Willoughby Britton is a clinical psychologist, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University Medical School, and the director of the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory there. Her lab researches the psychophysiological and neurocognitive effects of meditation and mindfulness-based interventions for mood and anxiety disorders, with a particular focus on potential risks of meditation practice. She is also the founder of Cheetah House, a nonprofit...

Chris Guimond is an awakening and nondual realization guide who works with the Trauma Release Exercises that I’ve previously spoken about on the podcast. You can listen to my interview with the creator of the TRE approach, David Bercelli (episode 64), if you want more detail on the practices. Chris and I connected over the fact that we’ve found the combination of TRE and nondual integration to be incredibly powerful, yet no one else in this space appears to be talking about it. On her own...

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Michael Levin is a developmental and synthetic biologist and a professor at Tufts University. He is known for co-discovering Xenobots which are living robots made from frog skin cells but his research is wide ranging, contributing to fields such as regenerative medicine and the treatment of cancer, as well as to our fundamental understanding of biological systems. As you’ll hear from our conversation, Michaels’ innovative science is based in a very thorough and rigorous philosophy of the...

The Genocide in Gaza & the Psychology of Denial

AMA: Retribution, Climate Anxiety, the Freedom of No Free Will

Alicia Juarrero is President and co-founder of VectorAnalytica, Inc., a data collection and analysis platform. She is also a research associate at the University of Miami and is the author for influential complexity theory text Dynamics in Action. Her new book is called Context Changes Everything and it explores how we can think about causality in emergent systems, such as living things, in terms of constraint.

Jim Newman holds meetings about nonduality, in a style that has come to be known as uncompromising or radical nonduality. This style began with the book The Open Secret by Tony Parsons, and along with Tony, Jim is the arguably most prominent person speaking of nonduality in this way. Whereas some approaches to nonduality advocate the following of a path in order to eventually realise that we are not separate from the rest of existence, the uncompromising perspective sees this as mistaken, the...

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Indy Johar is an architect and a co-founder of Dark Matter Labs, an organisation focused on building the novel institutional infrastructures necessary to make societies centred on interdependence, equality, and justice a reality.  He has lectured at various institutions including University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and has held various positions, such as Advisor to Mayor of London on Good Growth. He also cofounded 00 (project00.cc) a collaborative studio that innovates in the...

I'm excited to announce that I just signed a book deal with Prometheus Books. The title is The Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive. In it I lay out a synthesis of physicalism, panpsychism, and idealism, culminating in a scientific account of the biophysics of consciousness, rather than the neuroscience of consciousness. It's less dry than I've made it sound here though, I promise. Slated for release in late 2024. Please pre-order when the time comes, as that helps with the...

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Andy Mitchell is a neuropsychologist and therapist. He has specialized in treating patients with rare brain conditions, head injuries and epilepsy, and in the application of mindfulness for neurological patients. As a therapist he has worked with people with a range of mental health disorders. Before entering medicine, his first degree was in English Literature at Oxford University.  https://www.andymitchell.org/

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Rachel Nuwer is a journalist who has reported on science, travel, food, and adventure for the New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American and many other publications. She is the author of Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking and her new book is I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World. Today we discuss all things MDMA. rachelnuwer.com

Topics addressed (in order): Consciousness, causal power, & evolution Is consciousness binary? Technology & consciousness Music & psychedelics Homestead landscaping  

Neil Theise is a professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Through his scientific research, he has been a pioneer of adult stem cell plasticity which led him to an interest in complexity theory.  This interest has resulted in interdisciplinary collaborations in fields such as consciousness studies and the connection between science and spirituality, topics he explores in his new book Notes on Complexity. neiltheiseofficial.com

​Jared Seide is the Executive Director of the Center for Council, a talking circle practice that we discuss today.  He has designed, piloted and coordinated council-based programs in prisons, assisted living facilities, youth groups, schools, non-profits, faith-based organisations, and social service and law enforcement agencies.  He has also led trainings and retreats focusing on reconciliation and community-building around the world, from Colombia to Rwanda.  He is a member of the Zen...

Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes is a philosopher of mind who specializes in the thought of Whitehead, Nietzsche, and Spinoza, and in fields pertaining to panpsychism and altered states of mind. Following his degree in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick, he became a Philosophy lecturer in London for six years, after which he pursued his PhD on Pansentient Monism at The University of Exeter – where he is now a research fellow and associate lecturer.  Peter is the author of the books...

Timmy Davis and Tara Austin run the Psilocybin Access Rights campaign in the United Kingdom where they are seeking to get psilocybin rescheduled. Today we discuss the campaign and the rescheduling of psychedelics more broadly.

Bobby Azarian is a science journalist and a cognitive neuroscientist who received his PhD from George Mason University. He has written for publications such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, BBC, Scientific American, Slate, HuffPost, Quartz, and Aeon, and he writes the blog “Mind in the Machine” for Psychology Today.  His recent book is called The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity, all topics we talk about today.

Angelo Dilullo is an anaesthesiologist and teacher of nonduality who had a life-altering spiritual awakening at the age of 24. He is the author of the book, Awake: It’s Your Turn, which contains a practical set of tools and investigations to help people realise that they are not separate from the rest of reality Angelo’s work does an excellent job of breaking down this process into stages, from initial awakening and insight into the constructed nature of the self, through to the integration...

Metaphysics, Is the mind naturally enlightened & is reality made of love? + thoughts on Terrence Deacon's work

Daniel Ingram is a physician, meditator and the author of the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddhaas well as the bookThe Fire Kasina, co-authored with Shannon Stein. He is the co-founder of the Dharma Overground, an online community of meditation practitioners.  He also founded The Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium, an organisation involved in promoting research into non-ordinary states of consciousness. He is well known in meditation circles for claiming to have achieved...