Metacrisis Initiative – salons and peer mentoring

The Metacrisis Initiative provides its participants with the insight and support to live well within fracturing societies. That ‘living well’ involves being helpful and kind to oneself, others, and wider nature (that can involve moments of difficult emotions and conflict, as long as there is awareness of why one experiences that).

With monthly salons, the Metacrisis Initiative provides participants with the opportunity to learn about and discuss the trends beneath the headlines, and the range of responses to those trends which aren’t yet mainstream.

With peer mentoring groups, participants benefit from advice and fellowship as they integrate their awareness of metacrisis, and even collapse, into their professional and personal lives.

Launched in September 2025 by the internationally-renowned scholar and advocate in leadership and the metacrisis, Professor Jem Bendell, this initiative brings together people of a variety of ages, professions, ethnicities, and locations. To participate, you must be a paying member of this website and proficient in English. As a paying member, you will also receive member-only posts that help prepare you for the monthly salons and peer mentoring meetings. These fees enable a small team to research, write, organise meetings, and offer free participation of young professionals from the Global South.

SALONS

Each month Jem hosts a 2-hour participatory webinar, featuring a guest with an interest in the topic being discussed. It occurs at two different times, typically on the first Monday of the month, to be suitable for your time zone (typically at 10.00 UTC then at 23.00 UTC). Typically some time in each meeting is made for people to share what they are working on, or what is alive for them. To enable open sharing, the dialogue is not recorded and there are no formal outputs i.e. these monthly salons are for intellectual stimulation and inspiration of participants, nothing more. Topics explored in the first months included: 

• the future of collapse subcultures and the potential for a solidarity-based politics of collapse
• spiritual aspects of the metacrisis
• the need to shift the climate conversation in light of recent temperature hikes
• changing our lives to survive collapse, including community development and alternative economics
• the many psychological responses to perceptions of collapse, and how to help each other with that

PEER MENTORING

Starting April 2026, around 80 members of the initiative are meeting in groups of 10 to support each other to live well within fracturing societies (at home or abroad). Participants are provided with a peer mentoring methodology and basic tools to enable meetings. They occur at least once a month for two hours, with the first series lasting for six months. New cohorts begin every six months. Members can read more about this peer mentoring.

COMMUNITY CHAT

Members can join a community chat to privately share information and ideas with each other. That often occurs in relation to the latest essays published on this website, but is not restricted to that.

There is some “small print” on the process of being a member and participating in the monthly salons.