565. Iain McGilchrist

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine, and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books but is best known for The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, and is currently working on a book of epistemology and ontology. He lives on the Isle of Skye and has two daughters and a son. Websites: iainmcgilchrist.com channelmcgilchrist.com YouTube Channel Facebook Page Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Transcript of this interview. Interview recorded August 22, 2020. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction and Background of Dr. Iain McGilchrist 00:03:31 - The Story of the Spiritual Master and the Emissary 00:06:45 - The Sacred and the Divine 00:09:56 - Understanding the World: Left Hemisphere and Right Hemisphere 00:13:10 - The Left and Right Hemisphere's Different Views of the World 00:16:29 - The Evolution of Spirituality in the Left and Right Hemispheres 00:20:00 - Harmonizing Contradictory Perspectives 00:23:26 - Focusing Sharply while Maintaining Broad Awareness 00:26:39 - The Right Hemisphere and Consciousness 00:29:49 - The Right Hemisphere's View of Subjectivity and Objectivity 00:33:10 - Restructuring the Brain through Subtle Focus 00:36:39 - Personal Experience with Psychedelics and Anomalies 00:40:02 - Shifting Paradigms in Science 00:43:37 - The Evolution of Western Culture 00:46:56 - Breaking down institutions and the future of civilization 00:50:22 - Concerns about the Destruction of History 00:53:40 - The Importance of Education in Developing Critical Thinking 00:57:05 - Nuanced Politics and Discerning Patterns 01:00:30 - Fundamentalist Certainty and Claims of Truth 01:03:56 - The Decline into Dogmatic Thinking and the Need for a Change 01:07:13 - The Rise of Young People's Enthusiasm for Change and Education Overhaul 01:10:40 - The Need for a Spiritual Revolution 01:14:04 - The Relationship Between Physics and Spirituality 01:17:23 - The Humbling Experience of Writing 01:20:47 - The Importance of Trust 01:24:24 - Taking Responsibility for Your Actions 01:27:37 - The Role of the Left Hemisphere in Psychotic Behavior 01:31:11 - Dawkins, the Renaissance, and Humor 01:34:29 - The Illusion of a Divided Consciousness 01:38:05 - The Nine-Dot Puzzle and Frontal Cortex Suppression 01:41:50 - Introduction to the New Venture

Om Podcasten

The implication of the title - Buddha at the Gas Pump - is that ordinary people are experiencing higher states of consciousness once thought to be rare and difficult to attain. People everywhere are undergoing a shift or awakening to their true nature. For some, this shift has been abrupt and dramatic. For others, it has been so gradual that they may not have realized it has occurred. Such shifts, or awakenings, are not new: Christ spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven within, Buddhists speak of Nirvana, Zen masters of Satori, Hindus of Moksha, but these traditions generally regard these states as rare and difficult to attain. Many people are therefore skeptical of claims of higher states of consciousness. They find it hard to believe that apparently ordinary friends and neighbors might be experiencing something extraordinary. Maybe they expect Enlightenment to look as remarkable on the outside as it is reputed to be on the inside. This show will attempt to dispel skepticism and misconceptions by week after week, allowing otherwise ordinary people to relate their experience of spiritual awakening. The terminology is tricky, because there are no universally agreed upon definitions to describe this experience. So please forgive us if we use some unfamiliar terms. We will try to clarify our definitions as we go along. Perhaps, after a while, those listening will become convinced that genuine and permanent spiritual awakenings are not just a pipe dream, but are real and are becoming relatively commonplace. These podcasts are the audio track of a weekly interview show which may be seen as videos on our YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/buddhaatthegaspump). Also see the main site: https://batgap.com. For search purposes, I will add the following to this description - batgap, Buddha at the Gaspump, Buddah at the Gas Pump.