Today’s article sheds light on the personal journey of one of the world’s most renowned authors, and the impact of idealism on his development and growth. It shows us what joins humanity together in its suffering, but also what joins it in the

The march towards Eastern idealism

Mar 19th, 2023 43m 13s

Today’s article dives into the Western world’s history with consciousness and its still evolving relationship with this subject. It goes on to chart a seeming progression within this region towards Eastern idealist thought, while drawing what t

How can you be me? The answer is time

Jan 8th, 2023 24m 7s

Today’s article explains, in a very elegant manner, how universal consciousness can indeed present as individual alters, simultaneously. With the help of a few real life examples, a powerful metaphor takes shape, allowing us to visualize how di

Whirlpools in Universal Consciousness

Nov 13th, 2022 23m 45s

The article I’ll be reading today unpacks what makes a good metaphor, why metaphors are so valuable to our pursuit of Truth, and invites us to appreciate the simple elegance and explanatory power of one metaphor in particular, favored both in E

The Copernican Revolution of the human mind

Oct 2nd, 2022 30m 44s

Today’s article calls for a revolution. And like a number of revolutions in history, it is an attempt to dethrone a controversial king; one the author thinks has long outstayed his welcome, and led us all rather astray. He presents the way to o

There is no personal self

Aug 28th, 2022 29m 31s

Today’s article challenges our currently held notion of self and how we typically define experience, as well as consciousness itself. It argues that the concept of an isolated self is an illusion, and drawing from the Buddhist teachings, illus

Dissociation and complexity: A psychiatrist’s perspective

Jul 24th, 2022 36m 20s

The article I’ll be reading today is a master class on dissociation, from the field of psychiatry. It breaks down the complexity of this phenomenon, and shows us that it is a much more common process in life than is generally thought. Furthermo

Contact with universal consciousness

Jun 19th, 2022 41m 53s

Today’s article examines our decidedly limited mental representation of the world, and how it is fundamentally linked to the systems of meaning available to us, to our perceptual constructs. It lays out incredible data to show just how much and

Is the human brain a model of the universe?

May 12th, 2022 26m 33s

The article I’ll be reading today presents documented similarities between the human brain and the cosmos, and poses the question: can either be modeled after the other? This very exciting possibility might allow as of yet undiscovered truths a

The Three Minds: A framework beyond biopsychosocial medicine

Apr 10th, 2022 35m 32s

The article I’ll be reading today shines an important light on the field of medicine, allopathic medicine in particular, and questions the largely biomedical approach underpinning mainstream practice. It argues for a more connected and balanced

The ethics of Idealism

Feb 2nd, 2022 27m 44s

Welcome back everyone! Today’s article is a fascinating deep dive into the subject of morality and the neurological mechanics of our joint human condition. It is an eye-opening presentation of how we actually relate to each other, and what this

Re-thinking identity: Children’s experiences of self

Dec 12th, 2021 18m 26s

In the best episode of 'Essentia Readings' yet, Nadia Hassan reads Dr. Donna Thomas's 'Re-thinking identity: Children’s experiences of self.' Nadia also introduces us to her young niece, a child who very matter-of-factly states that she is awar

Near-Death Experiences during cardiac arrest

Nov 7th, 2021 29m 16s

Today’s article delves into a phenomenon that has been largely dismissed. One’s position regarding these events tends to encapsulate a person’s view on the fundamental nature of life, as it deals with its apparent end: death, or a close brush w

What is consciousness?

Oct 17th, 2021 28m 34s

Today’s article poses the million-dollar question: “What is consciousness”? A much debated matter among academics, scientists, and thinkers the world over for centuries, but the burning curiosity germinates in us all and from quite a young age,

Communicating through the 'collective unconscious'

Sep 12th, 2021 37m 52s

The article I’ll be presenting today is by an author whose work has been focused, in part, on the psychology of consciousness and psycho-semantics, problems of the unconscious, altered states of consciousness, ethnic and cross-cultural psycholo

Seeing things: The daimonic nature of reality

Aug 15th, 2021 29m 28s

Hello and welcome to the Essentia Readings podcast. My name is Nadia and I’ll be bringing you content from a wide range of contributors: scholars, journalists, philosophers, scientists, and academics. All to do with that ineffable thing we call

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