Thinkers don’t come much wilder than Albert Einstein. His out-of-the-box physics transformed how we think about the universe: with his famous equation E=mc2 he showed that energy and matter are one and the same; through his theory of relativity he joined space and time into one malleable fabric that can morph according to your point of view.

But we’re talking about a very different side to Einstein. My guest is physician, neuroscientist and spiritual explorer Kieran Fox, author of a fascinating book called I am a Part of Infinity. Kieran argues that Einstein didn’t confine his revolutionary thoughts to the physical world. The physicist was also deeply spiritual: he followed what he called a “cosmic religion”, that he hoped would unify science and religion; mind and matter; us and the cosmos.

Biographers and historians have tended to skate over this aspect of Einstein’s life… maybe they felt it wasn’t a suitably rational topic for such a hero of physics. But Kieran has pieced together Einstein’s religious thinking and traced influences from Pythagoras and Spinoza to Gandhi and the Tao Te Ching. He argues that Einstein’s spirituality wasn’t a minor sideshow, and it didn’t just co-exist with his physics, it was central, his ultimate motivation for wanting to understand the nature of reality in the first place.

What was this sacred path - and is it still relevant today? I asked Kieran to tell me all about it.

Kieran's home page

http://kieranfox.net/about.html

Kieran's book: I am a part of infinity

https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/kieran-fox/i-am-a-part-of-infinity/9781541603578/

Some of Einstein's writings on science and religion

https://www.silene.ong/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AEinstein-Religion-and-Science_1930.pdf

Quantum Questions, ed. by Ken Wilber

https://archive.org/details/quantumquestions0000unse_n5j0

Some of Kieran's neuroscience papers - on meditation, cognition, creativity and whales

http://kieranfox.net/research.html

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Hosted by Jo Marchant:

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Produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada:

https://www.yada-yada.net/

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Standing waves and resonant frequencies appear everywhere in the world around us, from musical notes and swaying bridges to electron orbits and animal coats. This week's guest, neuroscientist Selen Atasoy, wondered if they could also be found in the brain.

Her work has led to a new way to understand different states of consciousness -- from anaesthesia through our normal waking state to meditation and psychedelics. She explains how changes in our awareness reflect a shifting balance between order and chaos, and why psychedelics may tune the brain closer to a critical point of maximum complexity.

I talk to Selen about what this all means for our understanding of the mind, including how modern life may be blunting our awareness, and whether consciousness might be possible elsewhere in the natural world, beyond the human brain.

This isn’t the end of Selen’s story, though, as she recently trained as a psychotherapist. We discuss what inspired her leap from objective science towards a more personal exploration of the mind, and how we can all find harmony within.

Selen's home page

https://www.selenatasoy.com/

Selen’s first paper on harmonics in the brain (2016)

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10340

Selen’s paper on harmonics and LSD (2017)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0079612318301018

Selen’s paper on meditators (2023)

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.16.567347v1.abstract

Video of Chladni sand patterns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFAcYruShow

Harmonics and animal coat patterns

https://www.math.ttu.edu/~anpeace/files/Math5354Papers/murray_SciAm.pdf

MeTruely

https://www.metruely.com/

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*** Edited highlights on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhB4lyBDyjTliuz_h5oHwN6H8HoxS7qWL

Hosted by Jo Marchant:

https://jomarchant.com

Produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada:

https://www.yada-yada.net/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steady your nerves and light up your torches, because this week we’re clambering into the deep, dark Neolithic underworld with archaeologist Jens Notroff.

Jens, of the German Archaeological Institute, has spent years excavating one of the world’s most fascinating and mysterious prehistoric sites – Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. This is a series of circular stone enclosures, featuring giant T-shaped figures and carvings of fearsome predators – and possibly also once decorated with human skulls. It’s sometimes described as “the world’s first temple”, and according to conventional thinking, it shouldn’t exist.

That’s because Göbekli Tepe is around 12,000 years old. It was built on the cusp of the most important transition in human history, the Neolithic revolution, just as hunter gatherers were about to start cultivating the species around them, and it’s located in just the region where farming was about to emerge. Before historians realised the significance of Göbekli Tepe, they assumed the invention of agriculture was the flashpoint that led to the other changes of the Neolithic, such as more settled communities, and the ability to build impressive monuments like Stonehenge. But the giant stones of Göbekli Tepe, dating to just before all of that, tell us something else – a dramatic, shocking shift in mindset – was already underway.

With Jens as our guide, let’s travel back 12,000 years. What wild rituals played out at this deathly site? How did humans take that first leap in thinking, that has defined our species perhaps more than any other, of separating ourselves from – and elevating ourselves above – the rest of nature. And how does it feel to put ourselves into the mind of a young hunter, entering these terrifying caverns for the first time…

Jens’ home page

https://jensnotroff.com/

Göbekli Tepe research project blog

https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/

Taş Tepeler research project

https://tastepeler.org/en

Recommended publications

https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/publications/

Skull cult at Göbekli Tepe

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.1700564

Göbekli Tepe World Heritage Site

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1572/

There’s a detailed discussion of Göbekli Tepe and its role in humanity’s split from nature in chapter 2 of my book: The Human Cosmos.

https://jomarchant.com/human-cosmos

*** To support us, please rate & review the show!

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*** Edited highlights on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhB4lyBDyjTliuz_h5oHwN6H8HoxS7qWL

Hosted by Jo Marchant:

https://jomarchant.com

Produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada:

https://www.yada-yada.net/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.