a now joined by shelter also of the science, delusion, science and spiritual practices. shelldrick. it's a great on a great privilege for me to talk to you. thank you very much for your time. good to be with you. speaking about timely hanson says 7 years ago in late september, i had a chance to interview my intellectual world, the time to reach a dawkins author of the god delusion. and one of the world's most renowned atheist also happened to inspire a whole lot of books with the wars delusion in their titles and moving by the way yours. we have to give professor dawkins credit. he's done more for the soul searching movement than the most happy. well, i think by pushing forward his uncompromising and aggressive a, here's a new social promote to an argument and very responses. the title of my book wasn't actually chosen by me,

but by publishers who sold by playing off the title of his book, gone through. this would be more clearly recognizable as an argument about the cherry lesson. but my measure for writing the book was not really dawkins deep critique or c materialist view, which has come to dominate so much with modern thinking. but if i understand, before you came to that point, if your life of pondering be critique of materialism, you have your own richard dawkins phase for some 1015 years, i suppose somewhere i'm salia and middle age. what happened then? what made you leave that to me? know by certainty. well, 1st of all, i always had doubts about the materialist approach scientifically. i'm a biologist, and i think simply to understand plants and animals, we need more than simply molecular biology and genes. we are

organizing principles in life, which i was working on. technically, in my research at cambridge, so 1st i had done science. then i travel to india. i was doing con tropical rain forest tons in missouri. and i travelled through in here on the way and i opened my mind amazingly. i mean, to see a whole civilization with a completely different world view where weston materialistic case years and seem grow the shallow and threat that radio my eyes. and it was really exposure to eastern thought. and then i took up yoga and meditation. that was really what began to open me up. so i understand you correctly that it for you. it was a more sort of grad, you know, step by step process of checking your old dot message could not find the

satisfactory answer rather than by say, a brand genetic experience that made the previous system unsustainable. yes, i would say it was a gradual process and in my son's tuition i extend processed by looking at the fundamental assumptions of materialist sons. i'm not home to science. in fact, i'm totally science. i spent my whole career as a research scientist. but i think science is being restricted by on necessary. most of the reason i'm asking this is because i had the letter more experienced sort of coming face to face. if it's something that i could explain and at the same time could explain a way. and it was very similar to acquiring a different sounds like something in addition to i side, valley, et cetera. and i think without this sort of rapture in my consciousness, i'm not sure i would be able to read your books today. the way i'm reading them now,

i think i would be just a skeptical as most of your critics. so i wonder if one can even blame the rationalists for sticking to that guys, because i think they simply haven't had access to another haven't had access yet. hopefully to another way of experiencing reality. well actually i think most of them have, i think most people are any rationalists from 9 to 5 on monday to friday is you know, the official world view. so universities were in business and government, people and education. people take up the fast food, but into weekends on holidays, you know, people, at least in britain, love getting back to nature and walking in the country side. and many have pet dogs and cats which have psychic abilities that go beyond their own. i'm plus, there are no millions of people who are taking psychedelic and true psychedelic of

experience. also states of consciousness. also many of have a spiritual experiences through a spontaneous events like near death experiences and also millions, millions of people now meditate even if they're racist. they not meditate, and that gives access to different states of consciousness from the normal rather limited ones that were brought up with one of the most of a persuasive arguments that are reaching dockins any, at least for me, it was that if there is a lacount of knowledge people are facing religious people should treated with respect to leave it open, leave it as it is, and not try to put everything on god. and i get it from your book that you believe that many scientists are sort of doing a similar thing. they declaring everything or certain things to be fully understand, understood, and therefore closing the book completely on further investigation. is that how it looks to you? yes, very much so i think, you know,

science has become incredibly dogmatic. i mean, richard dawkins himself is a good example of this. he's extremely dogmatic about certain things and i think that this is very bad for sons. a lot of believers in santos them appears religion, so being dogmatic. but in my experience, most religious people i know not told magics, i mean anger and myself and i have monday. but many people who believe in santos are incredibly dogmatic. so i think there's a whole your experiences in india and my studies. my history led me to believe that western world tends to be more detail oriented, more focused on the incremental ours as opposed to, let's say, some of the eastern approaches we see details as part of

a bigger whole. do you think scientists, the way you see is primarily latin creature, or is it more universal? well, we've explored to get to the rest of the world of trouble. china is, you know, officially, atheist and officially materialistic still has a marxist ideology. and so there's a huge country with an enormous importance in the world which is being converted to western type, hey listen to mark central was weston. and, and so i would say that this through science, technology and scientific education. this materialist, that attitude is not being taught in schools and universities, absolutely everywhere, not just in the west. now let's go over some of the documents that you mentioned in the book, the science division. if 1st one you consider is the assumption that nature is mechanical and machine like with our dear friend richard dawkins. we are all

lumbering robots apart from this complex before robots. what so unsettling about this assumption? well, 1st of all, is any, a metaphor is not approvable, testable scientific theory, and it may be more appropriate to think of the whole universe, for example, as an organism rosin machine. in the 17th century, they used clockwork models of the planet. so as a mobile university kind of clock universe, but the big bang, where the universe starts very small, expansion grows and forms new, more structures within it. that's much more like a developing embryo than any machine we know off. so i think that this machine metaphor is, can be helpful in some ways, but is very distorting. if we apply it to the hood of nature, it's also very anthropocentric and humans make machines and to protect the

succession of ours on to the hold of nature. leads to a false view of nature and i think as one reason we have the climate crisis, we're because we felt hostile, separate from nature and haven't seen the us as a living organism. and life is thinking about this as a sanctioning approach. yeah, i think the whole science is based on the assumption of, you know, starting the universe with an intention of understanding what it can do for us or what it can do. she asked, so in a way, it's a very self centered approach. and then not that objective as some of the scientists with claim, because anything you take any object or self organizing system you take, it has sort of it leaves through reality, within its own continuum. a sense of a scale of time that are exactly tree has is very different from one of them out of

one of them they'll can and yet the all yeah, protein. all of them through our very human perception of time and need. yes, i think it is for, and for the century, i mean, some branches of science a less to do with human utility. i mean, of studying distant galaxies isn't particularly useful. and so there are still parts who sons, where the quest for truth is to a very important part of it is not whole justified utility. but the reason scientists get funding is usually because they pretend that their research is going to be useful. they have to pretend issues. it isn't not many of the dogs in dealing with concerns, but the matter and nature of consciousness. and specifically whether a human consciousness is the only one around. and it's kind of ironic, isn't it? that most of the pioneering ideas in these fails nowadays coming off in the field of biology on field of biology, all that say psychology,

but from the field of physics. why do you think are necessary? who are supposed to be dealing with an inanimate universe? all of a sudden, so interested in consciousness. well then a thought interesting consciousness. i think that so it, some of them got interested because in quantum theory there's an emphasis on the importance of the observer and what you can observe and how you can nourish it's more sophisticated in physics, this discussion of f. s to motors. he how we know what we know as an he says in most other fields of science. but i think that this debate about consciousness is actually leading both assess biologists and philosophers in new directions at the moment, which is quite exciting because the standard material, this assumption is that matter, throughout the entire universe is totally unconscious. except for matter inside our

brains. and maybe the brains, a few other animal species. however, the growth of pan sarcasm b, i go to some kind of consciousness within throughout nature is not becoming a quite widely discussed you. it's not a new philosophy. after all, it's very similar to traditional animism in many traditional cultures, but it's becoming intellectually respectable, at least in the english speaking world. and this is a new development within science and i think rosen exciting and rather welcomed ok . well perhaps so i think we have to take a very short break right now, but we will get back to the fascinating discussion just a moment. ah, [000:00:00;00]

a think we dare to ask them with mm. welcome back and forth with shelldrick, author of the science delusion and science and spiritual practices. shelldrick

before the break me on the subject of consciousness. knology and i wanted probably in the beginning and i'm going to indulge myself one more time. she said that another decides that question for men to consider is whether he's connected to something he or she is connected to something infinite according to young denial or the lack of that connection was behind, may need ailments be so we seem to be multiplying in our time despite all the developments of modern medicine, do you see any connection between the current rates of depression and neurosis and our belief in science? yes, i think there's a clear relationship. i mean is so so much belief in science is a message that's the problem. but belief in the ideology of materialist funds, where says that the universe is made up of unconscious matter. there's no purpose in the universe or new condition,

or indeed in human life. where isolated in the privacy of our styles is separated from other people and from nature. this is a very separative, individualistic, few, i've asked a mystic individuals in of pointless universe. it's literally a depressing world view. and to those who take it seriously, it's not surprising that it needs to depression, and i'm not everyone who believes in it gets depressed, but for the whole culture to be based in this way of looking at the world, i think means that depression is like history and demick in 2nd, a modern societies, and indeed there are millions and millions of people on the antidepressant pills. i guess from your, from that it's pretty well established that religious and spiritual practices contribute in an immeasurable way of how not only in terms of them, blood pressure advocacy. but even then brain architecture as well as on the

opposite. you know, people who deny themselves the psychic dimension, they tend to have more like a semantic. now, the question i wanted to ask you in connection to this is whether it is really all about the evidence. because the evidence is there for those who need them. the thing that there's preaching in the channel scientists and i didn't really have to be either. well, no, usually not those here to preach in the templars santos, a true believers, usually highly committed to this well few songs and i recall scientific fundamentalists, they know. and the evidence about psychic phenomena or about value is spiritual practices because it goes against our world view. but the evidence is very strong, spiritual practices and religious practices make people happier, healthier and live longer on average. and there's also

a great deal of evidence for things like to let to see the dogs and cats picking up humans, intentions. people anticipating who's going to ring on the telephone before the call comes. and things like the sense of being stat knowing when someone is looking at you. well, these things, both cone experiences, most people have experienced and personally. and also there's a great deal of scientific evidence of their radio. and yet, people like richard dawkins actually deny that they happen and dismiss those who do research on the charlatans. i know this for a fact because i had a conversation with richard dawkins on these exact subjects, and he actually said to me, i'm not interested in discussing the evidence. it doesn't fit as well if you, which of course is a very i'm scientific attitude. i'm bringing back a small into because we know from history that most cultures understood the deep psychological need to connecticut

a little man to the universe by the needs of meaning. and our super developmental function may make 5 that may dismiss and but the need is i project on you. i mean, i would say that it's an in thing is still there. even if it's not sure, even if there is no connection between the little man and the big universe, when it makes sense to fit term as if it show simply out all the humanistic reasons to make people, you know better psychologically better. well, we don't need to pretend that we're connected to the whole universe. i mean, even according to regular sons, you know, we're major solid us. the whole universe is interrelated into connect to the gravitational and electro magnetic fields to actually and to relate everything. the real question is whether there's a consciousness beyond the human level and whether we can relate to that is the

whole universe totally unconscious or underlying nature. and within nature is a consciousness of many forms of consciousness. that's the traditional view and i think it's more reasonable view myself. i think that many people actually experience this connection with a greater consciousness, not as a matter pretence, but as a matter of experience through spontaneous mystical experiences through meditation, through spiritual practices in my book, science and spiritual practices deals with 7 different bombs, including pilgrimage, singing, and counting and sacred dancing, connecting with nature, meditation, and these are all practices that many people do, which often lead to a sense of our in conscience being part of something. grayson ourselves. this is a direct experience. if you experience it, you know, it's true, you're not pretending it's true. and the experience i think is more important

science is supposed to be based on experience is supposed to be empirical and to deny our own experience in the name of dogma is not being very scientific in my opinion. well, in fact, i think people like some hired help in about using certain practices to alter that. i think it's better than the cation i for mushrooms, and i think would be after is newman off the sense of bron consciousness, which is a center for just experienced, but trying to get us without you know, all the trappings of religious dogma. isn't it ironic that the atheist would be chasing the very thing that religion was responsible for, for so many so many years? but i think that's a very interesting point. and i think good so unique mountain situation that we owe

starvation. like dawkins simply dismissed religious and spiritual practices, nustar atheist, like sam harris. and i actually want these experiences of the transcendent, but then want to re interpret them or explain them away. so i think they're in rather unstable position because i think if they persist with having these experiences through scientists, i've been in meditation. they may reach the point where they feel. do i really need to stick with this material is talk more. oh, can i just let go version except that there's a greater consciousness of which my own consciousness is part. i suspect that if they persist with it long enough, they'll realize that the ideology they've committed to is no longer a necessary part of their lives. i heard you say something that we are on a, on behalf of the major paradigm shift from a mechanistic material,

isn't here and more than scientists, me of the world. and that i would love to believe that, but we've got to in need. sad material isn't, has very powerful beneficiaries within the konami in particular or assistance at dc powers that be on the planet with embrace such a shift given that business as usual would not be sustainable after that will business as usual, is already changing for environmental reasons. even within the maturity as paradigm is quite as it is on sustainable. and so the people who are in favor of taking action to deal with the climate crisis and not simply religious people, all spiritual people. a lot of perfectly normal scientific rationalistic people also agree with that. so i don't think that's necessarily

a problem because it's obvious for our own survival. we need to change the way we live. if people become more or have a greater sense of connection, for example, there's a revival of pilgrimage going on here in britain at the moment. and indeed, all of europe it. so the santiago to composter has, has led the way in a huge revival of pilgrimage. even for people who are not more letters, no a judge in itself doesn't subvert. the materialist world least doesn't submit this economic system. chris program spend money. they have to stay in places. they have drinks in pub, se each and restaurants. there's no particular reason why that should be opposed by the system and, and there's no particular reason why meditation should be opposed. in fact, there are also to people who got meditation businesses. now we have only him, his life, and i do want to ask you about telepathy. i know that you see it as

a normal rather than our normal means of communication between members of one animal group or even different species. your book about the dogs and that owners is very, very interesting. i highly recommend anyone but good asking about my cat because i haven't very at times and he seems to know every time i, i'm approaching my house at least 20 minutes in advance. and this is how my kid understands that it's time for him to clean the room. i mean we, we make all sorts of jokes around or something, but it happens almost every day and, and different times of the day. and i get it from your book that it's a pretty recon phenomenon. there's nothing particularly rare about it. no, well this, you know, millions of dogs and cats are doing this on a regular basis about we've done surveys about 50 percent dogs and about 50 percent

of cats seem to anticipate the arrival of their owners. and in a few cases, it's just a minute or 2 before they could be hearing their footsteps approaching. but in many cases, like orange cat, this long before they could have heard or smelled the past in coming, especially if they're traveling by public transport or by unfamiliar vehicles. we've done film experiments showing this is a real phenomenon, and i just think it is a normal natural part of animal behavior. and my cat is very, it's very social and i think he is very attached, i would say, except for trust me. and the discovery of your book, something that you gave to me is that it is this bond, this attachment that actually continues to be sort of transference or whatever it is that i'm getting it right. yes. so smoothly to left the c occurs between closely bond 2 people between animals and people that are close to bonded and in the human

realm. it happens for example, between mothers and babies. i've done studies on telepathy between nursing mothers and babies between best friends, between lovers, between parents and children, between coast colleagues. it doesn't happen with random strangers. so i think it's very much to do with our bonds and i think in fact, any explanation of telepathy has to take into account the fact that it depends on bonds between closely connected people. i have to ask a question that i often ask myself when encountering such phenomena. where does one draw the line between experiencing something an ordinary and a frame? yes. can you personally tower it? sure you made all sorts of people laughing at. those majority of people who have telepathic experiences. now who's calling on the fern, feel l. all people you feel they're being looked at?

a perfectly normal and these are path in normal natural responses. i think some people just gets free. nick, who have voices think that the voices of telepathic, when actually they may not be. some people paranoid st. pete, looking at them all the time when they're not to say these are like pass luxury exaggerations of water more normal and wide stretch phenomena. bear suddenly i don't think dogs 9 when people are coming home, feeling that somebody you know is about to ring you a, lisa, certainly not symptoms of psychopathology or in the vast majority of cases. but don't tell me how to live there. thank you very much for the fascinating discussion, but thank you and thank you for watching sir. again, nestle,

firewalls apart. ah, ah, is your media a reflection of reality? ah, in the world transformed what will make you feel safer? isolation, whole community. ah, you going the right way? where are you being led to somewhere o direct? what is true? what is faith? in the world corrupted, you need to descend

a join us in the depths will remain in the shallows. as a korea professional sport is much tougher on some than others with my air by everybody. so why would somebody believe me? i was just a little girl to price upgrade to to, to achieve really was was pro change read on the paper this morning, usa swimming coach, arrested literally had sex with a 12 year old girl. this happens almost every way we get calls at the office. i get informed about one of my greatest fears is someone is gonna start linking all this together. and it's going to be a 60 minute documentary about youth coaches in sports like gymnastics swimming here, is that documentary?

see it on our to the week top stories here on our tea. food and medical supplies, run low for thousands of migrants. come, don't lay beller roost. poland border trying to get into the you a groups of coal, this situation desperate. our correspondent reports from the scene. i brantley this girl at the branch. now she's bleeding in. she needs help. but the problem is that there are no, that is around. there are no dockers around and really nobody knows what, what, how to deal with russia sais, the migrant case on poland border is don to western interventions in the middle