Rupert Sheldrake - Psychedelics, Mysticism and the Mystery of Consciousness (N364)
Nomad Podcast
Nomad
4.7 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 97 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rupert Sheldrake joins us for a wide-ranging conversation that begins with psychedelics and quickly opens into bigger questions. Why do some experiences feel “more real than real”? What happens when the familiar boundaries of self dissolve, and the world returns charged with meaning, beauty, and presence?
Along the way Rupert reflects on his own encounters with psychedelics, the long ritual history behind them, and why he thinks they’re just one doorway into a much larger landscape. From dreams and near-death experiences to prayer, music, nature and the possibility that mind might not be contained by the brain, this episode doesn’t aim to settle the questions so much as to sit inside them — and see what they reveal.
Following the interview, Nomad hosts Tim and Joy reflect on curiosity, caution and the strange tension between breakthrough moments and slow formation. From therapy and music to dogs, dreams and those hard-to-explain moments of connection, they explore what it might mean to live in creative puzzlement before a world that still feels charged with mystery.
Interview starts at 13m 5s.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The |
| 0:07.0 | The Welcome back to Nomad Podcasts. My name's Tim Nash, and this is still Joy Brooks. |
| 0:41.8 | Hello. The world's still a bit of a mess from when we last spoke, and it's still raining as well. |
| 0:46.5 | I read this morning that in some parts of the UK, there's been 50 consecutive days of rain. I mean, that is beyond biblical, isn't it? |
| 0:53.7 | Yeah, my colleagues in Cornwall, actually, I think we're getting over 50. I mean, that is beyond biblical, isn't it? Yeah, my colleagues in |
| 0:54.9 | Cornwall actually, I think we're getting over 50. I think they're heading towards the late 50s now |
| 1:00.5 | in consecutive days of rain. Then they're not happy. So, Joy, I'm wondering if there's anything |
| 1:05.7 | that is giving you a lift at the moment, a bit self-soothing, maybe a bit of light disassociation from these realities. |
| 1:13.9 | I tell you what, the good people of Gordon and Denton gave me a lift by voting for something |
| 1:19.7 | that wasn't racist. |
| 1:23.2 | There we go. |
| 1:23.5 | Thank you. |
| 1:24.4 | Thank you for that. |
| 1:25.2 | The old Greens got in, didn't they? |
| 1:26.5 | Yeah, and I can't lie, |
| 1:28.4 | they would be my party of choice. I hear what you're saying. Yeah. Also, in the last couple of weeks, |
| 1:35.1 | my youngest offspring was 20. And so I have managed to, it feels like, it's not single-handed, |
| 1:41.9 | but I have got three human beings through the first two decades of their life now. |
| 1:46.8 | That's huge. |
| 1:48.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:48.8 | It's amazing. |
| 1:49.9 | It is huge. |
... |
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