sitting under the tree ♪ ♪ Ask Annie Dillard when she's up on take good grief ♪ ♪ Ask Alan Shepard when he's standing up on the roof ♪ ♪ Staring at that pearl of blue ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ You can take an outbound train ♪ ♪ Try to make it get away ♪ ♪ You can ride off like John Wade to the setting sun ♪ ♪ Earthlings don't leave town ♪ ♪ They just go around and around ♪ ♪ 'Til they figure out all the world is one ♪ ♪ All the world is one ♪ ♪ All the world is one ♪ (gentle guitar music) - James, thank you so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. - It's a pleasure to be here. - I was very intrigued by your book, The Whole Brain Path to Peace. When did this book get its birth in your imagination? - I went to a weekend workshop during which a neuroscientist mapped our brains lateral in a four quadrant model, and he did this by asking a series of questions. I thought I was fairly balanced in my thinking, and I guess I am or was, but I found out that I was very left brain dominant. He took the participants and put us in a U-shaped line so that we could physically see who was the left brain dominant, the left brain dominant, people were on the left side, and the right brain on the right side, and I ended up almost to the end on the left side, and that made me really curious as to, what effect this arrangement of being left brain dominant was having on my perception and my behavior, and so this got me interested in the subject, and I'd been writing a book during that time, but this really shifted the book and made it into a different book. - Professionally, what have you been in the course of your life? - I graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in business administration with a management major. I spent a year, my first year out of college, as an insurance adjuster in Kansas City. It was a really good training, get out, and I did some writing and got out and met people, and I normally thought it was not a particularly good job, but it turned out to be good for me, and then I went into farming and ranching, and I did that for 19 years, but I realized that I was more thought oriented. I wanted to write. I felt I had something to say, and I also felt that I had a difficult time expressing myself verbally, and I needed to write it down to be accurate, so I can trace the beginning of the book back to 1987 when I first started taking notes. - Again, the name of the book is the whole brain path to peace. I know you consider peace on multiple levels within the book. Do you wanna talk about what your definition or what you're talking about when you're referring to that thing called peace? - Well, peace is an internal condition of spirit, I guess it's, and peace starts within. It's being free of conflict. I think we all have peace. Peace is a natural birthright, but conflict, it invades us and takes root in us, and our culture is so conflicted. What I found ultimately was there's a potential conflict between the two sides of the brain, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. They're so radically different in the way they perceive reality, that at least from a left-brain perspective, they sometimes seem to be opposite and usually seem to be in conflict. So if you're left-brain dominant, you especially see this conflict between the two, and if you're right-brain dominant, you see the big picture and you see the context, and you understand then that they're actually complementary. - Yes, they're very different, but there is a way that they work together. - Of course, if you're not internally at peace or in connection with peace, that has consequences on the outer world. And you spend a significant time in the book, particularly in the later chapters, talking about war in its various forms, the external world at war, war and drugs being one of them. You believe there's a direct linkage between that inner peace and outer peace, right? - Oh, absolutely. One of the things very much later on in the book that you mentioned is that there's a study, and I've forgotten the name right now of nations. It was just not too long ago that originated, and I think maybe 25 different points. Nations are rated in terms of the attributes that lead to peacefulness or not, and the US was pretty far down the list. Could you talk about that rating, that study? And again, this is about the outer world we're talking about, but maybe as a reflection of our inner worlds. - That was the Global Peace Index, produced by a worldwide team of experts called the Economist, there's an Economist magazine in Britain, and I think that's part of this group of people. They did rate the nations by, it was like, I think, 24 indicators. And in the 2008 survey, the United States ranked 96 out of 121 countries. In 2009, we'd moved up to 83rd place, but that's still in the bottom half of the list, and public opinion seems to confirm this. There was a survey carried out by newspapers in Britain, Canada, Israel, Mexico. When they asked these people, most of the people thought that the United States was not a very peaceful country. - We only have to travel a little bit to realize how true that is. Again, this program is spirit in action. I usually am concerned about peace and justice, environmentalism, and how spirit works with us in the world to produce that, how we can uplift those kind of efforts. And so your book falls squarely into the purview of this program. But I think you come at it from a different angle than most people. You said when you took that workshop, James, that you were on the far left brain side of the continuum. Have you changed? Are you still left brain? You thought yourself balanced before. - Well, I haven't, I've been so busy. I haven't taken the test again, but in fact, I don't have access to that particular test. I could take some other tests, but that wouldn't be a very scientific response. But yes, I certainly think that I am more right brain in a sense, but this left brain dominance is something that I have inherited. Like we all tend to inherit, one brain tends to be dominant or the other. And it does the majority of our thinking. It's kind of our automatic brain. And it gets reinforced because the more we use our dominant brain, the more comfortable we get with it and the more practice we have with it. So we just continue to use it 'cause it tends to do the best job. And I still am very left brain dominant. And I find that my left brain, which is the brain that is selfish, is still, I still tend to be a little bit selfish, but I can go out of that. I know that there are other choices. And I know from studying the right brain that I have this choice. And so at any point I can still be in my right brain. I can choose right brain perspectives and right brain processes. And so I'm not locked into that. Since I've been studying this, I really understand my options and I practice my options. And so clearly that allows me to use my right brain much more effectively and efficiently than if I didn't realize I had these options and I was just using the left brain dominance that I was born with and that culture tends to reinforce. Perhaps this would be a good time for you to familiarize us with some of the science relating to brain dominance, the right and left brain and which brain does what and how they work. It's obviously central to the whole thesis that you're building up and really the solutions you're pointing toward in the whole brain path to peace. So could you give us some of the background? You don't tend to lay out specific studies and the historical path in knowledge about the brain as much in the book as perhaps I wanted to because maybe I'm a little bit left brain dominant. Could you give me some of the background on that? What studies and how we know what we know? - Yes, and I'll respond to what you just said. As a culture we do tend to want the details. In most books we focus in on one subject fairly narrowly but they cover it in depth with all the details to really prove that it's this way. And in my effort to write this book I'm promoting the holistic right brain perspective and I tried to be holistic in that I have tried to cover a wide range of ideas and do that instead of having great depth because the right brain is the broad context brain and that's what we really need to be focused on that's what I'm trying to focus us on. So I've tried to write the book this way but to get back to your question about the two sides of the brain where we live in a dualistic world, the universe is holistic but this particular planet has a very dualistic culture where everything is divided into two parts. We have polar and non-polar molecules and our brain is polar and non-polar and basically what that means is the non-polar right brain sees the oneness. It sees everything as a whole, it sees the unity or at least it's looking for the unity. That's its process. The left brain separates things. It takes the oneness and divides it up and the first step in dividing it up is into two parts, the two most extreme parts. So the left brain is polarizing and that's how we end up with a polarized culture because we're so left brain. It sees polarization and it responds with polarization. Being that it's dualistic, it's separateive whereas the right brain unifies things. They're always complimentary. The right brain because it sees everything perceives whole simultaneously and it processes information simultaneously. The information's right there in front of us. We see it and we know what to do. The left brain is sequential since it sees the parts. So it sees one piece of the time. So it has to process sequentially everything that sees. We've long known that the left brain is analytic and the right brain is synthetic which is constructive. This is really where I started is to understand what the brains do. So knowing what they do, I could better understand what they see. For example, the left brain takes things apart. So if you're taking things apart, you're getting ever smaller parts that you focus on. You take something apart like a car engine. You take carburetor off and then you take that apart again and then there may be parts in there you take apart. So you keep getting the smaller and smaller parts. The right brain, since it's constructive, keeps putting information together. So you know that that's taking you to the context. If you just keep putting information together, everything that you encounter, if you assemble it, you're getting that big picture. You're getting connective. And well, a couple of other things that I might say about, the left brain is reasoned based. It's our science brain. It's our earth brain. It's the brain that takes care of us on this planet. It's focused on our physical reality. It's focused on protecting us. The right brain is our universe brain. It's interested in the big picture and that includes people. So it's interested in others. It's interested in the collective self. We really have two selves. We can't help it. We have our individual self. And we're always part of some culture. And we have an impact on the rest of the whole. And so this is our collective self. And there can be in different layers. Your family is a little collective self. And a school is a collective self. The state is a collective self. A nation is a collective self. And you put all those nations together. And our planet is our collective self. And you can even go on from there. But that's usually where we stop. Well, actually, that's not entirely correct, because the right brain being the universe brain is the brain that's seeking God. It's going beyond the planet. It's going into the heavens and trying to get us into heaven. The right brain is our liberal brain. It cares about others. And the left brain being focused on the self is our conservative brain. It wants to take care of us. It wants to make sure that we have enough to feed ourselves and survive. And then if you expand that a little bit to our family, the left brain is energized by fear. We need fear to take care of ourselves. We need to recognize when there are dangers. So the left brain is the brain that responds to fear. And the right brain is the loving brain, you know, fear and love or compliments. They're the same thing, different, I guess, the fullness and the absence of the two. But that's kind of a-- that's a better answer than I usually care to talk with there. [LAUGHTER] Some of the consequences of this, James, are quite striking in terms of how we function as a nation and as a world. Are there areas of the world where the culture is predominantly right-brained? Clearly, the USA is left-brained oriented. And maybe that has something to do with our success in the world, because a lot of the scientific research that we do, if you address the building blocks, you get some pretty good scientific discoveries out of it. Though I do remember that you mentioned in the book that the real breakthroughs all happen from the inspiration side of the brain. But again, my question was, are there places in the world which are predominantly right-brained oriented? Yes, India would be probably the most obvious example. The Indians seem to be very right-brained. And an example of the culture that's more balanced would be China. And that should really be a wake-up call to America, because you're writing what you said about us being left-brained, and that allowing us to make these technological advances. But in a competitive world, we really need to use both halves of the brain. And that's really the purpose of my book, was to explain the right-brained perspective and to help us to move our culture, shift it a little more toward a balanced use of the brain. So India, as a right-brained example, and China is an example of a relatively balanced culture. I would expect, then, if there are right-brained cultures that will see a effect in terms of violence or peace in those societies, I guess we could make the correlation there. The problem is that all these people that are responsible for peace have a left brain. And even if it's a right-brained dominant society like India, there are a lot of left brain-- men tend to be left-brained dominant. And there are a lot of men there. And even if they're more right-brained dominant than we are, there's still some very left-brained dominant people in India. And so they have their own battles there. They're not entirely peaceful. But we do see the effect of the right brain in that they have a very strong spiritual tradition of all the gurus and the festivals and things. That comes out of the right-brained side. But there are always people like me that even though we try to be spiritual, have a very strong left-brain response, and that can take us out of our peace. Well, this does bring us to the area of religion or spirituality and peace in the world. One of the statements you make-- and again, this is later on in the book, although it may echo something you wrote earlier in there. You said that religion, even while it often has as its central core bringing us peace, in terms of the outer world, has worked against peace. Do you want to enlarge upon that? Well, men tend to be in control of religions. And men tend to be left-brained dominant. Men have set up their religious institutions. And naturally, they've set up their religious institutions based on what they see, based on their perspective, which tends to be left-brained dominant. So this tends to make religion as opposed to spirituality. This tends to make religion more left-brained dominant than we would think it would be. And the left-brained is territorial, security-oriented. It's defensive and aggressive. And so if you put religion in the hands of males and let them set up the institutions, they're naturally going to build into those institutions a competitive territorial spirit. And when they're threatened, they're going to fight. And so we have these wars between religions. And if women who are right-brained dominant were in charge of religions, I don't think we would have these conflicts between religions. We would probably see religions trying to integrate, to practice peace. That's my opinion from what I've seen. That brings me to another one of my thoughts when I was reading your book. Could we just as easily have spoken of masculine versus feminine culture? In Myers-Briggs, could we have spoken about thinking versus feeling in terms of that continuum as part of what you're doing? Could we think in terms of any of those conceptions of the world and have been just as valid in terms of the analysis you've done? Yes, the left-brained is the thinking-brained. And the right-brained is the feeling-brained. Well, the right-brained is holistic, so it's probably-- and I separate the two for purposes of study. But not only do we all use both brains, but the right-brained by being holistic means it sees everything. And to be holistic, it needs to include the left-brained. So actually, if you look at them, you kind of have the left-brained that stands alone and the right-brained that is inclusive of the left-brained. And most men are left-brained dominant. I like to call the left-brained the male brain, but I also need to explain that there are a few males that are right-brained dominant, and there are some women that are left-brained dominant. So it's not a perfect correlation. But in terms of what we understand about men and women, the men being more aggressive, and the women attracting things, that is true. The left-brained is-- can be thought of as the male brain and the right-brained as the female brain. So why do we need to think about the brain at all? If we could just consider this in terms of male-female culture or maybe just the Myers-Briggs thinking, feeling, continuum, why do we need to think about the brain at all? Now, we don't. I use this to explain what's going on, but when I'm using this information, I'm thinking in terms of the two perspectives-- the focused perspective, the separate perspective of the left-brained or the unifying holistic perspective of the right-brained. So in practical terms, if I'm a left-brained guy and I'm listening to this program and I know I'm left-brained and I'm focused, then I'm thinking, well, in order to be more balanced, I need to use my right-brained more. I need to use my holistic perspective more. I need to recognize that I tend to focus and I overlook the context or at least the context is not the normal thing that I look at. So again, you don't need to really think in terms of the brain, but you do need to recognize that you have two different ways of looking at things and to try to make sure that when you are-- you're doing something important and you want to really give it all your best shot. You want to think it out really well. So you think, well, I also need to feel. My right brain is my feeling brain. So not only what do I think, but what do I feel. And not only what does my focus say, but what does the context of my right brain say. So we don't really need to focus on our brain itself, but we do need to think about our perspective and how it affects our perception. And you do that throughout the book. Again, The Whole Brain Path to Peace by James Olson, the role of left and right brain dominance in the polarization and reunification of America. And because this is spirit and action you're listening to, we are especially interested in how we can get away from that polarization and get to the reunification of America. James, if we were dealing with a USA which had this proper incorporation of the right and left, not just dominance of right, not just dominance of left, but if they were both holistically approached, what do you think would look different about our culture and our country? My first impression is to say everything. It would make a tremendous difference instead of politicians doing what it takes to keep themselves in office. They would be thinking, what's best for this country? They might think, for example, if this is what I really believe, but if I vote this way, my constituents are going to be angry at me and they're going to throw me out of office. But I'm going to do it anyway because my country is more important than my job. And you would have people in all departments of government doing that. They would say, this is what I need to do for the country. This is the right thing. This may get me fired, but this is what I've got to do in order to keep my integrity, in order to be the whole person that I am and to create the whole government that I really want. The changes would just be drastic. We're speaking with James Olson, the author of "The Whole Brain Path to Peace," the role of left and right brain dominance in the polarization and reunification of America. His website is thewholebrainpath.com. And you can also follow the link from northernspiritradio.org. This is Spirit in Action, a Northern Spirit Radio production. Our website, northernspiritradio.org, has all of our archives the last six and a half years. It's got links to our guests, like James Olson. And it's got a place for you to post comments. We love hearing from you. We love connecting with you. We love making this conversation whole. Your input and your help is always welcome. Again, we're speaking with James Olson, author of "The Whole Brain Path to Peace." So let's get to a kind of a specific case study. You can do this in one of the later chapters in "The Whole Brain Path to Peace." You talk about the drug war. Usually we think of drug war as a euphemism about war, but it really connects with the energies, the ideology of war so strongly. I'm tempted, by the way, to read some of the stories, the little news flashes that you include in the book, actual cases of here's what happened to this person. Some of them are so ghastly, and you say, "How can you possibly do that?" And of course, the answer is, if someone's operating out of one side of their brain with a war metaphor, that's how they can do something so completely horrendous. Can you talk a little bit about the connection between our way of thinking, our left brain way of thinking, and the war mentality and the drug war? Well, the drug warriors have a noble goal. They want to protect people from doing crazy things that hurt themselves and hurt others. And so they set off with good intent and a focus to stop this problem. The easiest way to do this, certainly the quickest way to do this, is through war. That's what we've been taught. If somebody won't do what we think they should do, and they're causing problems, we feel that we are forced to do something, to force them to behave in the manner that we believe would produce the best outcome. So that's the good intent of the drug warriors, but they're so focused on this one goal, and they believe it's so important, they don't care what else happens. This is a tremendously important thing to protect our kids, so we're just gonna do whatever it takes to protect them. So they start putting them in prison, and so we end up, the United States in prison is more a larger percent of its population than anyone in the world, and it's mostly because of the drug war. And they don't want to look at the problems they cause. I heard Ron Paul once said that he hated drug use, but the drug war caused five times as much damage. And so when you look at it that way, you say, well, drug use is bad, am I gonna choose something that's five times worse? And so you gotta make these choices that people don't wanna make these choices, and certainly the people in power don't wanna give up their jobs. There again, if they were to really look at science and look at this issue in a rational, honest way, they would find that they have made little if no progress in the drug war, and the main result is to fill our prisons and destroy many lives. It's a matter of the left brain wants to focus on the problem, and it wants to apply war and aggression as a solution. That's just the way it's designed to be, and it just needs to be moderated by the right brain, by compassion, by looking at the context, by looking at the whole of what the war is doing. There are many aspects. I pointed out many in this chapter, but one that should put a chill in everybody's spine is the effect the drug war is having on terrorism. The drug war is funding terrorism. By and large, it's probably the largest funding source. That alone is a major reason to bring much of the drug war to a halt. - I'm a little bit confused, and so maybe I'm going to make a little devil's advocate position here, and you straighten me out if you can, James. - Okay. - In the chapter on the war on drugs, you very clearly point out the facts and the science and the conclusion of scientific bodies, and the logic in the situation. All of those things I associate with the left side of the brain, that kind of logical construction. I tend to connect the kind of strong emotional, we have to do everything type response that you're connecting with the left brain point of view on war, but I connect that kind of strong emotional response with the right side of the brain. Is the left side of the brain emotional? Is it the right side of the brain that's emotional? How does this go together? Because it strikes me that the war on drugs is completely illogical, and yet that is a left brain function, that logic. - The right brain is the emotional brain, and the emotion is love. It's love energy, and fear is really the absence of love, and so the left side is the, in one sense is the absence of emotion. That's one way of looking at it, and the absence of emotion is fear. So there is, so another way of looking at it is to say that it's emotion is fear. - Does that mean that the right brain doesn't feel in fear? - Yes, I believe that. The right brain doesn't accept that the right brain is connected to the left brain. It has that source of input. So in that sense, it would have, it probably does experience fear. - The right brain does experience fear. - Yeah, I'm being theoretical here. The right brain is the love brain, but since they're connected, in some sense, it experiences everything that the left brain experiences, and sees everything that the left brain sees, because that's just part of the holistic view. - So the thesis I'm working on, and it may or may not be valid, but I'm putting it out there, is that actually this very illogical response, war and drugs, is a right brain emotional response to things that the left brain set up, that the right brain seized on and fed and is carrying out without any regard to the facts that underlie it. - That's a very good insight. That's absolutely true. And the left brain people who are in charge of the war should be the rational people, and they should be looking at science. But left brain people are not always rational. They're not always conservative, just as liberals are not always liberal. And that's part of the confusion, I think, in not understanding our two perspectives, not understanding that we have these two forces working on us, and we get caught up in one, or we don't, or we see them as opposites, and we don't know how to put everything together, but you're right, right brain people, because they have so context focused, they don't see the details, and that's how liberals have gotten sucked into the drug war, because they don't see the details, and our culture is really trying to keep the details of science away from people. In the book, one of the quotes or comments you share is, "In war, winning is everything." Is that left brain or right brain that says that? - That's a left brain, the left brain's competitive, and it wants to be number one, it wants to be in control. It needs to be in control in order to fully carry out its job of protecting us. - So we talked about the metaphor, or perhaps the actuality of the war on drugs. This also happens between nations. I've been dumbfounded at times when I've talked to people who are supportive of wars, and they could say, see, this is reducing all of the casualties, because we only have X number of deaths, and the only deaths that they're counting are the deaths on our side of the imaginary line, which is our borders. I guess the right brain can't accept that the people on the other side of that imaginary line are a distinct person, 'cause it's seeing holistically, right? - Well, because it's seeing holistically, it should see the others as us. But the problem is we all have these two brains, and our left brain is coming in there, and our left brain is the one that sees them and us. But it's sending that to the right brain, so you can be a right brain dominant person, and you're relying on your left brain to fill out your big picture, to help you understand. And if the left brain is telling you that it's them and us, and our culture is telling you it's them and us, that may override the right brain's natural tendency to see us as one. We're actually dealing with two forces, as I've referred to as the brain dominance itself. What our brain is telling us, and then what culture is telling us, how we've been programmed to believe in our culture in this country's very left brain, so it's separate in it and competitive in it, and it sees the us and them, and that's what it's telling us, that we're separate. I guess I'm gonna pick a nit with you here on one thing. I found it very interesting, the comment that you made, but then I started thinking about it and said, "I don't know if this really holds water or not." One of the things that you said is, in terms of that list of the most peaceful nations on the world versus the most violent ones, the nations that were the most peaceful included those in upper Europe, places like Denmark and Norway, Sweden. And they're pretty far up in the cold area of the world, if you will. The more violent ones on the bottom of the list were the ones that are close to the quater in the hot areas of the world. And so you said maybe there's a correlation, it's a side effect of culture in place. I almost accepted that until I said, "Wait a minute, where did the Vikings come from? "They weren't so peaceful." So what do you think about that? - I mean, you're right in that they weren't so peaceful, but they were explorers and they, again, they're males, they have a left brain and their left brain is aggressive and dominant directs their thinking. So it's all relative, you know, all I'm saying is that, you know, maybe the Vikings weren't as aggressive and violent as the people around the equator, but you're right, I mean, they were very warlike. - In looking at all of this information that we have, our way of thinking, our cultural way of thinking, this left brain dominance, the deconstructive thinking, and the way that this leads us to war and to adversary and violence and force, what do you see as the solution? - The solution to ending worldwide war or war in a culture? - Yeah, I'm interested in ending war. I'm interested in ending violence. I'm interested in obtaining what at least in some scriptures is referred to as the kingdom of God, where we live in this harmony, this peaceable kingdom. As a Quaker, that's one of the things I want to increase all my efforts toward. How can we lead the peaceable kingdom where the lion lies down with lamb and where they will not study war anymore? - I believe that the path to peace lies in the right brain. It is, you know, we've discussed this, the right brain is the peaceful brain. The thing that we need to do is to shift our culture, shift ourselves as individuals first to create inner peace. And as a culture, once we have more people that use more of their right brain, that's the way we get the peace. The conflict in my studies is between the ideas that are developed with the two sides of the brain and we need to end the conflict within ourselves and once we end the conflict within ourselves. At the same time, we're helping ending the conflict in culture. We just need education. We know that highly educated people are, as a whole, are more peaceful than, well, it depends on the culture. I started to say that more highly educated people are more peaceful than uneducated people. And I think that's true as a whole. There are lots of examples, but basically we know that we get into a peaceful state, well, even in ourselves, by understanding ourselves through education, and I see education as the answer to our getting to peace. We just need to understand the cost of war. We need to get more people to understand the cost of war. And we especially need to work with males, with young males, and we need to teach them better ways of solving their problems. Of course, one would think with the teachings of Jesus, or Buddha, or Lao Tse, or so many others throughout history, these great inspirational leaders and thinkers and reflections of divinity, with all of the knowledge that's been given to us, why aren't we peaceful? What are we missing in that? Certainly, there are people who have memorized every word in the Bible, but somehow still don't come out of it, living as Jesus, I think, would advocate. - Well, pieces of spiritual matter, you can know the Bible by heart, and that's not gonna make you peaceful. It's gonna help, I would think, unless you're focused on the war-like scriptures, but there's a difference between the spiritual reality and the mental reality. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience, and we communicate and we think through a mind that we have to have the correct thoughts, and we have to put them into action. We can't just believe them, we have to live them. - You said education is the solution, but what kind of education are you talking about? It's clearly not from what you just said, memorizing every word of the Bible. - I think it's just understanding ourselves, understanding the choices that we have, understanding that we actually have two choices every time we go to solve a problem. The right brain is giving us information, and the left brain is giving us information, and we need to ask ourselves, are we availing ourselves of our whole brain input, or are we just using half a brain to make our decisions, even the decisions as to spirit? Do we get mad when someone cuts us off in traffic, or do we understand that getting mad only adds madness to getting cut off in traffic? You can get cut off in traffic and choose to just ignore it. Just say, well, I'm glad that stupid idiot didn't run into me and then go on and laugh about it. We can laugh or get angry, but that's a spiritual choice. And ultimately, we need to make better spiritual choices. And I just seen that education helps in that process of getting two better spiritual choices. - Way back in the beginning of the interview, James, you mentioned something about your anger. And from what you just said about the automobile cutting off in traffic, I have a feeling you really do know about anger that, like most of us males, you have a pretty developed sense of anger. Is that the case? Have you really had to master it on a personal level? Maybe you're still very much on the path to mastering that. - Yes, I do have to master it. And I think it's just part of being left brain dominant. And I guess I've forgiven myself for it. I understand that it's just part of life on this planet. And we all experience this and it's just a matter of how we manage it. And I just try to manage it with intelligence, guide it productively. - I guess I wanna turn my focus to another area of the book that one might not have expected in a book called The Whole Brain Path to Peace. I think that you being left brain dominant, one might have expected a strictly scientific, logical narrative. On the other hand, you bring in a number of religious and spiritual insights and influences, all of which I found very valuable, by the way. But they were probably unorthodox for a certain number of people in the mainstream. You draw on conversations with God, for example, which some people may or may not accept. If you quote the Bible, which you also do, people are probably right on target with that. Had you considered writing this book without drawing on the sources or the book of your ancha and other sources, which I think for some people is perhaps a little beyond their comfort zone? - I originally was not going to bring God into this book at all. When I started writing the second chapter, which is now the first chapter, just really wrote itself. It was one of the easiest chapters, what just kind of came to me. And I really felt that I was inspired and as an inspired chapter. And so from that point on, I decided to bring spirituality into science. And then as a holistic book, I wanted to anyway, because there are the three energies, spiritual energy, mind and physical energy. So to be holistic, I needed to bring all three in, but in particular, you're asking about these non-orthodox books. One of the things that I wanted to do when I started writing this book was to bring in new material. Things that people might not be aware of in my discussions with people, you know, often find they've never heard of a course in miracles or they've never heard of the conversations with God or the uvrence book. And I have found these to be extraordinarily valuable sources of information. And so I just brought in relevant pieces of these books to expose my readership to these alternative sources of spiritual knowledge. - And something that people might find to be amazing is it's so very consistent, even with what we learned from our own scriptures. I really liked the way that you talked about the approach of what would Jesus do about the war on drugs, for instance? Would you care to share with us how you delve into the mind of Jesus to find out how he would approach perhaps the drug wars? - Well, as a Christian, I've long tried to get into the mind of Jesus to understand what he was doing. And I even edited a book called The Life and Wisdom of Jesus in Scripture where I took the four gospel stories and it broke them down into one story that included all the information about Jesus. And so I really feel like I do understand some of the who he was at. And particularly in relationship to drugs because I remember I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and you couldn't even have Sacramento wine because they were so afraid of drugs. And yet when you read the Bible that Jesus went to a wedding party where they served wine and when it ran out, he turned water into wine. And according to the Bible, those six stone jars each were capable of holding 20 to 30 gallon of wine. So Jesus really, he didn't just bring a couple bottle. He brought several huge jars of wine to the party. So you must think that he wasn't opposed to drugs. And then when we study science, we know that even from government studies, for example, of cannabis, which was kind of the main drug that I focused on in the book, that alcohol is a much stronger drug than cannabis or marijuana, the Mexican name. And so it seems that Jesus must have been tolerant of intoxicants. So the question is, would he have been tolerant of marijuana? Well, I don't know, but it just seems rational to assume that he probably was. I don't want to be dogmatic, but I don't think that Jesus would go and put somebody in prison for using drugs if he saw someone was using drugs and they were hurting themselves. He would give them love, he would give them support. He would look for ways to help them to solve their problems, to solve their addictions. He would put his arm around them. He would give them love, he wouldn't demonize them. And Buddha, pretty much the same thing. He taught that peaceful minds led to peaceful speech and peaceful action. And I'm sure if he practiced that, he would be tolerant. And yet I think it's your position, James, that religion is not necessarily the answer. By the way, for me, one of the things that I think, spirituality is very important. And you can have spirituality easily without having it in any community. And I think that's a good thing if you have spirituality. The thing that I think that you add when you do it in a community, which I would call therefore a religion, is that you're working the issues out in public instead of just having a noble connection to creation on my own by living in a community where we do that. I think we multiply our effects. There's no power as weak as the power of just one. So if we can do it in community, which I would call religion, I think that makes the movement forward of society tremendously powerful. What's your perspective on this religion, spirituality, and this right brain, left brain dominance? How does that all play out in the mix? - Well, I like the way you define that. It's religion as being in community. But I think that's very helpful. The right brain is the community brain. It's the collective brain. It's interested in the collective self. It knows the impact of the collective on the individual. Of course, as I said, the left brain is the individual brain and it's just looking out for ourselves. But part of looking out for ourselves is developing a strong community and the supportive relationships of the religious community could be thought of as a selfish goal. And that's the one way you can connect the two brains by bringing the left brain's selfishness into the right brain and teaching it that puts good to the collective is good for the individual. - And how does that play out for you individually? You mentioned as a Christian growing up, do you find a community of sport now? Is there community of support that's helped you formulate these ideas and make your life more peaceable and maybe deal with your anger that certainly as a male, we certainly have a significant propensity toward. Has community been part of that? - Yes, it has. I've been a member of the Course in Miracles groups and that was very instrumental in helping me understanding that work. And I've been a member of your answer book groups and that community and growing up in the Southern Baptist community and later in the UCC, United Church of Christ community, congregational. I wrote the book in Oklahoma and that's a very conservative community and I had a difficult time in that community but I'm now living in Northern California. So I'm once again in a very supportive community in a broad sense. - I'm glad all those communities conspired together to help lead you to the wisdom and insight that is the whole brain path to peace. Subtidal is the role of left and right brain dominance in the polarization and reunification of America. Author James Olson has been speaking with us today from Northern California. It's a book well with reading with a number of insights for both sides of our brain. You really do a good job, James, of bringing together all of what we need for a better world for all of us. So I thank you for joining me for Spirit in Action. - It's been my pleasure. I am very pleased to talk with you today. - Heading out for today's Spirit in Action, we have one of my favorite musical artists, John McCutchen. Musically bringing the scattered left brain culture we live in back to a central truth. We are not alone. Let's meet next week for Spirit in Action. Here is John McCutchen. ♪ This is me, this is mine in my life, in my time ♪ ♪ Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole ♪ ♪ Every birth, every breath, every life, every death ♪ ♪ I am here, I am home, I am not alone ♪ ♪ Every step of this journey will be mine ♪ ♪ Take a stand, take my hand, take your time ♪ ♪ From the moment of my birth ♪ ♪ Every day around this earth ♪ ♪ I will live this life for all that I am worth ♪ ♪ But this is me, this is mine in my life, in my time ♪ ♪ Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole ♪ ♪ Every birth, every breath, every life, every death ♪ ♪ I am here, I am home, I am not alone ♪ ♪ We're in the end, there's precious little that we own ♪ ♪ Great or small, time is all ♪ ♪ Just alone, so let us live life to the brim ♪ ♪ And if we sink, if we swim, let us leave a bit of grace ♪ ♪ Where we have been ♪ ♪ But this is me, this is mine in my life, in my time ♪ ♪ Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole ♪ ♪ Every birth, every breath, every life, every death ♪ ♪ You are here, you are home, you are not alone ♪ ♪ Every joy we close leads to an open door ♪ ♪ Love is worth this living all is far ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ This is me, this is mine in my life, in my time ♪ ♪ Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole ♪ ♪ Every birth, every breath, every life, every death ♪ ♪ We are here, we are home, we ♪ ♪ Are not alone ♪ (upbeat music) - The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World", performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, NorthernSpiritRadio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is "Spirit in Action". ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ I'm feeling ♪