The Great Updraft

If we are to understand why experience is fundamental, we ought to know what the word experience means in this context! This is a snippet from my Wednesday 22/4 episode, What If Experience is Fundamental? Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Newsletter & boo...

Your life is simply your current experience. That is it. This is the key point science overlooks. This episode explores the primacy of experience and how everything we think we know or understand appears within it, not the other way round. This includes all of science and all knowledge of any kind. We also do a guided exercise to help you deeply grasp what is being said here. Episode category: Exp...

This is a snippet from my Wednesday 15/4 episode, Science is Addicted to Explanations. Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Science is very hesitant to assign reality to things; it tends to assign reality to parts rather than wholesFor example, science will say a human is really just cells, which are really just atoms, which are mostly nothing! No - the human is the human. It is irreducible. Sure, we can analyse and parse it, but the constituent elements are not the human, by definition.

A model is about a phenomenon. It is not the phenomenon. By definition. Therefore, models do not actually describe phenomena, because fundamentally they cannot be described. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 15/4 episode, Science is Addicted to Explanations. Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: ht...

What if models were not the only way to understand reality? What if they created deep blind spots, biases and paradigm lock? We continue our April series on the philosophy of science with a look at how science is built on models and explanations, and the problems this creates. These problems extend through much of science, because it is founded on model making. After this, listen to my episodes fr...

We tend to think that our experience arises inside the brain, but in fact the opposite is true. All we know of our brain is our experience is it, and our brain is entirely contained within our experience. Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Newsletter & books:...

Our thought patterns: “my brain thinks”, “my brain goes round in loops”. These are cliches. Have you ever thought about this? No, your brain does not think. And when you think, you are not experiencing your brain. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 8th April episode, The Limits of Brain Science. Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore...

Our usual thinking is to pin the cause of the fear on the brain. So we say “we feel fear because x area of the brain activates. If it didn’t activate, we wouldn’t feel fear. It’s because of my brain”How can your brain “cause” fear? How can a squidgy lump of flesh cause fear? This is a snippet from my Wednesday 8th April episode, The Limits of Brain Science. Episode category: https://player.captiva...

This episode examines the relationship between the brain and experience, and challenges the common view that the brain explains our experience. We explore the basic fact that the brain is physical (tissue, chemistry, electrical activity) and experience is subjective (thoughts, emotions, sensations).These are two distinct types of phenomena that reliably correlate but cannot be couched in one anoth...

Science does not truly question the idea of self. Even though neuroscience itself would say that the self is simply a result of brain activity and isn’t actually a thing, neuroscientists themselves do not live out this wisdom. Also, science confuses accumulation of knowledge with wisdom. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 1/4 episode, The Hidden Dogma in Scientific Thinking. Episode category: htt...

Science does not pay attention to epistemology and philosophy - it focuses exclusively on calculation and application. It is also highly skeptical, but rarely of itself. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 1/4 episode, The Hidden Dogma in Scientific Thinking. Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https:...

A key and mostly overlooked issue is that science is an echo chamber. Much of science operates through repetition, imitation, and inherited frameworks rather than original insight - and this underlies scientific training too. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 1/4 episode, The Hidden Dogma in Scientific Thinking. Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436...

Scientific practice contains certain philosophical assumptions. These are treated as facts and then passed on. And they are unexamined. That is, they are dogma. In episode 1 of my April series on the philosophy of science, we uncover these hidden assumptions and help you free your mind from scientism. My philosophy episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6...

To engage in spiritual learning, you must believe you don't know your true nature, and then go out and try to find it. Yet, nobody can truly tell you what it is. It is a discovery you must make. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 25/3 episode, What Spiritual Teaching Can't Do. Related episodes: all March episodes! Newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links Explore my 200-episode...

Spiritual teaching itself is built on an illusion. Furthermore, there are several hidden reasons why spiritual teachers teach - and they are not all pretty! This is a snippet from my Wednesday 25/3 episode, What Spiritual Teaching Can't Do. Related episodes: all March episodes! Newsletter & books:  https://deep-psychology.com/my-links Explore my 200-episode archive by category:  https://deep-p...

The core flaw in spiritual teaching are the assumptions underlying it. Here is the top hidden assumption. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 25/3 episode, What Spiritual Teaching Can't Do. Related episodes: all March episodesNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

There is a fundamental limit to spiritual teaching: it cannot give you recognition of your true nature, and your true nature cannot be conceptualised. This goes to the heart of spirituality. Furthermore, to teach, the teacher must defile their own true nature. Related episodes: all March episodes! Newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

The true meditative path is one that is grounded right here, right now. To continue on the path is to be fully here in all situations, and to never turn away from This. The extent to which you do that is the extent to which you are truly walking the path home. This episode is a snippet from my Wednesday 18/3 episode, Why Meditators Stall on the Path. My newsletter & books: https://deep-psychol...

Meditators often perpetually want to get somewhere else. In fact, this is one of the core markers of the human experience: there is always a subtle turning away from the present. This inevitably comes into meditation itself: meditators are not there to be there, but to be elsewhere. This episode is a snippet from my Wednesday 22/3 episode, Why Meditators Stall on the Path.

I have hundreds of episodes, so I wanted to help you navigate them. Here are the 4 most fundamental episodes: What Is The Meaning of Life? (Ep 180, Feb 2026) Your Psychology=Your Life (Episode 85, Dec 2024) We All Live In Our Own World (Episode 64, July 2024) The Grand, Universal Human Illusion (Ep 83, Nov 2024) Everything else comes from there. My podcast categories: My podcast categories: https:...

Meditators often have wildly unrealistic expectations regarding what meditation is, what its effects are, and where it eventually leads us. This is especially prevalent among newcomers, who have often been marketed on the idea that a little meditation will immediately render you calm, peaceful and wise. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 18/3 episode, Why Meditators Stall On The Path. Books &...

From my practice and experience, three simple reasons explain why meditators stall on the path and fail to reach the deep insight taught in various guises by all spiritual traditions.

Nowadays, I tend to use the word recognition to describe awakening: here's why. Books & Newsletter: https://deep-psychology.com

Enlightenment is our default word for spiritual awakening or deep spiritual insight. While it may serve and inspire certain students to engage in spiritual work, I also believe it is problematic and that better options exist. This is a short snippet from my episode on 11th March, Is Enlightenment the Right Word?