“Neuroscientists who stand up and say ‘we have souls’ are few and far between,” says pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor. “But when you look carefully at the neuroscience—the best neuroscience over the past century—it clearly points to the existence of the soul and to the existence of aspects of our mind that don’t come from the brain.” Egnor himself started off as a materialist and atheist. But 40 years and more than 7,000 brain surgeries later, he concluded that reason and free will do not reside in the brain. In this episode, he reveals what he’s found. “Neuroscience is just fundamentally wrong in a lot of ways … because of the materialist bias in neuroscience. We can’t get away from this machine analogy, [but] we’re not machines, and we don’t work like machines work. And there’s overwhelming evidence in neuroscience for the existence of a soul,” he says. Dr. Egnor is a professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at Stony Brook University, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and the co-author of the book “The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul.”
Tag: talks
You’re Out of Tune (And It’s Making You Miserable)
What’s the difference between changing yourself and changing the world? Only one of them actually works. In this wide-ranging conversation, Keith Martin-Smith and David Arrell diagnose the core pathology of contemporary life: we’re living in an attainment culture that measures worth through accumulation—more status, more recognition, more stuff—while starving the qualities that actually make life worth living. The result? Epidemic levels of anxiety, polarization, narcissism, and a quiet desperation that no amount of productivity hacks or self-optimization can touch. The alternative isn’t another framework to add to your collection. It’s a fundamental reorientation toward attunement culture—a shift from quantity to quality, from getting to becoming, from conquest to meaning. David lays out the architecture of this shift across three temporal dimensions: HEALTH (The Past): Most of us are operating from developmental anchors—unconscious wounds and reactive patterns that keep us stuck at earlier stages of maturity. When you criticize, control, or comply automatically, you’re not responding to what’s in front of you; you’re responding from an old script. The work is to turn toward these patterns with curiosity, reclaim the energy locked there, and stop letting the past hijack your present. DEPTH (The Present): Your attention is under siege. Billions of dollars have been spent engineering super-normal stimuli to keep you distracted, metabolically aroused, and scrolling. But presence—the capacity to remain grounded when life gets turbulent—is the foundation of wisdom. Character and virtue aren’t abstractions; they’re your ability to tolerate weather without capsizing. The fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) emerge spontaneously when you create the conditions, like apples from a healthy tree. GROWTH (The Future): Beyond your current capacities are your leading edges—the places where you’re stretching into new territory. Growth means tolerating the unknown, throwing aspirational grappling hooks into territory you can’t yet see clearly, and expanding your container of authenticity. It’s not about becoming someone else; it’s about becoming more fully who you already are. Throughout the conversation, Keith and David return to a revolutionary foundation: dignity culture. Unlike respect (which must be earned), dignity simply is—every human being has equal claim to worth by virtue of being human. This creates common ground from which we can build toward higher ground. It dissolves the false choice between dominator hierarchies and victim narratives, between attainment Olympics and oppression Olympics. The examples are visceral: Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t change America by attacking his enemies—he changed it by cultivating such depth of character that he could march from Selma without taking opposition personally. Lama Tsering Everest changed a room simply by walking into it. The power of alignment—when your intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cultural dimensions move in the same direction—is magnetic. The conversation offers practical wisdom for the current moment of cultural chaos: shift from grievance to gratitude, from entertainment to enrichment, from tribe of the chosen to tribe of the chosen ones you intentionally create. Track your attention. Practice humor. Grant dignity to yourself and others. Get your butterflies in formation. This isn’t self-help. It’s a blueprint for becoming the kind of person who can actually create change—not by trying to fix everyone else, but by doing the work that makes your very presence a form of influence.
Prof. Jeffrey Kripal On ‘Decolonizing’ Reality
Each week, the Essentia Foundation shares highlights from the most insightful moments of longer videos on this channel. In this video Prof. Jeffrey Kripal talks about the importance of metaphysical diversity in academia: instead of regarding other than Western ontologies as Foucauldian language games, we have to see them as valid claims on reality.
Watch the full interview: What If Science Took The Paranormal Seriously? | The Superhumanities | Prof. Jeffrey Kripal PhD
Essentia Foundation’s Hans Busstra interviews Prof. Jeffrey Kripal, PhD, who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, on his new book: ‘The Superhumanities, Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities.’ What if the humanities would open their horizon to more metaphysical possibilities? Prof. Kripal has written a book about a future in which the humanities study the full human. In these superhumanities, the weird, the psi—in short, the impossible—is taken seriously metaphysically: anomalous phenomena are not only regarded as subjective truths, but also as objective claims about reality. In his book, Prof. Kripal clearly shows how the nineteenth century ontology of materialism reigns in almost all of the humanities, which limits our scientific understanding of who we are as humans: there is no transcendence, the individual is nothing but a social body in spacetime, shaped by society. As Prof. Kripal likes to quip: “if there is one dogma in the humanities, it is that the truth has to be depressing.” The humanities need to expand beyond this depressing view, not because it’s depressing, but because it’s simply a half truth. We are conditioned social animals and transcendent beings. We are human and superhuman, as he argues. Interestingly, the superhumanities can build on the same foundational thinkers as the humanities. When we read the full Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, or Jacques Derrida, for instance, we see that these thinkers very much acknowledged the super. It is only the postmodern reading of their texts in academia that filters out the ecstatic. When it comes to Nietzsche, Prof. Kripal convincingly argues that the ‘crazy’ Nietzsche was perhaps the real Nietzsche, at the pinnacle of his thought. But here’s the thing: did he think his way to the vision of the Übermensch—which later unjustly got contaminated by fascism—or did he somehow receive it as a vision? According to Prof. Kripal, Nietzsche’s vision should be taken much more literally than we now take it: he was talking about an actual superspecies, with superhuman capabilities. What if the humanities could scientifically investigate what happened when, for instance, Nikola Tesla had the visions that led to groundbreaking inventions? What happened when Einstein saw the principles of general relativity in a dream? Perhaps the key takeaway from Prof. Kripal’s book is that, if the humanities would only dare to turn into the superhumanities, they would again become relevant for the other disciplines in academia.
Information vs. Meaning: Top Biologist & Neuroscientist Explain | Michael Levin Λ Karl Friston
Curt Jaimungal is joined by Michael Levin and Karl Friston. This conversation incorporates insights from physics and information theory, particularly regarding self-organization and the significance of entropy and free energy.
Use Your Mind To HEAL THE BODY & Boost Your IMMUNE SYSTEM!” | Joe Dispenza & Mark Hyman
I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of human potential and the mind-body connection. Time and time again, I’ve seen that mindset is a defining factor in how successful my patients are on their healing journey. The mind-body connection is a powerful one, so much so that there are numerous reports of spontaneous remission of chronic pain and diseases when people change their headspace. How we think and feel creates our state of being. Digging into our subconscious thoughts and beliefs and redefining how we see our future can have real, long-lasting impacts on our physical health. I was so excited to sit down with Dr. Joe Dispenza to talk about his work in mind-body medicine, helping people overcome their biggest obstacles and form new, healthy, limitless lives. Dr. Joe’s passion can be found at the intersection of the latest findings from the fields of neuroscience, epigenetics, and quantum physics to explore the science behind spontaneous remissions. He uses that knowledge to teach people how to heal their bodies of health conditions, make significant changes in their lives, and evolve their consciousness.
New Evidence for Out-of-Body Experiences & Perennial Wisdom | Neuroscientist Marjorie Woollacott PhD
In this wide-ranging interview with Natalia Vorontsova, Professor Marjorie Woollacott draws remarkable parallels between 9th-10th century Kashmiri Shaivism and modern idealism, pointing to the fundamental and irreducible nature of consciousness. Moreover, her study of near-death experiences empirically supports this very hypothesis of the existence of a fundamental consciousness without neurons and beyond our five senses. This is an open conversation about life, death, and who we really are as ‘points of consciousness.’
Scientist’s Warning: Technology Inhibits Our Spiritual Power, But There is a Way Out | Gregg Braden
Scientist Gregg Braden is back on Know Thyself today for a deeper dive into the inherent beauty of humanity and the technology that threatens it. Pulling on the threads of our last conversations, Gregg opens up about the current state of the world: from transhumanism to artificial intelligence, giving a warning message about these innovations. He provides a reframe on what we’ve been told about human potential: revealing that we are far greater than we know and these technologies threaten that very greatness. Our discussion encompasses a range of critical topics, including the ongoing struggle between good and evil on Earth, the pivotal Year 2030, and the Future of Humanity. Furthermore, Gregg draws intriguing parallels to popular culture, exploring how films like “The Matrix” serve as allegories for deeper truths about our reality, prompting us to question the nature of existence itself.
How To Harness The Power Of “Magic” (Scientifically Proven) w/ Dean Radin PhD
Have you ever experienced psychic phenomena? How about an experience that could only be regarded as “magic”?It’s more than likely you have, considering a survey conducted where over 90% of participants, all being scientific academics, reported to have had at least one of these experiences in their life. Today’s podcast is with Dean Radin, Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Dean has an impressively prestigious background- with a Masters degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in psychology, he has spent decades engaged in research on the frontiers of consciousness, with over 100 peer-reviewed studies and author of numerous books. In our discussion, we discuss the gamut of magical experiences, including; telepathy, clairvoyance, levitation, manifestation, sigils, and more. We dive into the scientific studies that validate these kinds of experiences, discuss the history of suppression, and posit the potential of our future if we begin to harness these abilities
The AI Interview: Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs (Full)
WARNING: This is fully simulated using A.I. This video is a unique experience, as it features a simulated interview between Steve Jobs and Joe Rogan. Showcasing power of artificial intelligence such as chatGPT, LaMDA etc.
What Came Before the Big Bang? | Theory of Embedded Intelligence, Bill Mensch & Bernardo Kastrup
Could it be a coincidence that two founding fathers of modern day computing, independently from each other, are both coming with theories of consciousness that are idealist in nature? Or does a deep understanding of what computation is—and what it is not—inevitably lead away from physicalist ideas on consciousness? Previously Essentia Foundation presented the work of Federico Faggin, and now a legendary contemporary of his, computer engineer Bill Mensch, presents his Theory of Embedded Intelligence (TEI) to us. Mensch was a major contributor to the Motorola 6800 and became famous for his work on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU, a chip that, because of it’s efficiency, completely revolutionized computing in the 80’s. From Arcade halls to the Apple II and Nintendo 8 bit consoles, 6502s could be found everywhere. Even to this day the chip is still used in children’s toys and even in pacemakers and satellites. Looking back at his career, Mensch realizes that building computer chips is in essence a form of ‘embedding’ intelligence in technology, just as nature has embedded intelligence in biological systems, like humans. In his TEI model intelligence is fundamental. This raises the philosophical question of how consciousness relates to intelligence, and for this reason Bernardo Kastrup joined in on the conversation Mensch and Hans Busstra had. The value of a theory like Mensch’s is perhaps exactly that it is not philosophically fine-tuned to the terminology commonly used in philosophy of mind. By not taking the human mind and phenomenal consciousness as its departure point, but intelligence instead, Mensch arrives at a position in which the distinction between living beings and abiotic systems is less distinct. Mensch’s slides can be downloaded here: https://www.essentiafoundation.o…