EP. 299: MONA SOBHANI - PROOF OF SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA

 

“What would it mean to incorporate the spiritual into the world of science?” — Dr. Amy Robbins

 

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EPISODE SUMMARY:

 

What is the foundation of our reality?

 

Today I talk with Mona Sobhani, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist, author, and entrepreneur. She holds a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Southern California, where she also worked as a research scientist, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University with the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project.

 

Listen in to hear about her book Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist’s Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe, scientific materialism, consciousness, and more.

 

Topics We Discuss:

 

• [2:57] Mona started on a very traditional route. When you go through the scientific training Mona did, no matter what you come in with, by the time you leave you’ve been indoctrinated and come to fully adopt the world view of scientific materialism.

 

• [4:30] In Western culture, many people subscribe to this materialist view. But Mona had an existential crisis that made her reexamine her beliefs. In Persian culture, of which Mona is a part, divination is popular, and in her family it’s the reading of coffee grounds. Her mom had foreseen some things, including those leading to Mona’s crisis, and this led her to start thinking about fate and destiny.

 

• [13:44] Everyone is stigmatized when it comes to people going to see a psychic, which is why lab research is so important. Some research centers set up carefully controlled experiments in which they use five shapes on cards, and you ask someone to guess what the next card is. Many will score above chance in both guessing and physiology.

 

• [16:38] Some people believe that consciousness is the foundation of our reality rather than matter. If matter is the basis, we’re all separate. But if consciousness—or some kind of energy that runs through everything—is the basis, then that’s what connects us all to one another.

 

• [23:00] We’re all more interconnected than we’re aware of, and not just on a systems level, but on an energetic and psychic level as well. For science, this has huge implications for how we do human subject research: What energy or intention is a subject bringing to an experiment? How is it affecting other subjects or the researcher?

 

• [34:42] When Mona started reading about phenomena, she would roll her eyes at concepts like past lives. In her scientific framework, it didn't make sense. But once she started reading more physics and philosophy, she realized that if the foundation of reality isn’t matter, then maybe there are frequencies that can live on forever in the universe.

 

• [38:56] Mona made a group and launched a website for scientists that are interested in learning more about the spiritual. Many have had spiritual experiences for years and have had no outlets to share or talk about them in the scientific field they’re in.

 

FOLLOW MONA SOBHANI:

 

Find Mona on her website or on Instagram. Her book Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist's Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe is available on Amazon.

 

 

Life, Death and the Space Between is brought to you by:

Dr. Amy Robbins | Host, Executive Producer

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