What distinguishes spirituality from religion? | Rupert Sheldrake, Naomi Goulder, David Pearce

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]There are many ways into mystical experiences. Uh but I think what they have in common is this sense of our consciousness being part of something much greater than ourselves. Now I think that's the starting point for all religions. I think all religions start from a mystical experience.

[00:00:22]So first I think what's cool about this one is I don't want to just have another science versus religion talk that everyone's heard a million times. The word on the table that we've all used now is mysticism. And I want you to try to put your finger on it and distinguish it a bit from religion. When people hear religion, I think they think of moral codes and religious structures. But mysticism is something a little different. Can you put your finger on that first for me?

[00:00:47]Mysticism, I think, involves the experience that one our own mind is part of some much greater mind or presence.

[00:00:55]And people have mystical experiences in all sorts of contexts. Sometimes they happen completely spontaneously. Um people are in a beautiful place and suddenly they feel as if they're in the presence of God, that everything is perfect. They're in paradise. Sometimes people have near-death experiences and find themselves going into a realm of peace and joy, which of course doesn't last long because it's only a near-death experience. And then they come back and these things change their lives. Some people have mystical experiences through taking psychedelics. Some have them through meditation. Some have them through beauty and through music. There are many ways into mystical experiences.

[00:01:38]Uh but I think what they have in common is this sense of our consciousness being part of something much greater than ourselves. Now I think that's the starting point for all religions. I think all religions start from a mystical experience. So Jesus at the moment of his baptism by total immersion in the river Jordan by St. John the Baptist came up from the water and I think it was basically a near-death experience near death by drowning um and felt himself in the presence of God and his immediate connection with God. Then he went on a vision quest 40 days in the wilderness uh before beginning his ministry. The Buddha was enlightened sitting under a bodhic tree. Um the Hindu sages spent years meditating in caves and under trees in the Himalayas.

[00:02:26]Tibetan monks spend large amounts of time meditating. Early Christian monastics in the Egyptian desert and elsewhere in contemplative communities spent their time. So I think that this is the core of religion. And I think that when it's then translated into a code of being for everyday life, then you get the rules and you get the rituals and so on. I think that's necessary for a transmission of the story of the religion and the social bonding that religions provide. But their central core is I think mystical and take that away and then you've only got the more outward forms. However, I think that religions are much more than just belief systems and people who actually practice religions. Um I do myself. I'm a Anglican Christian. Um you know, singing together, observing the the liturggical year, taking part in rituals, um going to coral even song, one of our great cathedrals. These things take me into an almost mystical state or sometimes a mystical state which is that religion is not as if it's opposed to mysticism. It's comes out of it and contains elements in its practice spiritual practices which reconnect with it.

[00:03:44]>> Yeah. I want you to respond to this, David, because it sounded like what you you got in the same way through consciousness as this ultimate mystery, but it seems to me uh a a desire for science to describe it or to capture it or to engage it is what you're after.

[00:04:00]And and does that bump into his his story of mysticism? Are you >> are you are you are you missing something there? Well, this is what I was trying to hint that even though I think the mathematical formalism of physics or strictly physics beyond the standard model is complete, we do we lack any kind of Rosetta stone that enables us to read off the textures what it feels like of consciousness from the solutions to the equations and absolutely no idea at all, no theory. And we've got this weird situation that if materialism is true, materialism is inconsistent with the this sounds like hyperbole, but it's inconsistent with the entirety of the empirical evidence.

[00:04:47]But as I said, physicalism best under explains the success story of our civilization. It's I think Rbert would disagree here. Um I'm very skeptical of any account inconsistent with the standard model. Anything like scars or anything like that I don't see evidence of. And yet science just does not know why consciousness has the textures it does. Given my own temperaments I'm very cautious about ascribing any kind of divine power. One quality of mystical experiences as distinct from simply weird experiences is that mystical experiences often feel sublimely wonderful and beautiful. Whereas if you're not feeling happy, they feel weird. If you're taking a drug and and just cannot understand anything, you have derealization, depersonalization, that isn't mystical, it's just weird. So before urging uh skeptics to explore the mystical realm, I think ethically responsibly, we need to get our reward circuitry sorted out. Which is why in spite of being intrigued by psychedelics, I don't yet urge people to explore them unless they've got a very very robust constitution.

[00:06:09]>> Yeah. Can you can you jump in? I know there's some things you want to respond to there, but but but but before you before you do, I'd actually I think this works is I have a needling question that I want you to take on with this is do we have a desire or a need to inject a divine story into into these mystical experiences. I think it relates to what you >> Well, I was curious as to how you both want to understand them in this way. So it feels as though there's a psychological thing that's maybe of value, although as you say maybe sometimes it isn't depending upon the cognitive stuff that goes with it. Um but then there's I think in mysticism often an epistemological point that you're accessing knowledge some sort of um you could go back to Plato and it might be you're accessing the form of the good or it might be that you're accessing divine um uh knowledge of some divine laws. Um but I think there's also in mysticism a kind of metaphysical aspiration sometimes that you become unified with reality which is goes beyond just coming to know it. And I suppose I I'm not sure I think in philosophy where there's been such a focus on reason and because actually reason is rather um at at the end of the day when you need to act at least and I'm mainly a practical philosopher when you need to act reason often doesn't tell you what to do there's all kinds of conflicting very valuable things in the world that we could pursue. um we're often in dilemmas where we have to balance them against each other and how to choose how to act in those situations is so unclear that I think it's very tempting to say that it's not merely a bit of psychological kind of wizardry with the drugs but rather that you've found some access to a to a something that's giving you an answer to your question what should I do this or that.

[00:07:56]Yeah. Why don't we lay out this disagreement that that you proposed? And and you've spent a lot of time in your career proposing potential uh untapped uh powers or abilities that have sometimes been ridiculed and I would love for you to defend them here.

[00:08:12]>> Well, I' I've done a lot of research on things like telepathy, the feeling of being stared at, uh precognitive.

[00:08:19]>> I'm having that one now, but >> um but that's actually a different level. I think those are animals are better at most of these things than we are. I don't think that psychic powers are particularly related to mystical insights. I think psychic abilities are part of our normal animal nature. Dogs and cats can pick up our feelings, intentions. People pick up when other people are going to call them. These are all about, as it were, horizontal relationships between members of social groups. They're not about our relationship with forms of consciousness greater than ourselves.

[00:08:54]>> So I don't think they're particularly relevant to this partic this discussion.

[00:08:58]I mean I think that the question of the the spiritual experiences raise I mean the big question really is are they just things inside our head and all these experiences just involve shortcircuiting the pleasure center or something? Is it all inside the brain which some meditators Sam Harris for example does think that or at least did think that I don't know if he still does or is there really a realm of consciousness greater than our own as Plato thought the Platonic forms were in a realm that transcended this realm and there was a kind of conscious realm beyond our limited normal limited human consciousness and the idealist philosophy which David was advocating is saying that there's an ultimate consciousness underlying all things. So, it seems to me that with either of those points of view, a Platonic or an idealist point of view, they agree with the idea there's forms of consciousness greater than our own. Um, and then the question of mysticism is how do we access them or what do they mean? But the existence of realms of consciousness beyond the brain and beyond our own consciousness seems to be presupposed by Platonic philosophy. And after all in ancient Greece um the Elusinian mysteries were a big part of it. It wasn't just reason. There was this psychedelic based death and rebirth um mystery school uh which must have had a big influence on the culture of Athens and elsewhere. So um so it's not as if the ancient Greeks sort of point towards some narrow limited source of reason as you yourself have said. I think it so I think that's really the issue the nature of this other realm of consciousness >> and I I was just going to say that on the way you described it there I think it it sort of invites the thought that um because Plato thought to know the good is to love it. So he thought that somehow in coming to this intellectual knowledge of the form of the good through whatever through actually erotic experience as he would see it um through that you then acquire not just a belief in what's good but you come to want to act accordingly and actually that uh characterization of the experience as one of oneness or when you kind of combine it with this idea that that experience of the good might be an experience of wholeness of unity with others might sort of in some somewhat explain why to know it might actually make you want to act in accordance with it because you've come to feel unified with others and that that would explain the morality that might emerge.

[00:11:32]>> But it's interesting when he talked about the intellect though he didn't mean what we might in modern English mean intellectuals just in the head. He me he had a much wider view of the intellect and the mind in >> and it required a transformation of experience to achieve that intellectual.

[00:11:49]>> Yes.

[00:11:49]>> Yeah.

[00:11:50]>> Yeah. Well, I I think some of this might worry you a little bit, but but I'm going to but I'm going to bring it into this next theme of so I have in front of me a Yugov study in Britain which showed religious belief among young adults has doubled from 19% to 37% over the past 3 years. I think also in America there's a lot of studies that the the decline of organized religion attendance has bottomed out and maybe be ticking up.

[00:12:12]Does that does this conversation worry you or does this worry you at all in in this regard or or do you think that this is more of a condemnation of maybe the the hollowess of of modernization which is in the title of of this debate causing this trend.

[00:12:28]>> Partly I think it's it's simply a frustration that science has so little to say about consciousness and subjectivity and there is a vacuum here.

[00:12:39]Now, there are plenty of scientists who would think of consciousness as just some little kind of puzzle. But >> to continue watching this video, click the link in the top left or in the description below.

[00:12:53]>> With a free trial, you can enjoy the full talk and thousands more.

[00:12:57]>> Thank you for being part of the conversation.