Tag: podcasts

Astrology in science and business

In this episode of the Religious Studies Project podcast, Dr. Nick Campion discusses the history of western astrology. There is lots of fun and interesting stuff in there, but two bits stuck out to me.

Firstly, so many enlightenment scientists and modernist intellectuals were into astrology, theosophy, and the occult! The brief mentions of the shift from astrologies of fate and predestination to astrologies of spiritual development and personal evolution in enlightenment Europe make me want to read Campion’s history of astrology. I’m interested in what all kinds of people use divination for and how they understand it to work, and I am especially intrigued to know how it was conceived of by rationalist, materialist, reductionist natural philosophers.

Secondly, I was stunned by the direct lineage from Greek astrology, through Jung, into the personality type category systems that are so common in contemporary business culture. Recently at my hilarious yet rewarding corporate job (long story) I have been doing a bunch of Myers-Briggs and similar self-assessments and discussing them with other people as part of a training. The comparison we make most often is to astrology (i.e., you can find relevant descriptions of yourself in most of the categories, everyone has traits of various types in different ways), so I am both surprised and not to learn of this heritage.

Campion’s idea that astrology fills a need for personalized psychology and meaning in an increasingly impersonal world seems astute, and corporate workers are surely faced with depersonalizing forces. (I am regularly referred to as “a resource” instead of a person, to my face.) Perhaps the endless personality quizzes do some work to make people feel human and individual again; perhaps they are just compelling under the circumstances.

Fabrizio Benedetti on the neurobiology of placebos

Here is Fabrizio Benedetti, professor of physiology and neuroscience at the University of Turin Medical School, giving an introduction to the neurobiology of placebo effects. This gets into technical details of chemical names and brain anatomy, but a lot of it is also stated in a more general, accessible way.

I was especially interested in their discussion of which conditions are more influenced by placebo effects (pain, anxiety, Parkinson’s), and Benedetti’s distinction between conscious/expectation effects and unconscious/conditioning effects. This is my first encounter with the idea that different kinds of rituals can affect different systems in the body.

This is also my first time thinking about Pavlovian conditioning as a type of placebo response, and it is giving me ideas about ritual magick. I mostly think about meaning and significance as things that give rituals power and have effects on my body, which would fall under Benedetti’s conscious, expectation-based effects. It makes a lot of sense to me that repeating rituals could make them more potent, both because of the conscious effect of familiarity and expectation, and perhaps  also because my body is being conditioned to respond in ways that I’m not conscious of.

Lucid Dreaming podcast

I’ve been enjoying the Lucid Dreaming podcast with Lucid Sage. It’s non-commercial and amateur in the good way, at least early on, which means no Squarespace ads (yay!) and also minimal editing and long episodes. The host has a humble, passionate vibe that is really lovely. Early episodes cover basics like how to start having lucid dreams, and later episodes include interviews and updates on various devices and kickstarter campaigns.

Some episode highlights:

  • Episode 5 – Going WILD. Host Jay gives a rundown of his core practices (dream journaling, reality checks, dream signs, intentions). This is slightly more elaborate that what I do, and sounds like it works somewhat more reliably.
  • Episode 14 – Dream Yoga with Andrew Holecek. A 90+ minute interview that gives what seems like an informed and thorough introduction to Buddhist perspectives on dreams and the mind, with suggestions for meditation and lucid dreaming practices sprinkled throughout. Lots of new ideas for me– meditating inside lucid dreams, using dreams to practice seeing waking reality as an illusion, etc.