Dr. John Vervaeke

Episodes

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  Philosophy and the Daimonic: A Dialogue with Charles Stang (Charles Stang Dialogue 3) 15.10.2026 1h 16m

  What if becoming wiser requires a relationship with a "divine double" within you? In episode three of the series, John and Harvard's Charles Stang move on from Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes to Apuleius' 2nd-century text On the God of Socrates, which imagines philosophy as a kind of daimonology that begins and ends with two daimons: the daimon that is your soul and the daimon that is your double. Apuleius presents daimons as intermediaries between dispassionate gods and passionate humans, translating the gods' care into the language of emotion, and then complicates his own taxonomy: human souls are themselves daimons, the air is populated by the formerly embodied dead, and some daimons were never embodied at all and attach themselves to our souls as guides. Along the way, John and Charles compare daimons with biblical angels and connect the daimonic to internal family systems, grief-time encounters with the dead, dialogical rationality, the future self, and intuition as non-conscious pattern detection that needs dialectic as a check. John speaks openly about a waking vision and a dream of Hermes, before Charles previews Porphyry's story of an Egyptian priest summoning Plotinus' daimon at the temple of Isis in Rome. Charles Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School, Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard, and the author of Our Divine Double. In this episode, he guides John through Apuleius' On the God of Socrates and its vision of philosophy as knowing your own daimonic soul and cultivating a relationship with its divine double. John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist and philosopher whose work explores cognition, meaning, wisdom, and the meaning crisis. In this conversation, he brings 4E cognitive science, the dialogical self, and research on intuition to bear on Apuleius' account, and shares his own encounters with Hermes. Study the daimon with Charles: Daemons in Divinity on The Lectern Charles Stang's Web On the God of Socrates - Apuleius Our Divine Double - Charles M. Stang Symposium - Plato Divination and Human Nature - Peter T. Struck Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism - Crystal Addey On the Life of Plotinus - Porphyry The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission. Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships. Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon Thank you for listening!
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  Socrates, Daimons, and the Space In-Between (Charles Stang Dialogue 2) 09.10.2026 1h 9m

  What was Socrates actually hearing when his daimon spoke, and why might the space in-between, neither purely inside us nor fully outside us, be the key to discerning spirits today? In part two of the Lectern series on the daimon, Charles Stang and John Vervaeke move from Plato to Socrates' other witnesses, Xenophon and Aristophanes. Charles shows that the indictment against Socrates charged him with not worshipping the gods of the state (theoi) and with bringing in novel divinities (daimonia), and that Xenophon defends him by presenting his daimonion as ordinary divination. John responds from cognitive science, describing a continuum of felt presence experiences, and warns against two opposite biases: treating every such entity as demonic, or trusting every one as a benevolent guide. Drawing on his own ongoing dialogues with Hermes, he argues that discernment of spirits is a learnable skill, more like a martial art than a set of propositions. The discussion then turns to Aristophanes' The Clouds, where Socrates is satirised hanging in a basket among divinities of the air, and on to breath, Tai Chi, and enacted metaphor. From suspension they arrive at betweenness: Diotima's description of Eros as a daimon, the philosopher as metaxu, and finite transcendence, before closing on how the meaning crisis has left us without ways to discern spirits, setting up the next conversation on Apuleius. Charles Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard. In this episode, he examines Socrates' daimon through the witness of Xenophon and Aristophanes, and the ancient association of daimons with air and with the space between humans and gods. John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist and philosopher whose work explores cognition, meaning, wisdom, and the meaning crisis. In this conversation, he brings cognitive science, embodied practice, and his ongoing dialogues with Hermes to bear on the daimon, felt presence, and the discernment of spirits. Study the daimon with Charles: Daemons in Divinity on The Lectern Charles Stang's Web Memorabilia - Xenophon The Clouds - Aristophanes Symposium - Plato Apology - Plato Presence - Ben Alderson-Day Being and the Between - William Desmond 00:00 Cold open: entity encounters 01:50 Welcome back, Charles Stang 03:00 Recap: Plato's Socrates daimon 04:30 Xenophon's Memorabilia 05:20 The indictment: theoi vs. daimonia 08:10 Divination and divine signs 09:40 Xenophon's two novelties 11:20 Psychology of felt presence 16:40 Beyond binary ontology 19:50 Impiety and corrupting youth 21:20 Hermes and bipolar bias 28:50 Psychedelic entity encounters 31:00 Discernment as martial art 35:00 Pivot to The Clouds 38:50 Socrates in a basket 42:00 Spiritual alchemy and elements 44:00 Cerebellum and enacted metaphor 48:00 Why air? Breath as bridge 53:20 Suspending judgment and Tai Chi 55:40 Betweenness and Diotima's Eros 57:30 Metaxu and finite transcendence 59:02 "We are not transcendent purely. That is to be a god. We are not merely finite. That is to be an animal." 01:00:50 Meaning crisis, lost discernment 01:03:50 William Desmond and the metaxu 01:06:50 Closing thanks The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission. Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships. Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon Thank you for listening!
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  Why Is Wisdom So Hard to Access? 01.10.2026 1h 3m

  How do you make deep philosophical and transformative work accessible to more people without sacrificing the precision, rigor, and depth that make it meaningful in the first place? John Vervaeke, with Ethan Hsieh and Taylor Barratt, discusses recurring feedback that his work is meaningful but hard to share, and the ethical tension between precision and epistemic responsibility on one side and making ideas broadly shareable on the other. They describe practical steps already taken or planned: clearer scaffolding in Lectern courses, additional instructors, a teaching-assistance program, adapting content into books, new pathways through the large YouTube catalog, and shorter thematic overview videos. They also introduce a 12-module Studio app built around a 5–15 minute daily practice habit, with an AI "coach" designed with ethical constraints, to translate key ideas (the four Ps, relevance realization, DIME) into accessible practice. Finally, they outline a tiered practice ecosystem of intensives, retreats, and the Reframe Festival (June 3–6, 2027, Colorado), plus a six-week Awaken to Meaning practice course, and invite good-faith audience feedback. Together, they explore: the challenge of making John Vervaeke's philosophical and scientific work more accessible without sacrificing rigor why accessibility involves more than simply making information easier to understand the tension between precision, epistemic responsibility, and reaching a broader audience why accessibility also includes financial, educational, relational, and structural dimensions how The Lectern can create different entry points for people with different levels of experience the role of the Studio app in helping people build a habit of practice how group practice, watch parties, and supportive relationships make philosophical practice more sustainable how the Four Ps of Knowing, relevance realization, and the DIME framework are introduced through a more accessible structure why a structured approach can help people who struggle with executive functioning the different levels of engagement offered through courses, practice groups, retreats, intensives, and festivals how practice communities can function like a dojo for developing skills 00:00 Why Accessibility Matters 00:30 Welcome and Video Purpose 02:00 Accuracy vs Accessibility Tension 07:00 Taylor on Vulnerability and Reach 10:00 Practice and Relationship Impacts 13:26 "How do we make it accessible such that people who don't have to work an extra job just to be able to pay for a course?" 14:30 Progressive Teaching and Prereqs 20:00 Multiple Mediums and Channel Overload 24:00 New Access Pathways and Shorter Videos 26:00 Introducing the Practice App 28:30 App Modules and Daily Habit Design 32:00 AI Coach Feature and Ethics 34:30 Ethan on Pedagogy and Core Ideas 36:30 Habit Gap After Insight 38:00 App as Training Wheels 39:30 ADHD Friendly Structure 42:00 Tiered Practice Pathways 44:30 Reframe Festival Details 47:00 Retreats Between Intensives 49:30 Hardcore Training Track 54:00 Ecosystem Not Closed 56:30 Feedback and Next Steps 58:00 Six Week Practice Gateway 01:01:30 Final Encouragement and Thanks Resources Find Clarity and Connection in a Noisy World App Teaching Assistance Program (TAP) Reframe Festival from Awaken to Meaning Relational Ecology Program (REP) on Awaken to Meaning Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern Support the Lectern and join a growing community of wisdom seekers on Patreon Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon Thank you for listening!
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  John Thatamanil on Circling the Elephant: Religion, Porosity, and the Promise of Pluralism | Silk Road Seminar 26.09.2026 1h 49m

  What if the problem isn't that religions disagree, but that we invented the idea that you can only belong to one? In this Silk Road Seminar, John Vervaeke sits down with theologian John J. Thatamanil, author of Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity. Thatamanil traces his path from the ancient Mar Thoma Christian tradition of South India to comparative theology, and makes the case that our modern idea of "religion" is a recent invention, born alongside the secular, entangled with colonialism and racialization, and built to sort people into single, sealed boxes. Together, they explore: Why religion is not a natural kind, and why the village atheist and the fundamentalist mirror each other Tillich, participation, and God as the ground of being rather than a being Religion as comprehensive qualitative orientation: interpretive schemes and therapeutic regimes that "true" our desires Semiotic symbiosis, process perennialism, and horizontal vs. vertical non-dualism Pilgrims, not tourists: how deep practice across traditions renews faith Why capitalism functions as a religion, and where hope lives now John J. Thatamanil is Professor of Theology and World Religions at Union Theological Seminary in New York. His work in comparative theology focuses on Hindu and Buddhist non-dualism and the possibility of a Christian non-dualism. He is the author of Circling the Elephant and The Immanent Divine. Books mentioned: Circling the Elephant (John J. Thatamanil), In Praise of Mixed Religion (Victoria S. Harrison), Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian (Paul Knitter), The Invention of Religion in Japan (Jason Ānanda Josephson). 00:00 Welcome to the Silk Road Seminar 01:41 From Mar Thoma Christianity to comparative theology 07:37 Religion and its "Siamese twin," the secular 12:36 Why religion isn't a natural kind 22:24 The village atheist and facile theism 29:07 Tillich, participation, and the ground of being 36:11 Religion as comprehensive qualitative orientation 43:08 Interpretive schemes and therapeutic regimes 47:09 Jesus, the Buddha, and truth as a person 48:37 Dialogos and semiotic symbiosis 56:55 "Multiplicity is life, and singularity is almost always death." 01:00:51 Perennialism vs. process perennialism 01:08:32 Love, knowledge, and the post-truth condition 01:12:40 Q&A: Traditionalism, perennialism, and Eliade 01:19:27 Horizontal and vertical non-dualism 01:25:13 Narrative archetypes and "Protestant Buddhism" 01:32:19 Is capitalism a religion? 01:38:01 What gives you hope? The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission. Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships. Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon Thank you for listening!
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  Awakening to the Divine Double: An Introduction to Daimons in Greek Tradition 21.09.2026 1h 20m

  Could the "divine double" be a hidden guide within us, and what happens when we begin to recognize it? Harvard Divinity School professor Charles Stang, author of Our Divine Double, joins Ethan to introduce his Lectern course Daemons in Divinity and the ancient Greek idea of the daimon. Stang traces Socrates' daimonion, the guiding sign that shaped his life, through Plato and later thinkers who saw daimons as intermediaries or as a person's highest faculty, which makes us "gods in waiting." He contrasts loose "higher self" talk with disciplined discernment, and shares uncanny reading experiences as encounters with a divine double. Enroll in Daemons in Divinity: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/daemons-in-divinity Together, they explore: the daimon and Socrates' inner sign the divine double as counterpart, alter ego or twin discernment and the risk of self-deception daimons as bodies of air partnership, not possession the modern loss of the daimonic reading as a transformative encounter across time from "Flatland" to a vertical, multidimensional reality Timestamps 00:00 Reading as Transformation 01:30 Welcome and Guest Intro 04:00 Socrates and the Daimonion 06:00 Divine Double Framework 09:00 Course Purpose and Modern Relevance 11:00 Roleplay Skeptic Questions 17:00 Discernment and Self Deception 27:30 Extraordinary Encounters Explained 31:00 What Is a Daimon 35:00 Ambiguity and Axis Shift 37:30 Wisdom Beyond Outcomes 39:00 Socrates and the Inner Sign 42:00 Daimons as Bodies of Air 43:00 Seeing Air Through Apuleius 45:30 Theater as Spirit Vessel 50:00 Partnership Not Possession 52:00 Modern Loss of the Daimonic 56:00 Higher Self vs Deep Practice 59:00 Vertical Self and Jung 01:03:00 Puppy Crisis and Jesus 01:06:30 Uncanny Reading and Flatland to Spaceland 01:10:30 Daimon and God 01:13:00 Course Takeaways and Farewell Explore courses from The Lectern: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support the Lectern on Patreon: patreon.com/johnvervaeke Follow John Vervaeke: Website | X | YouTube Thank you for listening!  
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  Cognition, Religion, and the Trust Apocalypse Are More Connected Than You Think 11.09.2026 53m

  What if religion was never really about belief, but about how we make meaning? Trust in institutions like religion, law, science, and journalism is collapsing, yet some of the most demanding traditions, like Eastern Orthodoxy and the traditional Latin Mass, are growing as people seek ritual, discipline, and transformation. In this talk, John Vervaeke argues it is increasingly difficult to study human cognition without studying religion, pointing to the co-emergence of religion and human cognition, the importance of imaginal cognition, altered states and mystical experience, and non-propositional knowing in 4E cognitive science. He critiques first-generation cognitive science of religion for treating religions as irrational, belief-based "failed science" and for ignoring religious studies. Drawing on ethnography and genealogy, he argues that religions are porous, syncretistic ecologies of practice, that the "religion" construct is historically contingent, and that a process theory should ask how people become religious, including through credibility-enhancing displays. In this talk, John explores: why religion continues to matter in a modern world that often considers itself increasingly secular how cognitive science has shaped, and sometimes limited, our understanding of religion the rise of the "imaginal" and its role in human cognition and religious experience why religion cannot be reduced to belief or explained simply as a cognitive byproduct how science and religion became divided through modern dichotomies why cognitive science needs to engage with insights from religious studies how religions are porous, interconnected, and shaped through historical exchange how Equus illustrates the relationship between sacred meaning and human experience why religion is better understood as an ecology of practices rather than a system of beliefs how credibility-enhancing displays (CREDs) shape participation in traditions how institutional trust, religious revival, and the contemporary "trust apocalypse" are connected how fluency and participation can open pathways toward mystical experience 00:00 Welcome To The Lectern 01:00 Religious Revival Paradox 02:00 Why Cognition Needs Religion 03:30 The Rise Of The Imaginal 06:00 Spiritual Not Religious 07:15 Early CogSci Religion Assumptions 09:45 Adaptation Vs Byproduct Debate 11:30 NOMA And Modern Dichotomies 15:00 Postmodern Critique Of Binaries 18:30 Why Consult Religious Studies 20:15 Religions Are Porous Not Pure 21:45 The Origin Of God Genealogy 27:00 Equus And Sacred Meaning 28:45 Equus In The Dark 30:30 Syncretism And Capitalism 31:30 Religion As Practice Ecology 32:45 CRED And Becoming Rational 35:45 Meaning Sacred And Apprenticeship 37:30 Process Theory Of Religion 41:00 Genealogy And Imperial Construct 44:00 Q&A Rejecting The Sacred 46:30 Institutions Trust And Revival 50:00 Beauty Fluency Mysticism — Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support the Lectern and join a growing community of wisdom seekers https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon — Thank you for listening! What if religion was never really about belief, but about how we make meaning? Trust in institutions like religion, law, science, and journalism is collapsing, yet some of the most demanding traditions, like Eastern Orthodoxy and the traditional Latin Mass, are growing as people seek ritual, discipline, and transformation. In this talk, John Vervaeke argues it is increasingly difficult to study human cognition without studying religion, pointing to the co-emergence of religion and human cognition, the importance of imaginal cognition, altered states and mystical experience, and non-propositional knowing in 4E cognitive science. He critiques first-generation cognitive science of religion for treating religions as irrational, belief-based "failed science" and for ignoring religious studies. Drawing on ethnography and genealogy, he argues that religions are porous, syncretistic ecologies of practice, that the "religion" construct is historically contingent, and that a process theory should ask how people become religious, including through credibility-enhancing displays. In this talk, John explores: why religion continues to matter in a modern world that often considers itself increasingly secular how cognitive science has shaped, and sometimes limited, our understanding of religion the rise of the "imaginal" and its role in human cognition and religious experience why religion cannot be reduced to belief or explained simply as a cognitive byproduct how science and religion became divided through modern dichotomies why cognitive science needs to engage with insights from religious studies how religions are porous, interconnected, and shaped through historical exchange how Equus illustrates the relationship between sacred meaning and human experience why religion is better understood as an ecology of practices rather than a system of beliefs how credibility-enhancing displays (CREDs) shape participation in traditions how institutional trust, religious revival, and the contemporary "trust apocalypse" are connected how fluency and participation can open pathways toward mystical experience 00:00 Welcome To The Lectern 01:00 Religious Revival Paradox 02:00 Why Cognition Needs Religion 03:30 The Rise Of The Imaginal 06:00 Spiritual Not Religious 07:15 Early CogSci Religion Assumptions 09:45 Adaptation Vs Byproduct Debate 11:30 NOMA And Modern Dichotomies 15:00 Postmodern Critique Of Binaries 18:30 Why Consult Religious Studies 20:15 Religions Are Porous Not Pure 21:45 The Origin Of God Genealogy 27:00 Equus And Sacred Meaning 28:45 Equus In The Dark 30:30 Syncretism And Capitalism 31:30 Religion As Practice Ecology 32:45 CRED And Becoming Rational 35:45 Meaning Sacred And Apprenticeship 37:30 Process Theory Of Religion 41:00 Genealogy And Imperial Construct 44:00 Q&A Rejecting The Sacred 46:30 Institutions Trust And Revival 50:00 Beauty Fluency Mysticism — Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support the Lectern and join a growing community of wisdom seekers https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon — Thank you for listening!
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  Communal Living as Spiritual Practice: Friendship, Formation, and Renewing the Senses 28.08.2026 1h 32m

  Can we find freedom in a world of endless choice—or is deeper liberation found in the people we refuse to leave? In the first of a three-part Lectern Dialogues series, John Vervaeke is joined by Elizabeth Oldfield and her husband, Christopher Oldfield, for a conversation on intentional communal living as a spiritual practice within a Christian orientation. Elizabeth and Christopher share life with their children and three other adults in a small London home shaped by a shared rule of life: collective prayer, hospitality, study, play, administration, and the daily work of formation. They distinguish committed community from casual cohabitation, exploring how proximity, conflict, repair, and shared rhythms can cultivate deeper friendship and fellowship. The conversation connects intentional community with John's work on the philosophical Silk Road, renewing the senses, dialogical selfhood, attachment, participation, and the critique of modern individualism. It also takes seriously the risks of self-deception and toxic religion, asking what discernment and faithful communal maturation require. Guests Christopher Oldfield is a philosopher affiliated with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge. His work explores wisdom, metaphysics, personhood, participation, and the sacred. Elizabeth Oldfield writes and speaks on spirituality, community, and relational life, examining how shared practices can restore connection with one another and with God. Resources Christopher Oldfield: https://www.chrisoldfieldphilosophy.com/ Elizabeth Oldfield on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-oldfield-5a5b6216/ Plato, The Seventh Letter: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/seventh_letter.html A Hidden Life: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5827916/ The Thin Red Line: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120863/ Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support The Lectern on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Follow John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ X: https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Chapters 00:00 Welcome to The Lectern 02:00 Elizabeth on friendship 04:30 Christopher's introduction 08:00 Why intentional community 09:30 Commitment and covenant 12:30 Rhythms of a rule of life 16:30 Plato and collective spirit 21:30 Creed, "we," and "I" 27:00 Dialogical self and science 31:30 Relearning wisdom today 39:00 Intimacy and modern culture 46:30 Rethinking eros 48:3030 Hearth and fellowship 49:00 Covenant friendship 49:30 Life inside community 52:30 Religion as holy listening 54:00 Religion as care and rebinding 56:30 Empire and invented religion 59:00 Shared scripture and shared life 01:01:00 Is religion accessible? 01:03:00 Practice and participation 01:05:00 Communal maturation 01:08:30 Rupture, repair, and intimacy 01:13:00 "We too" identity in Ephesians 01:17:30 Renewing the senses 01:24:30 Attachment and attunement 01:27:30 Discernment and toxic religion 01:30:00 Friendship as the path
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  Andrew M. Davis & Matt Segall on Process, Relational Ontology, and Seeing God Again | Silk Road Seminar 13.08.2026 2h 7m

  What if God isn't a finished substance standing outside the world, but a living process we participate in? In this Silk Road Seminar, John Vervaeke is joined by process philosophers Andrew M. Davis and Matt Segall. John opens with the core moves of Seeing God Again for the First Time and the Philosophical Silk Road: dissolving modernity's dichotomies, renewing our sense of the sacred, and moving between traditions as a pilgrim rather than a tourist. From there, the three bring Whitehead's process thought into dialogue with Neoplatonism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Together, they explore: Process perennialism vs. propositional perennialism Primordiality, ultimacy, and the consequent nature of God Why God is not an individualized substance, and what that means for theism and atheism Hartshorne's dipolar theism and a dynamic view of perfection Anatheism, non-duality, and the inexhaustible sacred Faith as disposition rather than propositional assent, and the criteria for judging deeper framings of reality Andrew M. Davis leads research and conference programming at the Center for Process Studies. He is the author of Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy and the forthcoming Whitehead's Universe: A Prismatic Introduction (Orbis Books). Matt Segall is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he teaches process philosophy and German idealism, approaching philosophy as a transformative practice. Center for Process Studies | Andrew M. Davis | Matt Segall (Footnotes2Plato) 00:00 Welcome to the Silk Road Seminar 01:44 Matt Segall and Andrew Davis introduce themselves 05:00 Seeing God Again for the First Time 11:09 The Philosophical Silk Road as pilgrimage 15:50 Cobb, Whitehead, and Buddhist-Christian dialogue 17:59 Process perennialism 24:19 Primordiality, ultimacy, and Zen Neoplatonism 27:53 The consequent nature of God 39:45 God is not an individualized substance 51:16 Hartshorne and dipolar theism 01:00:44 Rethinking omniscience and omnipotence 01:08:27 Anatheism: returning to God after God 01:12:06 The sacred obligation to pilgrimage 01:18:50 Propositional vs. dispositional faith 01:25:20 "It's more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true." 01:31:42 Q&A: Fidelity to tradition and openness to others 01:42:36 How do we judge one framing of reality as deeper? 01:49:55 Collective individuation 02:02:31 Closing words The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission. Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships. Follow John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon Thank you for listening!
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  How Nonbeing Haunts Being: Corey Anton on Death, Spirituality, and the Meaning of a Finite Life 07.08.2026 1h 19m

  What if the very thing we fear most—nonbeing—is also what gives life its deepest meaning? John Vervaeke welcomes philosopher Corey Anton to discuss his book, How Nonbeing Haunts Being: On Possibilities, Morality, and Death Acceptance. They explore how absence, limitation, possibility, mortality, and death are not merely negations of life, but central to how meaning, identity, and moral responsibility emerge. Corey situates the book as the third in a trilogy and describes a naturalist yet spiritually open orientation: one that rejects an afterlife while affirming reverence for the mystery of existence and a morality grounded in this life. John and Corey consider embodiment, perception, grief, ego death, psychedelics, dignity in dying, AI and the meaning crisis, and the challenge of evil. Drawing on Sartre, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nishitani, Terence Deacon, Epicurus, and Douglas Harding's Headless Way, this conversation asks how accepting mortality might deepen wisdom, enrich ordinary life, and open us to a more participatory relationship with reality. Resources How Nonbeing Haunts Being: On Possibilities, Morality, and Death Acceptance by Corey Anton: https://www.amazon.com/Non-being-Haunts-Being-Possibilities-Communication-ebook/dp/B08MDL3LX7/ Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support The Lectern on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Follow John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ X: https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Chapters 00:00 Welcome and book praise 00:41 Nonbeing East and West 04:54 Spirituality without an afterlife 06:58 Thirst and everyday absence 09:15 Recovering Catholic roots 12:20 Reverence versus fire insurance 15:12 The Headless Way and openness 22:10 Embodiment makes relations real 24:14 No view from nowhere 27:24 Grief and mortality acceptance 31:54 Sartre meets Harding 34:45 Merleau-Ponty and psychedelics 37:55 A community of the dying 38:35 Epicurus on the fear of death 40:56 Dignity and dying 42:47 The right to die 46:02 Pain and despair 53:23 The sacred as inexhaustible 55:36 AI and the meaning crisis 59:43 How meaning works 01:01:16 Resonance over happiness 01:09:59 Mystery, love, and evil 01:14:52 The bodhisattva response 01:17:02 Closing reflections
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  Notes on No-Thing: John Vervaeke on Nihilism, the Kyoto School, and the Sacred 03.08.2026 1h 9m

  What if nihilism is not the end of meaning, but an opening into a deeper way of seeing? John Vervaeke is joined by Ethan Hsieh to introduce Notes on No-Thing, a course on the Kyoto School of Philosophy and its response to nihilism, nothingness, and the advent of the sacred. They explore why modern people often oscillate between nihilism and narcissism, why meaning must be shareable, and how the Kyoto School offers a different way through the meaning crisis. Rather than treating nothingness as a wound to be covered over with distraction, John considers it as an aperture—a way of seeing through nihilism toward a renewed encounter with reality, religion, sacredness, and transformation. The conversation draws on Nishida, Nishitani, and Tanabe alongside Zen, Neoplatonism, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Heidegger, Sartre, grief, shame, the death of God, and post-Christian nihilism. It asks what a post-nihilistic understanding of the sacred might make possible. Notes on No-Thing runs September 14–November 9, with no class on October 26. Learn more and register: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/notes-on-no-thing Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support The Lectern on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Connect with John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ X: https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Chapters 00:00 Nothingness as an opening 00:40 Welcome to The Lectern 01:20 Why this course matters 03:10 The Kyoto School and nihilism 07:10 Beyond nihilism and the sacred 11:10 The everyday voice of nihilism 12:30 Nihilism and clinical depression 17:20 The clenched fist analogy 20:50 Forms of nihilism 25:00 Beyond familiar Western religious frameworks 26:00 From hole to aperture 27:00 Grief, loss, and reality 29:10 Narcissism as a response to nihilism 32:40 Why meaning must be shareable 35:10 Nishitani and self-overcoming 37:20 Nihilism and narcissism 38:30 The Kyoto School as a dialogical partner 45:20 Nietzsche, Christianity, and modernity 49:10 Guilt, shame, and cultural frameworks 52:30 Grief over the death of God 58:00 The advent of the sacred 60:20 What students can expect 61:20 Transformation and no-thingness 64:40 Meaning, flourishing, and resilience 66:40 Mourning, grief, and love 68:40 Course registration and closing
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  Reconnect to the Real: Vervaeke, Sengstock, and Koch on Nature, Circling, and Socratic Practice 25.07.2026 55m

  Why are we losing our taste for what is real—and what practices can help us recover it? John Vervaeke is joined by Guy Sengstock and Kyle Koch for a conversation on connection as something constitutive of who we are: our relationship to nature, one another, story, personhood, and the sacred. Together, they explore the practices behind the Reconnecting to the Real retreat in Whistler, British Columbia. Kyle shares how nature connection, tracking, bird language, and embodied practice can transform how we perceive and participate in the world. Guy brings the relational depth of Circling, considering how conversation can become a practice of presence, listening, and genuine contact. John situates these practices within his work on the meaning crisis, Socratic dialogue, wisdom, and the renewal of the senses. The conversation moves from fire, forest, and shared meals to deeper questions of flourishing, AI and virtual mediation, touch and taste, and how we can develop a more participatory relationship with reality. Learn more about the Reconnecting to the Real retreat: https://lnkd.in/erVwif6A Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support The Lectern on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Connect with John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ X: https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Chapters 00:00 Welcome to The Lectern 00:40 Reconnecting to the Real 01:20 Nature connection and meaning 04:20 Discovering Circling 07:20 Tending the earth and togetherness 13:20 Socrates, meaning, and dialogue 18:20 Retreat as practice and participation 24:20 Facilitating rather than lecturing 30:40 The senses reaching toward the world 36:00 Why connection restores energy and life 41:40 Touch, contact, and the real 43:20 Taste and spiritual perception 46:00 The skill that unlocks a life 48:00 Shared meals and tasting together 51:20 Renewing the senses 52:20 Flourishing and the real 54:30 Closing reflections
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  Parenting, Meaning, and Reconnecting with the Real 16.07.2026 55m

  Is civilization making us smarter while disconnecting us from what matters most? In this episode, John Vervaeke speaks with Kyle Koch, a deep nature connection practitioner and new father living in an intentional community in northern British Columbia, about applying Vervaeke's work to raise children with belonging and connectedness. Together they explore cognition as a dynamical developmental process, how culture increasingly "raises" children through screens, and how capitalism functions as a dominant religion shaping salience and meaning. Drawing on Iain McGilchrist's work and 4E cognitive science, they discuss left-hemisphere dominance, relevance realization, extended families and credible role models, narrative as "keeping track of tracking," and the need for a meta-narrative beyond a chaos of stories. The conversation also examines kinship and Indigenous worldviews, personhood as promise-making, the "spirit of place," pilgrimage as transformative theoria, and a civium model that combines Dunbar-scale communities with a more virtuous virtual world—including retreats like Reconnecting with the Real. Timestamps 00:00 – Welcome to the Lectern 02:00 – Fatherhood and meaning 05:00 – Questions on development 06:30 – Cognition as dynamic 07:30 – Culture raises kids 09:00 – Capitalism as religion 11:00 – Alloparenting and nature 13:00 – Becoming self and person 17:30 – Trust and role models 22:00 – Narratives and consumption 26:00 – Spirit of place 31:30 – Promises and personhood 33:30 – Narrative practice tracking 39:30 – Meta-narrative challenge 43:00 – Why we cannot return 43:30 – The synergy of civilization 44:30 – Civium at Dunbar scale 46:30 – Making the virtual sacred 49:30 – Can the virtual be virtuous? 51:00 – Keeping civilization's gifts 57:30 – Hospicing modernity and cultural transition 1:00:00 – Capitalism and demographic collapse 1:02:30 – Pilgrimage and theoria 1:09:00 – Apprenticeship to sages 1:11:30 – Eldership and the sage symphony About Kyle Koch Kyle Koch is a nature connection expert who bridges philosophical concepts and embodied reality through tracking, bird language, and nature-based core routines. Coming from a background in Evolve Move Play, he helps people reclaim an innate sense of belonging within the natural world. Learn more: https://www.ecologyofconnection.com Email: [email protected] Resources The Matter With Things: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/the-matter-with-things Evolve Move Play: https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/ Follow John Vervaeke Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ X: https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Thank you for listening!
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  John Vervaeke & Guy Sengstock: Why Modernity Can't See the Sacred Anymore 10.07.2026 1h 44m

  What does it mean to "see God again" after modernity has taught us to look for the sacred in all the wrong ways? In this special Lectern conversation, John Vervaeke is joined by Guy Sengstock for a deep reflection on John's three-part course trilogy, Seeing God Again for the First Time. John invited Guy to watch the courses and respond not only to their arguments, but to the way the courses enact a philosophical, phenomenological, and spiritual exercise. Guy begins from his own background as co-founder of Circling, describing how relational practice opened a mystery that psychological language could not fully hold, eventually leading him into Heidegger, phenomenology, and philosophy as contemplation. From there, he draws out the personal and pedagogical arc of John's work: teaching as encounter, as vulnerability, and as a way of revealing what students are already confronted with. John describes the course as an attempt to integrate rigorous argument, phenomenological exploration, and spiritual exercise in the spirit of Socrates, Plotinus, and Pierre Hadot. Rather than define religion or God and then argue for or against them, John sets out to deconstruct the modern grammar that blocks our ability to encounter sacredness at all: the fact/value, is/ought, subjective/objective, theory/data, and meaning/measurement dichotomies. The conversation moves through Paul Tillich, William Desmond, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Catherine Pickstock, Janet Soskice, D.C. Schindler, and 4E cognitive science, showing how analytic philosophy, continental phenomenology, and cognitive science converge in undermining modernity's inherited picture. Guy and John explore sacredness as ultimately real, ultimately orienting, ultimately transformative, and ultimately resonant; naming as relational participation rather than possession; wonder as calling self and world into question; and aletheia as truth that discloses beauty, goodness, and intelligibility. The conversation closes with the contemporary stakes of this recovery: AI, consciousness, personhood, the meaning crisis, and the alignment problem. John argues that we can no longer treat philosophy and sacredness as academic luxuries when our technologies are reshaping cognition, identity, and agency. If we are creating new kinds of intelligence, the question is not merely how to bind them to us, but how to orient them - and ourselves - toward truth, goodness, beauty, intelligibility, and the sacred. Guy Sengstock is a co-founder of Circling and a longtime teacher of relational, dialogical, and contemplative practice. His work bridges phenomenology, philosophy, facilitation, and the lived mystery of interpersonal encounter. Explore courses and other offerings from The Lectern: https://lectern.teachable.com About The Lectern The Lectern is dedicated to wisdom cultivation through dialogue, inquiry, and transformative practices. Through courses, live events, and community conversations, we seek not merely to discuss ideas, but to explore how they can shape the way we live. 00:00 Welcome to The Lectern 01:00 Why Guy is reflecting on Seeing God Again 02:00 Guy introduces his background in Circling and philosophy 04:00 Circling, mystery, and the limits of psychological language 06:00 Heidegger, Being and Time, and philosophy as contemplation 09:00 John's Socratic and Plotinian aspirations 10:30 Argument, phenomenology, and spiritual exercise 12:00 Seeing God Again, pilgrimage, and the Philosophical Silk Road 13:00 John the person, scientist, philosopher, and teacher 15:00 Teaching as existential confrontation 17:00 The manner of teaching as part of the teaching 18:00 Modernity, the meaning crisis, and sacredness 20:00 When teaching became encounter 21:00 Paul Tillich, cognitive science, and teaching virtue 23:00 William Desmond and philosophy as spiritual exercise 25:00 Teaching toward a philosophical-spiritual end 26:00 Involving the whole self without becoming self-involved 29:00 Revealing what students are already confronted with 31:00 Teaching, social phobia, and vulnerability 33:00 The sacred as deep teaching 35:00 Idealization, temptation, and participation 38:00 Naming God and the loss of relational naming 41:00 The four dichotomies of modernity 42:00 Out-rigoring the rigor 44:00 Deconstructing the grammar that blocks sacredness 45:00 Mystical traditions as phenomenological exemplars 47:00 Modernity's vertical and horizontal dichotomies 49:00 Recovering sight beyond modernity's glasses 50:00 Sacredness as ultimately real, orienting, transformative, and resonant 52:00 Why John uses atheist scholarship before apologetics 53:00 Counter-modern thought and the limits of postmodernism 55:00 Why these dichotomies matter beyond academia 57:00 Everything Everywhere All at Once, nihilism, and value 01:01:00 Philosophy outside the ivory tower 01:02:00 Postmodernity and living in the ruins 01:04:00 Recovery and asking "Where are we?" 01:05:00 Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and recovering meaning 01:07:00 Modernity as icon rather than representation 01:08:00 Truth, goodness, beauty, and intelligibility 01:12:00 Wonder vs. curiosity 01:15:00 Aletheia, beauty, liberation, and onto-normativity 01:18:00 Seeing God Again as pilgrimage 01:19:00 Theoria as theory, contemplation, and pilgrimage 01:21:00 AI, analytic philosophy, and consciousness 01:24:00 Meaning, relevance, and the limits of computation 01:26:00 AI personhood and disembodied embodiment 01:30:00 Why philosophy matters for technologies shaping us 01:32:00 AI agents, personhood, and the coming ontological crisis 01:35:00 The meaning crisis and the loss of sacred orientation 01:37:00 Personhood, ontology, and responsibility 01:39:00 The alignment problem and binding intelligence to the sacred 01:40:00 Why the course must be taken as a course 01:41:00 Teacher assistance, Socratic process, and future retreats 01:42:00 Socratic Salon and participatory practice 01:43:00 Closing reflections on retreat and relationship Thank you for listening!
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  Live Q&A with Brendan Graham Dempsey | Questions, Dialogue, and the Pursuit of Wisdom 26.06.2026 1h 25m

  What is applied metatheory - and why might it matter for ordinary people trying to make sense of reality, meaning, spirituality, and complexity? In this live Q&A from The Lectern, Ethan Hsieh speaks with Brendan Graham Dempsey about metatheory, meaning-making, complexity, and the spiritual task of learning to feel at home in the universe. Brendan introduces his work as Director of Research at the Institute of Applied Metatheory and Director at Sky Meadow Institute, where he explores developmental models, metamodern thought, complexity science, worldview, value, and the sacred. The conversation begins by demystifying "meta" itself: not as abstract ivory-tower speculation, but as the human effort to build better maps of reality from an overwhelming abundance of knowledge. Ethan and Brendan examine how we are always philosophizing - asking what is true, who to trust, what matters, and how different domains of meaning relate to each other. They discuss the pitfalls of complexity, including conspiracy thinking, premature certainty, and the difficulty of staying with learning when one does not yet understand. The conversation moves through AI, mentorship, spiritual development, metaphor, phenomenology, and the challenge of describing transformative experience without over-reifying inherited symbols. Brendan frames metatheory as a way of relating different "data" of human experience - from mystical encounter to neuroscience to integral theory - without collapsing them into chaos or dogma. The episode closes with a question about perennialism, where Brendan makes a case for dynamic spirituality, interpretive humility, and pluralism not as a failure to answer, but perhaps as part of the answer itself. Brendan Graham Dempsey is Director of Research at the Institute of Applied Metatheory and Director at Sky Meadow Institute in Vermont. He is the host of the Metamodern Meaning podcast and author of the multi-volume series The Evolution of Meaning. His upcoming Lectern course, Matters Over Time, explores meaning, complexity, development, and the sacred. 00:00 Welcome and live Q&A format 01:30 Introducing Brendan Graham Dempsey 01:50 Institute of Applied Metatheory, Sky Meadow Institute, and Metamodern Meaning 02:50 The Evolution of Meaning and Matters Over Time 03:30 Why "applied metatheory" can sound intimidating 04:20 What is applied metatheory? 05:00 Big-picture thinking across human history 06:00 The impossibility of "reading everything" today 07:00 Making sense of reality from specialized knowledge 07:40 Metatheory as a way to feel at home in the universe 09:30 Why useful maps matter 09:50 We are always philosophizing 11:30 Meaning as reality continually disclosing itself 12:10 Development, wisdom, and the expanding horizon of thought 13:00 Epistemology, truth, and learning to hold complexity 14:50 Demystifying "meta" 15:20 Pitfalls in approaching complexity 16:00 Conspiracy theories and seeking complexity in the wrong places 17:40 AI, wisdom, and the demands of complex conversations 18:30 Learning, discomfort, mentors, and staying on the path 20:00 Rabbit holes vs. deeper engagement with reality 27:00 Complexity, integrity, and discernment 35:00 Metatheory, spirituality, and meaning-making frameworks 45:00 How symbols and metaphors point beyond themselves 55:00 Spiritual experience, interpretation, and inherited maps 01:06:40 The finger pointing at the moon 01:07:00 Bird watching as spiritual exercise 01:08:00 "Things happen. That was something." 01:08:50 Getting closer to lived experience 01:09:30 Phenomenology, Layman Pascal, and expanding spiritual vocabulary 01:10:30 The divine as doorway into experience 01:11:00 Mapping spiritual data without collapsing into chaos 01:12:10 Would Brendan consider himself a perennialist? 01:13:20 Dynamic spirituality, emergence, novelty, and evolution 01:15:00 Naturalizing perennial claims and studying causal dynamics 01:17:20 Near-death experience and interpretive humility 01:19:00 Ontological claims as proposals, not closures 01:20:00 Integrity, skepticism, and not being sold a worldview 01:22:40 Pluralism as part of the answer 01:24:50 Brendan's course Matters Over Time 01:25:20 Closing thanks Explore Brendan's course and other offerings: https://lectern.teachable.com About The Lectern The Lectern is dedicated to wisdom cultivation through dialogue, inquiry, and transformative practices. Through courses, live events, and community conversations, we seek not merely to discuss ideas, but to explore how they can shape the way we live. Thank you for listening!
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  Why Wonder Is More Than Curiosity with William Desmond 26.06.2026 1h 32m

  What happens when wonder is reduced to curiosity, and curiosity becomes a drive to master everything? In this second conversation with William Desmond, John Vervaeke returns to the question of astonishment: not as a passing emotional state, but as a deeper opening of the mind to reality. Desmond frames scientism as a philosophical interpretation of science that tries to make all essential questions answerable through determinate method, precision, and control. Science remains valuable, but scientism forgets the more original wonder from which inquiry arises. The conversation distinguishes astonishment, perplexity, and curiosity. Curiosity seeks determinate answers, while astonishment opens us to what exceeds our mastery. Vervaeke connects this with his own distinction between the having mode and the being mode, arguing that genuine wonder is bound up with transformation rather than mere information. From there, the dialogue turns to Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, logical positivism, AI, computation, relevance realization, and insight. Desmond and Vervaeke ask whether intelligibility can be reduced to determination, or whether the most important forms of understanding depend on a living act of insight that formal systems cannot generate on their own. The final movement turns toward spiritual practice, Socrates, Jesus, the Buddha, religion, trust, and forgiveness. If modern culture suffers from a dearth of astonishment, then the recovery of meaning may require more than better arguments. It may require practices, communities, and forms of dialogue that reawaken porosity, reverence, and an openness to the sacred. Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction and the Desmond conversation so far 03:00 - Science, scientism, and the desire to make everything univocal 06:30 - Astonishment, perplexity, and curiosity 14:00 - Plato, Aristotle, and the purpose of philosophical wonder 16:30 - Having, being, mystery, and transformation 22:20 - Whether knowledge dissolves wonder 26:10 - Logical positivism and the failure of total certainty 31:30 - The four kinds of knowing and propositional tyranny 34:00 - Insight, inference, and logical systems 41:40 - Relevance realization, computation, and AI 46:30 - What intelligibility means beyond determination 50:40 - Inexhaustibility and the hyper-intelligible 58:20 - Dialectic, dialogos, and the practice of astonishment 01:03:40 - Porosity, the buffered self, and vulnerability 01:07:00 - Meaninglessness, spiritual practice, and cultural homelessness 01:12:30 - Reawakening astonishment without commodifying experience 01:14:10 - Ancient dialogue as a response to skepticism 01:17:30 - Socrates, Jesus, the Buddha, and embodied wisdom 01:22:00 - Religion, the sacred, and suspicion of God 01:27:30 - Trust, forgiveness, and cultural metanoia 01:30:20 - Closing thoughts and the next conversation Key Insights Scientism totalizes science by treating scientific method as the answer to every essential question. Astonishment is more original than curiosity because it opens inquiry rather than merely directing it toward control. Perplexity matters because some mysteries are not failures of explanation but enduring features of the human condition. Insight depends on living participation in intelligibility, not only inference or computation. AI and formal systems can imitate aspects of thought, but they do not resolve the deeper question of living noetic activity. Modern meaninglessness is intensified when institutions, practices, and role models no longer help people recover reverence and connectedness. Religion must be discussed at the level of human vulnerability, longing, trust, failure, and mystery, not only at the level of institutional critique. Resources Astonishments and Science: Engagements with William Desmond - edited by Paul Tyson William Desmond, "The Dearth of Astonishment: On Curiosity, Scientism and Thinking as Negativity" William Desmond, God and the Between Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having Bernard Lonergan, Insight Charles Taylor, A Secular Age Augustine's Cassiciacum dialogues About William Desmond William Desmond is a philosopher whose work engages metaphysics, religion, art, science, and transcendence. In this conversation, he and John Vervaeke continue their exploration of astonishment, scientism, the between, and philosophical practice. Follow The Lectern for conversations on philosophy, meaning, wisdom, and the recovery of deeper forms of knowing. Thanks for listening!
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  Why We No Longer Know What We Should Do with Jordan Hall, Guy Sengstock, and Christopher Mastropietro 19.06.2026 1h 40m

  What happens when a society possesses extraordinary technological power but lacks a shared sense of what that power is for? John Vervaeke, Jordan Hall, Guy Sengstock, and Christopher Mastropietro reunite for a sustained inquiry into normativity: the structures by which human beings perceive direction, value, responsibility, and the difference between better and worse action. The question becomes urgent in the context of artificial intelligence, where increasingly consequential decisions are being made inside a culture that struggles to articulate a coherent basis for judgment. The conversation begins with Guy's encounters with the AI community and the fear that humanity may soon make decisions it cannot reverse. From there, the group investigates modernity's technological understanding of being, the reduction of creation to artifacts, and the modern self's attachment to sole authorship. John and Jordan propose that meaning is participatory: intelligibility is not manufactured by isolated selves but emerges through shared authorship with other people, traditions, practices, and reality itself. The dialogue then turns toward virtue. If the problem is not simply ignorance but malformed attention and desire, knowing what should be done is insufficient. The deeper difficulty is how people become capable of wanting, perceiving, and participating in what is good. Socratic aporia, vulnerability, kenosis, embodied practice, pilgrimage, and dialogue are explored as ways of undergoing reorientation rather than merely acquiring information. In the final movement, the speakers discuss bad-faith dialogue, leisure, lingering, tourism, linguistic lostness, and doomscrolling. These apparently different subjects converge on one insight: when people remain sealed inside environments engineered around their existing capacities and preferences, they lose access to the forms of friction, surprise, and participation that can transform them. Key Insights Normativity is the directional structure through which actions appear better, worse, appropriate, or necessary. The AI crisis exposes a deeper cultural inability to answer what technology should serve. Modernity often confuses participation in creation with ownership of the resulting artifact. Meaning and intelligibility require shared authorship rather than sovereign individual control. Virtue cannot be transmitted as information alone; it requires transformed attention and participation. Embodied practices can reorganize abstractions because higher cognition remains rooted in sensorimotor life. Pilgrimage, leisure, and dialogos help people cross boundaries between worlds rather than consuming only familiar inputs. Doomscrolling is an efficient example of technology feeding hypertrophied capacities while narrowing participation in reality. Timestamps 00:00 - The group reunites 01:10 - Normativity as the central concern 02:40 - Guy's San Francisco radio work 05:20 - Inside an AI thought-leader conference 08:30 - The danger of irreversible technological decisions 13:50 - Intrinsic normativity and attention 16:00 - Liminal navigation and the limits of simulation 20:30 - Art, creation, and artifacts 23:00 - Heidegger's technological understanding of being 25:40 - Participation and shared authorship 28:30 - Modernity's reinforcing attractor 31:00 - Socratic aporia 33:20 - Finding the right orientation 37:50 - Exposure, vulnerability, and displacement 40:10 - Sole authorship and identity 42:20 - Kenosis and the emptying of privilege 44:20 - Reconstitution and commitment to truth 49:10 - Virtue and its opposites 51:40 - AI and humanity's final decision 54:10 - Knowing what to do versus becoming able to do it 56:10 - Can virtue be taught? 58:20 - Remediating participation in ordinary life 01:00:20 - Pilgrimage and unfamiliar worlds 01:02:30 - Embodied cognition and reorientation 01:04:30 - Rilke and self-emptying 01:09:20 - Sacred directionality 01:11:20 - Crossing the threshold into action 01:13:50 - Bad faith and dialogical boundaries 01:18:40 - Leisure and time 01:21:20 - Lingering beneath atomized time 01:23:30 - Tourist and pilgrim 01:25:50 - Modernization and tourism 01:30:10 - Being linguistically lost 01:33:00 - Situation and participation 01:35:10 - Doomscrolling as narrowed reality 01:37:30 - Returning from pilgrimage Resources Plato and Socratic aporia Charles Taylor Martin Heidegger Rainer Maria Rilke Christian concepts of kenosis, theosis, and synergy Embodied cognitive science Pilgrimage Dialogos Follow Lectern for more conversations about wisdom, meaning, philosophy, technology, spirituality, and cultural renewal.
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  Ish Peregrino: Pilgrimage Is More Than Travel. It Changes How You See Reality 05.06.2026 1h 19m

  What if pilgrimage is not primarily about reaching a destination, but about learning how to be addressed by reality again? In this episode of Lectern Dialogues, John Vervaeke speaks with Ish Peregrino, a practitioner, facilitator, and pilgrim whose very chosen name carries the meaning of pilgrimage. John met Ish during his own pilgrimage in Spain, and their conversation returns to the question of what pilgrimage makes possible: spiritually, psychologically, relationally, and culturally. Ish begins by describing his background in contemplative practice, community work, Latin American and Asian contexts, and his long apprenticeship under a teacher who exposed him to Hindu, Buddhist, Zen, ecological, and indigenous traditions. This opens into a discussion of the "beyond human": the sacred, the more-than-human world, distributed intelligence in community, and the goodness that calls a person toward transformation. The heart of the conversation is pilgrimage. John proposes pilgrimage as a meta-practice: a living practice that places one's whole ecology of practices under a kind of positive stress test. Ish extends this by describing how pilgrimage changes one's environment, identity, pace, attention, and relationship to grief. It is not merely a practice added to life, but a passage that can reshape the life to which one returns. The conversation then contrasts the pilgrim with the tourist and the explorer. Tourism seeks experience and pleasure; exploration seeks conquest, achievement, and control. Pilgrimage, by contrast, is marked by participation, willingness, availability, receptivity, reverence, and deep listening. It is not just movement through space, but a transformation in the way the world is allowed to speak. Toward the end, John and Ish explore pilgrimage's relationship to God, sacredness, memory, dreams, community, and integration. Ish offers one of the conversation's most memorable images: after pilgrimage, the path was still walking him in his dreams. The episode closes with the claim that pilgrimage is not only for the Camino or other famous routes. It is a way of relating differently to what is already around us: with attention, reverence, openness, and love. Key Insights Pilgrimage can function as a meta-practice that renews and tests an ecology of practices. Transformative experiences require humility, discernment, grounding, community, and integration. Tourism, exploration, and pilgrimage represent different forms of attention and agency. The pilgrim is moved less by will than by willingness, availability, and receptivity. Pilgrimage can awaken a deeper relationship to God, sacredness, land, grief, and community. The return from pilgrimage is not an afterthought; integration is central to whether revelation becomes transformation. Pilgrimage can be practiced locally through reverence, attention, threshold-crossing, and renewed relationship. Timestamps 00:00 - John introduces Ish Peregrino 03:20 - Ish's chosen name and the meaning of "pilgrim" 06:30 - The beyond-human, sacredness, and mystery 10:00 - The danger of trying to grasp sacred experience 13:50 - Why pivotal experiences need grounding 18:50 - Pilgrimage as a meta-practice 21:10 - Hearing the call and entering a new environment 25:10 - The pilgrim, the tourist, and the explorer 29:00 - Curiosity versus wonder 33:00 - The explorer, conquest, and modernity 38:20 - Participation beyond pleasure and power 39:30 - Willingness, availability, and receptivity 44:10 - Metanoia and voluntary self-emptying 49:10 - Archetypes encountered on pilgrimage 54:20 - Pilgrimage and the relationship to God 56:50 - Seeing one face of God 01:03:50 - Dreams, memory, and the path walking the pilgrim 01:05:20 - Hospicing modernity and the crisis of relationship 01:09:40 - Loving wisely and calibrating care 01:12:10 - Courtesy, ceremony, and reverence 01:13:20 - Encounters with strangers on the path 01:15:00 - Revelation, integration, and covenant 01:17:50 - Making the near world sacred again Resources Camino de Santiago Shikoku pilgrimage David Abram Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow David Whyte, "Everything Is Waiting for You" Christos Yannaras Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, Hospicing Modernity Thich Nhat Hanh Hartmut Rosa, Why Democracy Needs Religion Iain McGilchrist William Desmond About Ish Peregrino Ish Peregrino, also known as Mauricio-Ishwara González G., is the creator of Modo Peregrino, a living space of inquiry, accompaniment, and public reflection where the inner journey and the outer crisis of meaning meet. His work accompanies leaders, organizations, and communities through cultural transformation and regeneration, weaving applied complexity, transformative learning, deep dialogue, and contemplative practice into long-term, context-rooted processes. He is co-founder and Academic Director of DeUmbrales: Experiencias de Transición and a tutor-facilitator in Ronald Sistek's international Organizational Regeneration program. For more than 22 years, he has worked across Latin America, the United States, Spain, and Greece in universities, executive programs, organizations, and liminal spaces where real transformation tends to happen. Ish's links: Modo Peregrino: https://ishperegrino.com/ DeUmbrales: https://deumbrales.com/ Letters: https://nosuneelmedio.substack.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ModoPeregrino Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ish_peregrino/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ish-peregrino/ Follow Lectern for more conversations on wisdom, meaning, spirituality, philosophy, and the renewal of culture.
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  William Desmond and John Vervaeke: Strong Transcendence, Plato, and the Between 28.05.2026 1h 37m

  Can transcendence still make philosophical sense after modernity? John Vervaeke speaks with philosopher William Desmond about Platonism as a living tradition, the meaning of strong transcendence, and Desmond's philosophy of the metaxu: the between. The conversation builds from John's proposal that relevance realization and transjectivity are philosophically grounded in Desmond's ontological account of the between. John begins by distinguishing modern psychological accounts of transcendence from the ancient and Platonic sense of strong transcendence. In this stronger sense, transcendence is not merely a better state of mind. It discloses truths that are otherwise unavailable and changes the knower's relation to reality. That claim challenges modern assumptions about flat ontology, the buffered self, representational cognition, and the fact-value split. Desmond responds through Plato. He presents Plato not as a dry theorist of two worlds, but as a philosophical artist of the between: a thinker of mimesis, eros, mania, dialogue, singularity, and participatory transformation. Plato's dialogues are not ornamental containers for arguments; their drama, characters, and dialogical movement are part of the philosophy itself. The later conversation opens into deep memory, imagination, eternity, possibility, God, Daoism, intercultural philosophy, pilgrimage, and the life-world. Desmond and Vervaeke converge on the need to move beyond the view from nowhere and return philosophy to transformative practice, embodied dwelling, and a richer contact with the sources of intelligibility. Key Insights Strong transcendence has epistemological and ontological significance, not only psychological benefit. The metaxu, or between, names a porous relation before, beneath, between, and beyond modern dichotomies. Modernity's fact-value split risks producing default atheism or default nihilism. Participatory knowing offers an alternative to treating cognition as internal representation of an external world. Plato's dialogical form is integral to his philosophy; the drama cannot simply be stripped away to extract arguments. Mimesis involves relation between image and original without collapsing their difference. Eros and mania point to two directions of transcendence: from below upward and from above downward. Deep memory is a source of imagination and ontological depth, not merely storage of past facts. Possibility should not be reduced to logical possibility; living possibility points toward enabling power. Pilgrimage and theoria are linked: philosophical transformation requires being on the way, not merely observing from nowhere. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and setup 01:00 Relevance realization and the philosophy of the between 02:00 Platonism as living tradition 02:40 The need for strong transcendence 03:50 Transcendence after modernity 04:40 William Desmond introduces his work 05:00 Between system and poetics 06:00 The Western tradition as conversation partner 08:00 John's paper on strong transcendence 09:20 Psychological transcendence in modern thought 10:00 Truths disclosed through transcendence 11:00 Flat ontology and layered reality 12:30 The buffered self 14:00 Fact-value dichotomy and default atheism 15:10 Contact epistemology and participatory relation 17:20 Being realized as you realize 18:20 Anagoge and the cave 18:40 Interior, exterior, and superior transcendence 20:10 Autonomy, heteronomy, theonomy, and theosis 21:30 Desmond responds 22:00 Plato's philosophical art and the Sophist 22:30 Art, origins, and otherness 23:40 Originality, creativity, and modern art 25:20 Mimesis and the difference between image and original 28:20 Plato as thinker of the metaxu 29:00 Eros and self-transcendence 30:00 Mania and divine inspiration 31:30 Inspiration as transmission 33:20 Metaxology and Hegel 34:40 The Sophist and participatory knowing 36:40 The who of the sophist 38:10 Periagoge and the turning of the soul 39:40 Philosophy as a way of life 40:30 Exiting modernity's frame 43:20 The dialogue form is not ornamental 45:30 Socrates as an image of courage 46:20 Dialogos and method 48:00 Diaphanous logos 49:00 Singular incarnation and witness 51:10 Theoria as contemplation and pilgrimage 52:00 John's dialectic-in-dialogos practice 53:20 Anamnesis in practice 54:20 The logos beyond the participants 55:20 Deep memory and imagination 57:00 Muses, memory, and hidden springs 58:20 AI and outsourced memory 59:00 Memory as ontological depth 01:00:30 Eternity and the other to time 01:02:40 Inward otherness and ultimate otherness 01:04:50 Plato's sun and enabling light 01:06:20 Porosity and the buffered self 01:07:00 Living possibility 01:09:00 Possibility, transcendence, and God 01:10:40 What makes intelligibility intelligible? 01:11:40 Eastern and Western approaches to possibility 01:13:30 Coming to be and becoming 01:15:40 Nicholas of Cusa 01:17:00 Wu wei and giving way 01:18:20 Daoist practice and Socratic midwifery 01:20:20 Philosophical Silk Road 01:22:10 The intimate universal 01:23:20 Against philosophical tourism 01:25:30 Elemental porosity 01:26:00 Pilgrimage and practice 01:27:40 Being underway 01:29:30 Theoria as metanoetic passage 01:30:10 Symphonic language 01:34:00 The life-world 01:35:40 Rejecting the view from nowhere 01:36:20 Closing Resources William Desmond, Being and the Between William Desmond, Ethics and the Between William Desmond, God and the Between William Desmond, Art, Origins, Otherness: Between Philosophy and Art Plato, Symposium, Ion, Sophist, Republic, and Laches Plotinus and Proclus Hegel Charles Taylor Catherine Pickstock, Aspects of Truth Paul Tillich Thomas Aquinas Nicholas of Cusa Pierre Hadot Henry Corbin Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson, The Blind Spot Follow John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke/videos X: https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke
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  Reconnect to the Real: John Vervaeke, Guy Sengstock, and Kyle Koch Announce the Whistler Retreat 21.05.2026 1h 4m

  Why is the modern world making us lose our "taste for the real," and can ancient practices like animal tracking and Socratic dialogue actually save our personhood from the "virtual matrix" of AI? John Vervaeke, Guy Sengstock, and Kyle Koch announce their second "Reconnecting to the Real" retreat and outline what each will teach: Kyle offers nature-connection practices such as tracking and bird language to cultivate belonging; Guy brings Circling Method relational practices to deepen listening, communication, and group connection; John brings reconstructed Socratic practices including dialogos, dialectic, imaginal reflection, and a two-hour Socratic salon for questions. They describe the retreat as a non-vacation "pilgrimage" meant to transfer skills back into everyday life amid increasing virtual mediation and AI-driven risks of losing the "taste for the real." Logistics: Aug 31–Sept 4 in Whistler, British Columbia at Brû Creek Lodge, with lodging and meals included, costing $3,995 USD, and limited spots remaining with many returning participants.   Guy Sengstock Co-founder of The Circling Method: He has spent 30 years developing this relational practice to transform peer-to-peer communication into a profound "asana" of listening and presence. Relational "Maestro": He uses spontaneous inquiry and formal circling to help groups move beyond intellectual concepts into direct contact with "the real". Personal Blog/Website LinkedIn   Kyle Koch Nature Connection Expert: He bridges the gap between philosophical concepts and embodied reality through tracking, bird language, and nature-based core routines. Embodiment Practitioner: Coming from a background in Evolve Move Play, he focuses on reclaiming our innate sense of belonging to the natural world EARTHKIN WILD - Kyle's Website   Reconnecting to the Real The Circling Method Evolve Move Play Nature Connection Mentoring with Kyle Rewild your Week-7 day nervous system reset Timecodes: 00:00 Welcome to the Lectern 01:00 Kyle nature connection 02:30 Guy circling practice 06:00 John socratic practices 09:30 Whistler logistics 14:00 Why reconnecting real 16:00 Guy ear for real 20:00 John true good beautiful 30:00 Kyle beyond virtual 33:00 Tracking as truthing 35:30 Primordial skills return 38:00 Biases and feedback 40:00 Games reveal patterns 43:00 Beauty as practice 46:30 Pilgrimage not vacation 49:00 Screens and ai mediation 53:19 " The real is becoming option, like optional in some strange way." 53:30 Losing taste for real 58:00 Bring it back home   Explore courses and teachings from The Lectern https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/ Support the Lectern and join a growing community of wisdom seekers https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke   John Vervaeke: https://johnvervaeke.com/ https://twitter.com/drjohnvervaeke https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke   Thanks for listening!
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  Brendan Graham Dempsey: Matters Over Time 18.05.2026 1h 21m

  What if the question is not simply whether life has meaning, but how our capacity for meaning develops? In this Lectern conversation, Ethan Hsieh speaks with Brendan Graham Dempsey about his upcoming course, Matters Over Time: How the Sacred and Significant Evolve in Self and Society. Brendan introduces the course through his own experience of a meaning crisis, which led him to ask how meaning-making frames are constructed, lost, reconstructed, and developed. The conversation begins at the personal level. Brendan explains why studying meaning-making can help us understand our own minds, other people's worlds, and the recurring patterns by which human beings organize significance. Ethan presses him from two sides: the person who feels life is already meaningful enough, and the person who has searched for meaning for years without finding it. Brendan's answer is careful: the course is not meant to force existential confrontation, but to invite a wider and deeper participation in reality. From there, the discussion turns toward relativism, nihilism, and pluralism. Brendan argues that once an inherited worldview breaks open, people often either double down on a single frame or collapse into the idea that all meaning is merely private. His work tries to find an order beyond that pluralistic chaos by looking at developmental patterns in meaning-making across individual lives, cultures, and history. The final movement of the conversation brings the course into its largest register: the sacred. Brendan frames meaning as a kind of knowledge that links us to reality in a viability-enhancing way, and he interprets the sacred as that which deepens flourishing, widens participation, and draws us into awe, wonder, and transformation. The course becomes not only a theory of meaning, but an invitation to see ourselves as participants in a much larger learning process. Key Insights Meaning-making can be studied as a developmental process rather than treated as a private feeling or arbitrary construction. Brendan's work is shaped by his own meaning crisis and by John Vervaeke's account of the cultural meaning crisis. Complexification does not mean abandoning what already matters; it means situating it within a wider and deeper horizon. Ethical growth requires widening meaning beyond the self and becoming more responsive to other people, cultures, and perspectives. Faith Development Theory and interview-based research offer ways to study how people answer questions about purpose and significance. Relativism can be an advance beyond rigid absolutism, but it can also become chaotic and disorienting. The course links individual development to cultural evolution and the history of human meaning-making. Brendan resists both triumphalist progress stories and simple decline stories. The sacred is presented as evolving through human history as our relationship to ultimate concern becomes more complex. The course is meant to be dialogical and exploratory, not a closed system. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and introduction 01:30 Brendan's background and research focus 02:00 Personal meaning crisis and meaning-making 03:30 John Vervaeke's influence 04:00 Course frame: sacred and significant in self and society 06:00 Why study meaning if life already feels fine? 08:20 Patterns and structures in meaning-making 09:30 Learning as meta-meaningful 11:40 Does growth threaten existing meaning? 12:30 Expanding the meaning horizon 13:20 Ethical widening beyond the self 14:40 Widening and deepening 17:30 Searching for meaning and fearing interior work 18:40 Growth, effort, and challenge 21:10 Comfort, hollowness, and the "so what?" question 22:40 How do I know my life is meaningful? 23:00 Faith Development Theory and lived interview data 24:50 Different answers to meaning 28:40 Is meaning merely private? 29:20 Absolutism, worldviews, and the bursting of the bubble 32:30 Relativism and pluralistic chaos 34:10 Ordering different meaning-making frames 36:40 Recovering from nihilism 39:40 Understanding our 2026 epoch 40:50 Individual meaning and cultural evolution 41:40 Similar patterns across life and history 44:00 The cosmic scale of meaning-making 46:20 Already connected to something larger 48:10 From abstract framework to embodied worldview 50:20 The cosmic fluke story 52:40 Human meaning-making and cosmic complexification 54:00 Responsibility and the call toward wisdom 57:40 Meaning-making and the sacred 59:40 The sacred, viability, and flourishing 01:00:30 Awe, wonder, and reality beyond our current frame 01:02:10 Sacred symbols and tradition 01:03:10 Updating the sacred through prophets and sages 01:04:00 From tribe to common humanity 01:05:40 The sacred as evolving 01:06:10 God and cultural evolution 01:09:30 The course as contemplation 01:10:20 Seeing oneself as part of the process 01:12:30 Re-homing modern people in relation to the sacred 01:14:40 Participating in a new movement of the sacred 01:18:10 Epistemic humility and dialogos 01:20:20 Closing Resources Matters Over Time: How the Sacred and Significant Evolve in Self and Society  Brendan Graham Dempsey Institute of Applied Metatheory Sky Meadow Institute John Vervaeke, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis John Vervaeke, Seeing God Again for the First Time James Fowler, Faith Development Theory Friedrich Nietzsche Joseph Campbell John Thatamanil Meister Eckhart Paul Tillich The Silver Road Follow John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke/videos X: https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke