Philosophy and yoga for
personal and global transformation.

Joseph I Breidenstein Jr PhD

Books

Nietzschean, Feminist, and Embodied Perspectives on the Presocratics: Philosophy as Partnership

Written as a form of activism, this book is for anyone interested in the significance of feminine spirituality for western philosophy and democracy. Readers will gain a novel and cutting-edge understanding of both the origin of western philosophy and Nietzsche’s reading of the presocratics.
This book is the first sustained scholarly account of women and goddesses in presocratic philosophy. It approaches the origin of western philosophy via Nietzsche, Feminism, and Embodied Cognition in order to argue that the presocratics were reviving, within the largely patriarchal and death-glorifying culture of archaic Greece, a paleo/neolithic goddess-centered religiosity that affirmed life and rebirth. By taking readers from prehistoric Europe to classical Athens, Joseph I. Breidenstein Jr. provides a novel narrative of the dawn of western philosophy which is more comprehensive than traditional accounts and which helps us address contemporary problems—the patriarchal attitudes and ideas that continue to corrupt academic-philosophical culture; the fascist-dominator lifestyle that continues to threaten western democracy and which is encouraged by the patriarchal aspects of academia; and the consumerism that continues to result from a materialistic-secular paradigm that is being increasingly recognized as both intellectually untenable and socially unsustainable.

Book Endorsement

Joseph I Breidenstein Jr’s account of the complex origins of the philosophical tradition in the west skillfully crosses disciplinary boundaries and speaks at once to scholars of Nietzsche, feminism, and the presocratics—groups that are not always on speaking terms with one another. The author’s analysis of women and the feminine in presocratic thought and of philosophy itself as partnership is sure to find a receptive readership among those interested in re-examining the story of western philosophy’s inception in preclassical Greece.

– Paul Fairfield. Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University

Book Endorsement 2

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Psychedelic Immortality: Nietzschean Perspectives on Reincarnation, Femtheogens, and Philosophy

Recent research has revealed a psychedelic inspiration for Nietzsche’s philosophy and, far from being a novelty in the history of philosophy, there is significant evidence that several of the first western philosophers ingested psychedelics as well. In his first book, Joseph I. Breidenstein Jr PhD maintained that western philosophy began as what we today would call a feminist religious reformation in the sense that many prominent presocratic philosophers were reviving a paleo/neolithic goddess-centered religiosity of rebirth within the largely patriarchal and death-glorifying culture of archaic Greece. And, in this book, Dr. Breidenstein Jr proposes that the presocratics’ psychedelic-reincarnationist-feminine model of education and/or worldview is better suited for democracy in the twenty-first century than the economic model of education that takes the west’s mainstream materialistic-secular worldview for granted. For several decades now, researchers have acknowledged both that the empirical evidence for reincarnation is overwhelming and that psychedelics can evoke past-life recollections, but explanations for either reincarnation or how psychedelics do this have yet to be offered. By combining Nietzsche’s philosophy with the work of other thinkers, Psychedelic Immortality both provides explanations for each of these phenomena and explores how situating education and democracy within the context of reincarnation can incite a renaissance of American culture and politics. For Nietzscheans and philosophers in particular, this book illustrates the contemporary relevance of two neglected aspects of Nietzsche scholarship—i.e. psychedelics and reincarnation—and, for researchers in such fields as feminist philosophy of religion, ecotheology, philosophy of education, social-political philosophy, and eastern philosophy, it offers a more plausible and healthier worldview in which to explore possibilities in their respective fields that are diminished by the mainstream paradigm. For spiritual seekers of all paths, it offers a conception of philosophy as a practice of awakening goddess consciousness that unfolds over the course of successive lifetimes.

Psychedelic Immortality: Nietzschean Perspectives on Reincarnation, Femtheogens, and Philosophy

For a short summary of the main points of Psychedelic Immortality, click Read More.

Joseph I Breidenstein

Biography

After growing up between West Chester and Ardmore Pennsylvania and studying at Villanova University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Joseph I. Breidenstein Jr earned his PhD in philosophy at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario. He is currently exploring how reincarnation, psychedelics, and philosophy as feminine spirituality can help the west in general and America in particular remember the spiritual significance of both education and democracy as well as find a positive way forward beyond the scientific-materialist / liberal-secular paradigm that continues to characterize mainstream western life despite being not just false but also personally and culturally toxic.

Videos

Psychedelics, Reincarnation, and Feminine Spirituality with Nietzsche and the Presocratics
Women, Philosophy, and Democracy

Yoga Classes

Currently available for individual and group classes.

Speaking Engagements

April 4th 2024 at Catamount Arts

Women, Philosophy, and Democracy

This lecture will summarize the contents of my first book, and I will be giving it as an Osher talk.

September 26th 2024 at the Rochester Institute of Technology

‘Psychedelics, Reincarnation, and Feminine Spirituality with Nietzsche and the Presocratics’

I will be presenting this paper to the Nietzsche Society as part of the 62nd meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy Conference.