Science

Are the really big psychedelic experiences just hallucinations, or do they crack open some transpersonal dimension of consciousness? Philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes believes we need a metaphysics of psychedelics to explain these experiences.

Every click on your computer, every swipe on your smartphone, leaves a data trail. Do you care? Would owning your data, or having more digital privacy, make life better? And what happens to all that data when you die?

There are approximately 1.4 billion iPhone users worldwide and more than 3 billion Facebook users. In the next few decades, many of those users will die, leaving behind vast amounts of precious data. What happens to all of it?

Before the era of data mining, scientists in the 1960s began a first-of-its kind study of personality—by secretly studying a group of preschoolers. Former test subject Susannah Breslin uncovers the buried secrets of that study.

Steve Paulson conducting an onstage interview with Dr. Sam Parnia.

Scientists are revolutionizing our understanding of life and death. It’s now possible to revive patients hours after they’ve been declared clinically dead. Dr. Sam Parnia talks about these advances and the new science of near-death experiences. 

Most of us have no idea what will happen when we die. But some people were actually declared dead and came back with remarkable stories—like meeting dead relatives. Science is now beginning to tell us what happens in near-death experiences.

Journalist Sebastian Junger had nearly died when reporting from war zones around the world, but nothing prepared him for the ruptured aneurysm that almost killed him. He's now trying to explain a mysterious encounter he had with his dead father.

“Psychedelic people are practicing at the very edge of anyone else’s comfort zone,” says psychologist Katherine MacLean, on her pioneering work as a psychedelic researcher and why she reveres the Mexican healer Maria Sabina.

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