Navigating Consciousness with Rupert Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake
  • 4.9 (66)
  • RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

A wide ranging discussion of consciousness at the intersection of science and spirituality with Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University Rupert worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India. From 2005 to 2010 he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge.

  1. 10/21/2025

    Science, Spirituality & the Practices That Transform Us, with Dr. Jessica Harland

    Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0_Lkku3QH-c What if gratitude isn't just good manners, but measurably changes your wellbeing? What if the medieval Christians were right about nature being alive, and we've spent the last 400 years getting it fundamentally wrong? And why are half a million people now walking ancient pilgrimage routes across Europe when rationalist materialism promised to free us from such "superstitions"? In this wide-ranging conversation at Hampstead Parish Church, I explore these questions with Dr. Jessica Harland, touching on everything from my early crisis of conscience in a vivisection lab to discovering LSD at Cambridge, from the Protestant Reformation's assault on pilgrimage to why your GP should probably be prescribing forest walks. We go into the scientific evidence behind spiritual practices—yes, there are thousands of peer-reviewed studies—and discuss why saying grace before meals, walking to holy places, and reconnecting with the living world aren't quaint relics of the past, but practices our secular age desperately needs to rediscover. Whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, or simply curious about why these ancient practices refuse to die, I hope you'll find something here that sparks your imagination—and perhaps your own spiritual journey. Recorded at The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead, October 2025. If you're in London, I highly recommend coming by to experience choral evensong. https://www.choralevensong.org/uk/the-parish-church-of-st-john-at-hampstead-27.php

    1h 8m

  2. 10/07/2025

    How do Animals Predict Natural Disasters? London Society for Psychical Research

    For more see Rupert’s Substack article on this topic 👉 https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com/p/animal-warnings-of-earthquakes Recorded on November 4, 2017 at the Society for Psychical Research in London.  When disasters strike, it is often animals who seem to know first. Long before seismographs were invented, people noticed that snakes, rats, dogs, and birds behaved strangely in the days leading up to earthquakes. Similar reports come before tsunamis, avalanches, air raids, and even medical crises like seizures. Are these simply heightened senses—an ability to detect tremors, gases, or subtle vibrations—or do they point to something deeper, an anticipatory awareness we do not yet understand? In this talk, I share some of the evidence I’ve gathered over the years: from ancient Greek accounts to modern field studies, from the Chinese earthquake networks under Mao to the toads of central Italy abandoning their mating grounds days before a quake. The pattern repeats across cultures and circumstances, yet mainstream science has largely dismissed it as superstition. Why is that? What are we overlooking when we ignore such a consistent body of observations? Could systematic study of animal behavior, especially with today’s global communications, provide early warnings and even save lives? I don’t claim to have the answers. But I invite you to explore these questions with me, and to consider what they reveal not only about animals, but about our shared sensitivity to the unseen.

    34 min

  3. 09/23/2025

    Consciousness and the Mysteries of Everyday Life – How the Light Gets In Festival

    What if the “weird” feelings we shrug off—being watched, knowing who’s calling, waking seconds before an alarm—aren’t glitches but signals? In this talk, given at the How The Light Gets In festival, September 21st, 2025, Rupert Sheldrake argues that these everyday hunches point to mind-to-world reach (projective vision), mind-to-mind links (telepathy), and mind-to-future sensitivity (presentiment). How do we decide what counts as evidence, who gets to ask taboo questions, and how science should treat common human experiences? Beyond anecdotes, Rupert shares simple experiments, huge natural-history datasets, and a working picture of mind as something that reaches, bonds, and anticipates—often strengthened with emotional closeness. He flags practical paths forward: citizen science, the Eyesense Training app to sharpen sensitivity, and real-world applications from caregiving to early-warning via animal behavior. Try the Eyesense Training app 👉 https://eyesense.training See Rupert’s Substack for the Latest  articles and early access to videos 👉 https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com

    41 min

  4. 09/15/2025

    Ancestors and Pilgrimages, with Bishop Marc Andrus at Hollyhock

    A dialogue on praying for ancestors and on pilgrimage: Hollyhock, Cortes Island, BC; August, 2016.  See Rupert’s Substack for the Latest  articles and early access to videos 👉 https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com

    53 min

  5. 08/27/2025

    Detoxifying Christianity, with Bishop Marc Andrus at Grace Cathedral

    For many people, Christianity is like a toxic brand. Why is this so and what can be done about it? A dialogue with Marc Andrus, the Bishop of California, at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco; September, 2015. See Rupert’s Substack for the Latest  articles and early access to videos 👉 https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com

    31 min

  6. 08/18/2025

    What is a blessing? Is it just wishing someone well, or is there more to it? ...with Marc Andrus

    A dialogue with Marc Andrus, former Bishop of California, at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, in August of 2016. See Rupert’s Substack for the Latest  articles and early access to videos 👉 https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com

    26 min

  7. 07/22/2025

    What Insights Can Psychedelic Experiences Give Us? University of York

    Watch on Substack https://open.substack.com/pub/rupertsheldrake/p/psychedelic-experiences-what-insights This is a talk I gave recently to the Drug Science and Bioscience Societies at the University of York. I first became interested in psychedelics when I was at school in the 1950s and a young doctor friend was involved in some of the early research on the effects of LSD. When I was 17, before going to Cambridge, I worked in a pharmacology research lab on the effects of LSD and mescaline on chicks. However, it was not until 1970, when I was 28, that I experienced the mind-opening effects of LSD for myself. In the 1980s, I became friends with Terence McKenna, an expert on the shamanic use of psychedelics, and Ralph Abraham, a chaos mathematician at the University of California, Santa Cruz. We had many discussions about the effects of these substances, including their influence on the growth of computer graphics. I also attended a series of conferences on psychedelics at the Esalen Institute in California and have been in continual contact with recent researchers on the subject. In this talk, I discuss the nature of psychedelic visions, their possible relationship to dreams and near-death experiences, and the ‘entities’ that many people encounter through them, including machine elves and angels. I look at the cultural history of their use, the emergence of new psychedelic religions such as Santo Daime in Brazil, and suggest that the current psychedelic renaissance is part of a major cultural shift—away from materialism towards a more interconnected worldview.

    1h 23m

  8. 07/08/2025

    Spiritual Practices and Transformative Experiences in a Scientific Age

    A talk delivered to the Conference of the International Network for the Study of Spirituality, University of Northampton, UK in June 2025. The INSS is a unique international network for people interested in bringing the study of spirituality to life through research, scholarship, education and practice. https://spiritualitystudiesnetwork.wildapricot.org/conference-2025

    31 min
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A wide ranging discussion of consciousness at the intersection of science and spirituality with Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University Rupert worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India. From 2005 to 2010 he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge.

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