Your vision of a cosmos charged with mind is not merely philosophically provocative—it offers fertile ground for a spiritual reawakening that is, in truth, deeply ancient. Might I suggest that what your lecture gestures toward in the language of panpsychism and participatory epistemology is something the Christian mystical tradition has long intuited under a different name: incarnational mysticism.
In this view, matter is not inert, nor is spirit an abstraction divorced from the world. Rather, as St. Maximus the Confessor writes, the logoi—the divine reasons of things—are sown throughout creation, each one a reflection of the Logos Himself, the Word made flesh. The cosmos is not a backdrop to human spiritual experience, but a sacrament of divine presence. As Gregory of Nyssa said, “Every creature is a theophany,” if only we had eyes to see.
This is why the psychedelic encounter—as you frame it—is not merely a neurochemical oddity or poetic metaphor. It may, under certain conditions, serve as an apophatic shock, a kind of chemical kenosis, emptying us of conceptual idols and inviting us into a new mode of knowing: not through abstraction, but participation. This is not far from the mystical cloud of unknowing, where God cannot be grasped by thought but only met in love.
You are right to challenge materialism’s assumed neutrality. Christianity, too, regards the notion of consciousness as an accidental byproduct of atoms as woefully inadequate. But more importantly, it sees this impoverished metaphysic as a failure of reverence. Incarnational mysticism instead proclaims that God is not merely above the world but within it—veiled, yes, but radiantly near. In bread, in wine, in breath, in tree bark and rain. The radical claim of Christianity is not that the divine occasionally visits matter, but that God has wed Himself to it.
Your call to move from representation to participation beautifully echoes the Eucharistic vision: not a symbol to be decoded, but a reality to be entered. The veil is thin. And as St. Irenaeus put it, “the glory of God is the living human being”—not as an isolated soul, but as a microcosm of the cosmos, an image of God vibrating in harmony with all things.
If psychedelics occasionally disclose this truth, it is not because they generate illusion, but because they thin the membrane between appearances and essence. Still, the Christian tradition would caution: the goal is not perpetual ecstasy but transformed love. The Beatific Vision is not merely insight, but union—costly, purifying, incarnate.
At the same time, from the perspective of incarnational mysticism, we must be wary of seeking shortcuts to spiritual intimacy. The Body is a temple, and God’s preferred instrument is often time, not technique. Psychedelics can rupture more than they reveal, especially when pursued without discernment, humility, or spiritual maturity. The soul is not a lab to be probed, but a garden to be tended. Visions granted apart from purification can lead to pride, fragmentation, or counterfeit light. The path to union, the saints remind us, is always the Cross.
Also, seeing the world through the aid of psychedelics is itself a philosophical state and attitude to percieve, recieve, access truth, insight, understanding approaching the Know-Yourself ...
Parmenides’ longing is what enabled his encounter with the goddess. She then revealed herself and told him about the two kinds of knowing.
The ancient Greek understanding of ‘truth’ is un-concealment. As the psalmist understood Deep calleth to deep as it reveals Itself as essence.
Jung’s experience of being crucified and crushed by the serpent involved the ritual death of his dominant rational thinking function as dominant. And only then was his feeling function no longer blind. But his prelude to entering the depths involved suffering (his longing for his soul).
As you noted Steve, there are no shortcuts to meaningful spiritual intimacy or as Matt and Whitehead call it - participation. The degree of one’s depth determines the degree of the encounter. It’s a kind of resonant entanglement.
“To explain the universal distribution of this as part of traditional human thinking requires at some stage in the past there to have been to an awareness of this other realm of consciousness. Now, this is not incompatible with psilocybin or any other drug hypothesis, because those might have kick-started this connection with another realm of consciousness.
But if we assume that today all over the world, shamanic cultures and all other cultures have the sense of other levels and other kinds of conscious entities beyond the human level, some in animal forms and some in forms way beyond that, we have to assume that at some stage in the past, there was a linking with these other realms of consciousness, whatever they are.
Not just metaphors, not just archetypes in the collective mind, but forms of consciousness that might well be, and I think actually are, out there.”
.
THE COSMIC SERPENT explores the idea that DNA and the knowledge of indigenous cultures may be more intertwined than we think. The author presents some bold ideas, blending biology, anthropology, and mythology, which can feel a bit out there at times, but it's thought-provoking nonetheless.
Narby's premise is that hallucinogenic drugs used by shaman in the Western Amazon actually give them access to medicinal information through knowledge coded in DNA.
In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism.
The Cosmic Serpent symbolizes ancient wisdom, paradox, wholeness, and creation. The Cosmic Serpent carries with it the story of creation, universal wisdom, and truth.
@matt looking at your response to audience question number three. Would you apply the same general approach to our relationship with AI? Or do you see that as something substantially different from a natural versus artificial perspective?
Your vision of a cosmos charged with mind is not merely philosophically provocative—it offers fertile ground for a spiritual reawakening that is, in truth, deeply ancient. Might I suggest that what your lecture gestures toward in the language of panpsychism and participatory epistemology is something the Christian mystical tradition has long intuited under a different name: incarnational mysticism.
In this view, matter is not inert, nor is spirit an abstraction divorced from the world. Rather, as St. Maximus the Confessor writes, the logoi—the divine reasons of things—are sown throughout creation, each one a reflection of the Logos Himself, the Word made flesh. The cosmos is not a backdrop to human spiritual experience, but a sacrament of divine presence. As Gregory of Nyssa said, “Every creature is a theophany,” if only we had eyes to see.
This is why the psychedelic encounter—as you frame it—is not merely a neurochemical oddity or poetic metaphor. It may, under certain conditions, serve as an apophatic shock, a kind of chemical kenosis, emptying us of conceptual idols and inviting us into a new mode of knowing: not through abstraction, but participation. This is not far from the mystical cloud of unknowing, where God cannot be grasped by thought but only met in love.
You are right to challenge materialism’s assumed neutrality. Christianity, too, regards the notion of consciousness as an accidental byproduct of atoms as woefully inadequate. But more importantly, it sees this impoverished metaphysic as a failure of reverence. Incarnational mysticism instead proclaims that God is not merely above the world but within it—veiled, yes, but radiantly near. In bread, in wine, in breath, in tree bark and rain. The radical claim of Christianity is not that the divine occasionally visits matter, but that God has wed Himself to it.
Your call to move from representation to participation beautifully echoes the Eucharistic vision: not a symbol to be decoded, but a reality to be entered. The veil is thin. And as St. Irenaeus put it, “the glory of God is the living human being”—not as an isolated soul, but as a microcosm of the cosmos, an image of God vibrating in harmony with all things.
If psychedelics occasionally disclose this truth, it is not because they generate illusion, but because they thin the membrane between appearances and essence. Still, the Christian tradition would caution: the goal is not perpetual ecstasy but transformed love. The Beatific Vision is not merely insight, but union—costly, purifying, incarnate.
At the same time, from the perspective of incarnational mysticism, we must be wary of seeking shortcuts to spiritual intimacy. The Body is a temple, and God’s preferred instrument is often time, not technique. Psychedelics can rupture more than they reveal, especially when pursued without discernment, humility, or spiritual maturity. The soul is not a lab to be probed, but a garden to be tended. Visions granted apart from purification can lead to pride, fragmentation, or counterfeit light. The path to union, the saints remind us, is always the Cross.
Well said.
Also, seeing the world through the aid of psychedelics is itself a philosophical state and attitude to percieve, recieve, access truth, insight, understanding approaching the Know-Yourself ...
Parmenides’ longing is what enabled his encounter with the goddess. She then revealed herself and told him about the two kinds of knowing.
The ancient Greek understanding of ‘truth’ is un-concealment. As the psalmist understood Deep calleth to deep as it reveals Itself as essence.
Jung’s experience of being crucified and crushed by the serpent involved the ritual death of his dominant rational thinking function as dominant. And only then was his feeling function no longer blind. But his prelude to entering the depths involved suffering (his longing for his soul).
As you noted Steve, there are no shortcuts to meaningful spiritual intimacy or as Matt and Whitehead call it - participation. The degree of one’s depth determines the degree of the encounter. It’s a kind of resonant entanglement.
RUPERT SHELDRAKE:
“To explain the universal distribution of this as part of traditional human thinking requires at some stage in the past there to have been to an awareness of this other realm of consciousness. Now, this is not incompatible with psilocybin or any other drug hypothesis, because those might have kick-started this connection with another realm of consciousness.
But if we assume that today all over the world, shamanic cultures and all other cultures have the sense of other levels and other kinds of conscious entities beyond the human level, some in animal forms and some in forms way beyond that, we have to assume that at some stage in the past, there was a linking with these other realms of consciousness, whatever they are.
Not just metaphors, not just archetypes in the collective mind, but forms of consciousness that might well be, and I think actually are, out there.”
.
THE COSMIC SERPENT explores the idea that DNA and the knowledge of indigenous cultures may be more intertwined than we think. The author presents some bold ideas, blending biology, anthropology, and mythology, which can feel a bit out there at times, but it's thought-provoking nonetheless.
Narby's premise is that hallucinogenic drugs used by shaman in the Western Amazon actually give them access to medicinal information through knowledge coded in DNA.
In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism.
The Cosmic Serpent symbolizes ancient wisdom, paradox, wholeness, and creation. The Cosmic Serpent carries with it the story of creation, universal wisdom, and truth.
.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rupertsheldrake/p/from-prey-to-prophet-a-trialogue?r=3le9sh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
@matt looking at your response to audience question number three. Would you apply the same general approach to our relationship with AI? Or do you see that as something substantially different from a natural versus artificial perspective?
I do not think it makes sense (at least given current architectures) to imagine AI might become conscious. But I also don't think it makes sense to isolate human consciousness from technological extensions, since we have been co-evolving with our technologies since we harnessed fire. https://footnotes2plato.substack.com/p/the-future-impact-of-artificial-intelligence?utm_source=publication-search
When I asked Terence McKenna if he believed the universe was alive he said:
. “YES, because I read ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD.”
Thanks for the transcript of the talk. I agree wholeheartedly with this take as I have with many of your online comments.
I think I’ll wait for the video and pretend to have been there with my own lanyard made of blotters. Don’t eat them all at once 😜
I was put in mind of previous examples like Buddhism, Greek and Roman pantheons, animistic based indigenous beliefs, etc.
That seems to be the most common outcome.
Haven't read it yet, but my initial thought was; when you mix psychedelics and philosophy you get myth, superstition, and eventually religion.
I suppose that is one possible outcome. Not the only.
My initial thought is that the mainstream materialist view is exactly that. Myth, superstition and religion, even without the psychedelics.