A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to the renowned biologist Rupert Sheldrake. He’s been on my show before, but those conversations were all recorded online. So when I found myself in London for a couple of days this summer, I dropped by his place for a cup of tea.
Finally meeting in person, we started off just catching up—talking about our lives and some shared interests. After a while the conversation also turned to some of the bigger challenges we face today in humanity’s collective search for truth on the intersection of spirituality and science. That seemed like a topic that might be of interest for a wider public, so I decided to record that part of our conversation. And I’m glad I did. Considering Rupert’s personal history, few people seem more suited to discuss some of the issues that the so called ‘post truth era’ confronts us with.
On one hand, he’s spent decades pushing the boundaries of biology, life, and consciousness, despite fierce opposition from hardline skeptics who dismiss anything that challenges the orthodoxy of mechanistic materialism. On the other hand, he’s always remained a scientist at heart. Even as his work gained traction in spiritual circles, he did not start catering to a more woo-woo spirituality that bases itself merely on intuition or personal experience. Even when exploring topics like telepathy or other paranormal phenomena, his approach always remained grounded in research.
So, I was wondering: what can we learn from Rupert’s lifelong journey? How did he manage to stay balanced in his pursuit of truth? How might his approach help us navigate these confusing times, in which we are constantly bombarded with competing ideas, theories, and truth claims? It’s not always easy to separate the solid and the genuinely interesting from the flimsy and the nonsensical—but maybe some of Rupert’s strategies can inspire us to do just that.
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For Rupert's website: https://www.sheldrake.org/
For his substack page: https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com/
And for his podcast: https://www.sheldrake.org/audios/navigating-consciousness-podcast