Expand your sense of imagination

Visualize a transformed world

Embrace your bravest dreams

Build fellowship with peers

Gain insight into what is yours to do

The group will read Island in seven parts, focusing each week on a key pillar of Huxley's utopia

For each pillar, the group will interview a world-class thinker practicing in the field

Building fellowship with other parent philanthropists is part of the medicine of the cohort

The Edge Of The Horizon is run by artist and storyteller David Alder, author of We Will Call It Pala, a viral graphic novel that remains one of the most-read works of fiction in psychedelics, having been described by Tim Ferriss as "Required reading" for the psychedelic field.

Over six years and eleven readings of Island, David distilled the seven pillars that form the building blocks of a flourishing society. After first encountering the book in 2018 he committed his life to making some version of it real.

The first reform the leadership of Pala initiates is deploying the State's resources to make childbirth safe, painless, and beautiful. Immediately, pregnant women across the island become interested in support. On this issue they have power over men who may be more stubborn about change.

The policy is a triumph, as the practice of beautiful birth not only changes how life is brought into the world, but creates an appetite for other reforms. The genius of this emphasis is that it leaps across partisan divides. No one does not want a beautiful birth for their family or community. This practice becomes a gleaming doorway to more life.

Education on Pala is geared toward sharpening young people's feelings just as much as sharpening their minds. At the heart of this work is fine-tuning their mind-body connections. This brings children in touch with their intuition - their "gut feeling" - which gives them the power to discern. Discernment leads to command of one's attention. Attention sets people free.

Among the many lessons in school on Pala is a whole curriculum on anger. Children learn to locate their anger in their bodies. They learn to see it as something separate from themselves. They learn ways to let it go. The children do this with every feeling. They are wise beyond belief by the time they are nine years old.

Pala's young people experience a series of initiations as they grow up. The final rite of passage, that from adolescence to adulthood, involves climbing a sheer cliff in pairs. Young people train for more than a year for the rite, seeking mentorship from elders and guidance from older peers, strengthening their bodies, and practicing collaboration when the stakes are high.

The purpose of this rite of passage is for Pala to teach its young people how to lead and follow, to understand how to face danger and manage risk, and most important of all, to set their mind to a goal and work toward achieving it, experiencing at the end what Huxley calls, "The Yoga Of The Summit."

Pala creates ceremony around the cycles of a year - solstices, equinoxes, moon phases and harvests, and the cycles of a life - births, coming of age, weddings, ascension to elderhood, and death. These ceremonies anchor life, creating a rhythm of regular connection to one another and to the things that matter most.

Among the technologies deployed in ceremony is the moksha medicine, a psychedelic. In Pala, intentional use of psychedelics is a foundational practice, helping young people come of age with wisdom, adults turn toward beauty throughout their lives, and old people navigate their fear of death, and ultimately die with grace.

Pala is a tantric, ecstatic utopia, a place that sizzles with aliveness, and where the uninhibited feminine principle flows forth, filling life with sensualness and beauty. This is achieved by the society embracing sexuality as a sacred part of what it means to be human, and a profound gift of being alive.

The people of Pala make an art form out of what Huxley calls, "The Yoga Of Love," cultivating lovemaking as if it were a craft. As they grow older, children are encouraged to embrace their sexuality, and offered education, and contraception. Pala eradicates sexual shame and transcends the state of lust. The liberated people live in ecstatic presence.

The greatest triumph of Pala is the caliber of men that it creates. This is exemplified by the character of Vijaya, a mountain of a man, six foot eight and pure muscle. Vijaya is not inhibited in his power. Instead, he is instructed in how to wield it with grace, while embracing his sensitive side.

Pala makes a study of raising healthy men, including giving boys deep immersion in nature as outlets for would-be violent behavior, and elegant practices for managing anger. The society's gentle yet unyielding men use their power to create safety for all life, liberating the feminine principle from fear, making room for a world that overflows with beauty.

The people of Pala turn dying into an act of beauty - the final ritual in the glorious lives they lead. The fact of death is not avoided, and dying is not hidden out of sight. Young people witness to death as they grow up, watching older generations leave the world in peace.

Among the many tools applied to exquisite death are psychedelics to help create equanimity with the fact of death, mindfulness practices, and a ritual of dying with presence and attention. The result is that the society has transcended fear of death. This leads to a state of slowness, calm, and peace that shapes the way that people live.