Derek Beres
Derek Beres is a Staff Writer for Freethink. Based in Portland, Oregon, he has served in senior editorial positions at a number of tech companies and has years of experience in health, science, and music writing. He is the co-host of the Conspirituality podcast and co-author of Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracies Became a Health Threat.
Observing the Roman Empire crumble from North Africa in the fifth century, St Augustine of Hippo decided that while waging war against fellow Christians was sinful, throwing up arms against […]
Arguably the most dangerous of the seven deadly sins, pride acts like the invisible center of the wheel of transgression in which the other six revolve. Inextricably entwined in cases […]
On February 20, a conservative Christian group, the National Center for Law & Policy (NCLP), filed a lawsuit against the Encinitas School Board for teaching yoga in public schools. The […]
One of the more ubiquitous statements that has emerged over the last decade, ‘Spiritual, Not Religious’ is a self-affirming antidote to the traditional trappings of religion, the archaic and inflexible […]
Our attitude toward the pathologizing may be more destructive than the pathologizing itself.—James Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology Trauma affects all of us. Types of trauma—physical, emotional, violent, intrusive, social, or the […]
I’m pretty certain that the New York Mets won the ’86 World Series because I refused to put my feet on the ground. Perched on the edge of my bed, […]
I’ve noticed a pattern when speaking to friends about creationism: I say the word, and in response receive a squinted eye and disgruntled head shake, followed by, ‘But no one […]
Eben Alexander, author of the bestseller Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, is only the latest in a long line of historical figures who has argued for […]
Long before Allen Ginsberg used the phrase ‘first thought, best thought’ to describe spontaneous, intuitive writing that seemed to spring unaware from ‘somewhere else,’ Buddhists had developed this maxim as […]
Humans experience joy in a multitude of ways, yet the varied forms of suffering—death, divorce, separation—return to one root principle: loss. What drives the fear of loss is something far […]
Krishnamurti was faced with an unsolvable dilemma not unfamiliar to spiritual teachers. He often implored his audience to not take anything he says as truth, but to find it for […]
Over the last half-century we’ve emphasized physicality over philosophy. Yet a growing contingent of yogis has been asking questions such as: How can we take these ethical, philosophical and moral codes and apply them to our times?
When your hollow bullet causes a prairie dog to explode on impact, that’s called a tap. The real prize, however, is a double tap. That’s when your single bullet kills […]
While the desire to tax churches is not new, it seems as far from reality as possible at this moment. As has been commented, no atheist could possibly hope to […]
In general, I avoid free literature thrown my way on subways and street corners. Recently passing by a stack of cheaply printed books while leaving Samosa House in Culver City, […]
Security is perhaps the most well-known illusion human beings have contrived. From the cursory seduction of emotional stability to the wrathful manifestation of raging armies, the painful longing for complete […]