The Observable Unknown

Astrologer Sam Reynolds returns to discuss not only numerous aspects of astrology with Dr. Juan Carlos Rey of crowscupboard.com that were not discussed previously, but also his forthcoming class on a Basic Introduction to Astrology. 

In this profound installment of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey of crowscupboard.com explores the ancient and often misunderstood intersection of erotic performance and spirituality. Responding to a listener’s question from San Antonio, Dr. Rey traces how the language of desire has always mirrored the language of the divine. From Plato’s Symposium to modern neuroscience, Eros emerges n...

What if faith were simply the nervous system daring to trust its own prediction? In this Mailbag installment, Dr. Rey of crowscupboard.com responds to listener DeShawn Carter of Atlanta, Georgia, whose question probes the hidden alliance between free will, intuition, and the brain’s comparator model – that quiet circuit which measures intention against outcome, authorship against experience. From...

What if evolution is not a finished act, but an ongoing collaboration between ancestry and awareness? In this interlude of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey of crowscupboard.com explores the profound intersection between phylogenetic inertia - the evolutionary gravity that preserves our biological past - and epigenetic rewriting, the molecular poetry of adaptation that lets life edit its...

What if memory is not only electrical - but molecular? In this new interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores how experience, stress, and nurture inscribe themselves directly into the genome of the brain. Through the pioneering studies of Michael Meaney and Moshe Szyf, we learn that the nervous system is not a fixed circuit but a living manuscript - continuously edited by love, fear, and time. From t...

What if emotion were an immune response? What if the dialogue between inflammation and thought shaped not only how we heal—but how we hope? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the emerging science of neuroimmunology, where the immune and nervous systems reveal themselves as co-authors of consciousness. Through the work of Ronald Duman (Yale University), Harry Male (University of Illino...

In this first listener-driven episode, I turn the conversation inward - answering a question from Tanya W (Portland, OR) about what it means to be a moral witness in a world that often rewards unseeing obedience. We invoke Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”, explore the tension between witnessing and complicity, and ask: how do we interrupt history’s momentum? Join me as we reflect on conscience,...

In this episode, Dr. Rey takes a second opportunity to answer more listener-submitted questions regarding himself and his role as host of "The Observable Unknown" Podcast.

What if intuition… digestion… and belief were all part of the same conversation? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the growing science of the gut-brain axis - where trillions of microbes whisper through the vagus nerve to shape emotion, cognition, and even moral intuition. Drawing on research from Emeran Mayer, Sarkis Mazmanian, John Cryan, and Ted Dinan, this journey reveals a hidde...

What if every thought, memory, and feeling were a chemical symphony? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey guides listeners through the molecular foundations of consciousness—how neurotransmitters like acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and cortisol shape our choices, memories, and moods. Drawing on Michael Hasselmo’s groundbreaking work on acetylcholine and memory, Hans Krebs’ discove...

What if your most “rational” decisions were already scripted by your bloodstream? In this interlude of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey traces the hidden hormonal currents shaping risk, loyalty, ambition, and status. Drawing on the fieldwork of Robert Sapolsky among Kenyan baboons, Anna Dreber’s research on traders’ testosterone surges, Carsten de Dreu’s discoveries about oxytocin’s dou...

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Shireen Fatemi, a distinguished endocrinologist whose vision of medicine extends far beyond lab values and prescriptions. Raised in a family that blended science with intuition, Dr. Fatemi brings a rare voice to the conversation about the body’s most mysterious messengers: our hormones. Together, we explore how endocrinology illuminates not just physical health,...

What happens when individuality dissolves into the crowd? From Durkheim’s collective effervescence to Tarde’s contagion of imitation, from Canetti’s swarm psychology to Girard’s scapegoat mechanism, and from Zimbardo’s situational power to Arendt’s banality of evil, this interlude explores the hidden dynamics of group mind. The observable unknown here is the collective itself: a force that shapes...

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?” Napoleon once asked. From collective recollection to sacred ritual, from covert interpersonal dramas to the unconscious resonance of color, from emotional imprints to memetic replication - this interlude explores the hidden architectures shaping what we call freedom. Join Dr. Juan Carlos Rey as he traces Halbwachs, Eliade, Campbell, Berne, Damasio, Lüsche...

In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey steps into the hidden architectures shaping what we call “personal choice.” Drawing on Durkheim, Halbwachs, Berger, Bourdieu, Foucault, Elias, Geertz, Butler, Gramsci, and Meloni, he unpacks how collective memory, power, ritual, and even biology create the stage on which our decisions are performed. Listeners are invited to explore the observable unknown of t...

Davin Stronk is an erotic performance artist working within the adult entertainment industry and the intimacy trade, serving as a professional purveyor of desire in both its artistic and economic expressions. In this episode of The Observable Unknown, we explore with him how intimacy, performance, and cultural imagination converge - revealing how desire itself becomes art, commerce, and a mirror o...

Can memory be inherited? Can trauma echo across generations? And do our most private choices carry the weight of ancestral shadows? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the mysteries of phylogenetic inertia, epigenetic conditioning, and genetic memory - tracing how our biology remembers more than we realize. From Darwin to Jung, Holocaust studies to modern neuroscience, we uncover how m...

In this solo interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey traces how culture, persuasion, ritual, and engineered messaging shape what we take to be “our” decisions. From classic lab findings on conformity and obedience to modern persuasion tactics and the neuroscience of suggestion, this episode maps how choice is constructed long before it reaches consciousness. If you’ve ever wondered why you clicked, said ye...

Tonight’s Interlude IV of The Observable Unknown traces the living tension between free will, agency, and the brain’s hidden predictive machinery. Drawing on Libet’s timing experiments, Wegner’s critique, Friston’s predictive-processing, the comparator model, and mirror-neuron research, this episode shows how agency is constructed across layered neural processes: pre-reflective feeling, reflective...

The guest for this episode is Dr. Daniel Jorgensen, a distinguished scholar of Religious Studies whose work has illuminated the esoteric scene, the cultic milieu, and the occult Tarot. His research has expanded the sociology of religion beyond institutional boundaries, into the rich and often misunderstood margins where seekers continually redefine meaning and identity. Our conversation will explo...

In this Interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey traces how three great thinkers sought the Observable Unknown in their own fields. Max Müller uncovered forgotten meanings buried in language, Konrad Lorenz revealed the instinctual patterns beneath human behavior, and Claude Lévi-Strauss exposed the hidden structures shaping myth. Together, their work shows that mystery is not distant - it lives in the words...

In this interlude, host Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores how the observable unknown reveals itself in the hidden life of the mind and the shared structures of society. Drawing on the insights of Freud, Jung, Julian Jaynes, Adler, and Peter Berger, this interlude traces how unconscious drives, archetypes, inner voices, human striving, and cultural meaning-shields shape our lives. What emerges is a port...

In this special Interlude of The Observable Unknown, host Dr. Juan Carlos Rey steps away from dialogue to offer a sustained philosophical reflection on the very title of the show. Through the lenses of Kant’s tension between phenomena and noumena, Heidegger’s play of truth as both revealing and concealing, Aristotle’s vision of wonder as the root of philosophy, and the profound wisdom of Taoist, V...

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Robin Hager - a clinician whose path began in the labs and lecture halls of the University of Arizona, and was forever changed when she stepped into her first healing-touch class. Her journey is a story of integration: from writing medical protocols that saved lives, to guiding patients and families through plant medicine ceremonies with shamans in Peru. From t...

In this episode, we welcome a woman whose life’s work has bridged journalism, cinema, and memory. From the anchor desk at BBC World News to the frontlines of conflict, from digitizing the testimonies of Armenian genocide survivors to directing films that confront the darkest truths of our history - Dr. Carla Garapedian has carried voices the world tried to silence back into the light. Her new proj...