"Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species."

The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This "ontological shift", as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or "fight power", but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos.

Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers.

The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - "e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honor the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing." TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.

Alnoor Ladha is an activist, journalist, political strategist and community organiser. From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs. He holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.

Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a"'conscientious objector" to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.

The first of two 19th century detective mysteries set in lands which were to become parts of Canada.

Victoria, 1869. The ramshackle capital of British Columbia, one of the last colonies in North America, where among European, American and Chinese (known as 'Celestial') settlers vastly outnumbered by native Indians, a few thousand British try to establish the values, noble and ignoble, of what is beginning to be known as the Victorian age.

The body of a man, horribly mutilated, is discovered in the forest. This was Dr McCrory, an American 'alienist' or mad-doctor who was either an innovator in the treatment of mental illness, drawn to practice in the freedom of the colony, or a charlatan whose methods include the most dubious of pseudo-sciences: phrenology, Mesmerism, and sexual-mystical 'magnetation'. Chad Hobbes, fresh from England, is the detective who must solve the crime.

But this is more than a detective story. According to Charles Darwin, the difference between the savage and the civilised person is 'the difference between a wild and a tame animal.' Is this true? Chad faces this question not only in the new territory in which he finds himself, but in himself, and in those he comes to love.

Dr Seán Haldane in his historical and contemporary crime novels draws on his experience as a neuropsychologist in health services and the criminal justice system, first in Canada (Prince Edward Island and British Columbia) then in the UK from 1990 to 2020. From 2012 to 2020 he was in private practice based in London as an expert witness, working about 2/3 with police and crown prosecution services (via the National Crime Agency), and 1/3 with defence lawyers.

An Evil Tale I Heard is the sequel to The Devil's Making in which the English policeman Chad Hobbes solves the mystery of the discovery of the mutilated body of a British settler on Vancouver Island, in the Pacific in 1869. In 1871 Chad and his Tsimshian wife Lukswaas are on their way to England when Chad is asked to solve a new murder on another British island, Prince Edward Island, in the Atlantic. Its Mi'kmaq name is Abegweit: 'Cradled on the Waves'. The Mi'kmaq are now outnumbered by French and English-speaking settlers and the island is in debt and under pressure to join Canada. Marie Évangéline, the daughter of one politician and wife of another, is found savagely beaten to death. Who is trying to kill whom? Who is in love with whom? These questions reveal great goodness, but 'an evil tale'. Having travelled from sea to sea, Chad is again pulled between law and justice in a world where secrets are well hidden and protected.

Dr Seán Haldane in his historical and contemporary crime novels draws on his experience as a neuropsychologist in health services and the criminal justice system, first in Canada (Prince Edward Island and British Columbia) then in the UK from 1990 to 2020. From 2012 to 2020 he was in private practice based in London as an expert witness, working about 2/3 with police and crown prosecution services (via the National Crime Agency), and 1/3 with defence lawyers.