Join us for Season 7 of How God Works, starting next week! 

We've had a lot of new listeners join us of the past year, so while we're hard at work on our next season, we thought we'd share some favorites you might have missed from the archives.

Have you ever heard a voice, seen an image, or felt a presence around you that you couldn’t explain? If you have, you’re not alone. 

More people than you might think report having these kinds of experiences. For some, it can be easy to write these off as tricks of the mind. But for others, especially the religious and spiritually-inclined, these events are often transformative and can profoundly alter the way they feel about their faith. So how is it that gods come to feel real to people? What do these experiences do for those who have them? And why, sometimes, does it feel like the supernatural world is connecting with us out of the blue?

Tanya Luhrmann is an anthropologist at Stanford University. Find out more about her book, How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others, on her website, where you’ll also find links to her other writing and media appearances.

Michael Ferguson is a neuroscientist at Harvard University. Find out more about his research and teaching through his website.

Reverend Liz Milner is ordained in the Episcopal Church. She works with prison inmates in northern California.

Episode info and transcript available here.

Ever heard of the Bartonian Metaphysical Society? How about the Druze? If you’re like most people, you probably haven’t. On this episode, we ask: What’s it like to be a member of a tiny religion in a world dominated by “Big God”?

From the early days of new religious movements to the precarious old age of ancient faiths, join Dave as we explore the unique experiences, joys and challenges of being one of the few rather than one of the many. We'll talk to sociologist Susan Jean Palmer about what religions are like when they're brand new, how they're born, and what it takes for them to grow. And we’ll talk to Zoroastrian Studies researcher Nazneen Engineer about the challenges of population decline and the enduring cultural legacy of her faith as its numbers dwindle.

Susan Jean Palmer is the author of eleven book-length sociological studies of new religious movements, including Aliens Adored: Rael’s New Religion, Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers and Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities. Find out more about her work here and learn about her research on children raised in minority religions here.

Nazneen Engineer was the first Postdoctoral Researcher at the Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies based at SOAS, University of London. Find out more about her work here, and learn about the survey of Zoroastrians she managed, Gen Z and Beyond: A Survey for Every Generation, here.

Religion is often about powerful beings coming down from the skies and humans yearning to go up to join them. Does that mean we can swap aliens in for God? More and more people seem to think so. In fact, many spiritually-minded people are looking to UFOs as opportunities to commune with enlightened alien teachers. Some believe they’re even aliens themselves, sent here to prepare us for a new age. But when religion gets mixed with conspiracy theory, things can sometimes take a darker turn.

Join Dave as he speaks with religious studies professor Diana Walsh Pasulka, about what belief in UFOs might share with other religions, and with anthropologist Susannah Crockford about how and why conspiracy theories are giving rise to a new spiritual movement.

Diana Walsh Pasulka is the author of Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligence and  American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. Find out more about her work on her website.

Susannah Crockford is the author of Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, and the host of the new podcast Miss Information, a podcast about the ways online misinformation and conspiracy theories infiltrate wellness communities and conservative Christian spaces.

Also, be sure to check out Dave’s recent article in the Boston Globe on aliens as a new spiritual movement!

What makes a trip a pilgrimage? And why have people from across the globe made these treks for millennia? Is it the destination that makes these journeys so important to so many cultures? Or is it the community and meaning-making that happen along the way?  And how are people changed by the experience after they come home?

Join Dave as he talks with writer and New York Times contributor Aatish Taseer about what he saw last year when he went on pilgrimages into the hearts of three faiths. And with psychologist and leading pilgrimage scholar Heather Warfield, about how these treks, even in secular form, can improve mental health and wellbeing.

Aatish Taseer is the author of A Pilgrimage Year. Special thanks to Aatish for sharing recordings from his travels with us for use in today’s episode. Follow him on X @aatishtaseer and Instagram @aatishalitaseer.

Heather Warfield is a professor at Antioch University New England. Learn more about her work in the field of Pilgrimage Studies on her website.

Is religion a source of conflict, or a way to end it? From the tragic situation in the Middle East to rising Christian Nationalism in the US, it might seem the former. But for faiths that emphasize love, compassion, and forgiveness, might the latter also be true?

Join Dave as he talks with theologian Miroslav Volf about how religion blurs with political identity and violent ideologies, and why the answer to this problem might not be to remove religion from our lives and the public square, but to have more of it in both. And with anthropologist Benjamin Purzycki about how our views of what God wants can change in the face of conflict.

Miroslav Volf is a Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and the Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Learn more about his work here and check out his podcast For the Life of the World.

Benjamin Grant Purzycki is an Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University in Denmark. Learn more about his work here and here.

Join us for Season 6 of How God Works, starting next week! 

Hey How God Works listeners! While we’re hard at work on Season 6, we’d like to invite you to check out No Small Endeavor, a podcast that explores what it means to live a good life, hosted by professor of theology and ethics Lee C. Camp.

Surveys show feelings of sadness and despair peaked in 2023. So as we look to the new year, it's understandable why any of us might be feeling pessimistic, even hopeless. But these feelings aren't written in stone. We always have a choice. It's in these darkest of times, when all feels lost, that hope helps us find our way...not just to heal ourselves, but also the world around us.

On this episode, we'll talk with the Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, about how he remains motivated and hopeful, even while covering some of the most tragic events in recent history. And he’ll offer a little advice for ways we can all rise above despair.

And we'll talk with Roshi Joan Halifax -- ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and founder of the Upaya Zen Center --  about the Buddhist-informed notion of wise hope, the equanimity it can bring, and the fierce compassion it can unleash.

Nicholas Kristof is the author of the forthcoming book Chasing Hope. Read his NYT columns here, and find out more about the cider he makes here.

Roshi Joan Halifax leads the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Learn more about her work on her website.

When it comes to treating addiction, twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are some of the most often used in the US. But while twelve-step programs have several components, one of the most central is surrendering control to a higher power. But how important is that idea? Does relying on a divine influence help or hurt? And might there be other routes to recovery?

We’ll talk with bestselling author and New York Times opinion writer Maia Szalavitz about what the research on addiction and addiction recovery shows, as well as her own path out of drug abuse. And we’ll discuss the relationship between perceptions of “divine control” and personal wellbeing with sociologist Laura Upenieks.

Maia Szalavitz is the author of Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction. Learn more about the book, and her other writings, on her website.

Laura Upenieks is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Baylor University. Learn more about her research here.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction there are many resources out there to help. Among the options Maia recommends exploring to see if they are right for you: SMART Recovery, Women for Sobriety, and Alcoholics Anonymous.

For most of the past 200 years, religion and psychiatry didn’t get along too well.  Or so the story goes. But if you go back far enough, the two have more in common than you might think. On this episode, we’ll hear about the deep history of integrating spirituality into mental health treatments, and how it’s being rediscovered today at some of the world’s top mental health facilities.

We’ll talk with psychiatrist Rania Awaad about her work reconnecting the Muslim community to Islam’s long, but often forgotten, history of mental health treatment. And with psychologist David Rosmarin about the program he’s pioneered at McLean hospital to integrate spirituality into psychiatric treatment.

Dr. Rania Awaad M.D., is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine where she is the Director of the Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab as well as Stanford University's Affiliate Chaplain and Affiliate Professor of Islamic Studies. Find out more about her work here.

Dr. David Rosmarin is the director of the Spirituality and Mental Health Program at McLean Hospital and an associate professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the author of the book Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make your Anxiety Work for You. Learn about his work, and his book on his website.

It’s no accident that the Hebrew word for breath is the same as the word for spirit (ruach). Breath doesn’t just give us life: it helps regulate everything from vital organ functions to cognition and emotional states. That’s why spiritual traditions the world over incorporate it as a practice to help heal body and mind and walk the path towards peace.

Join us as we explore the breath’s connection to our nervous system with psychologist and neuroscientist Stephen Porges, creator of Polyvagal Theory. We’ll also learn about the spiritual roots of breathwork and try out a few techniques with noted yoga, qigong and meditation teacher Amelia Barili.

Learn more about Dr. Stephen Porges’s work and Polyvagal Theory on his website, and be sure to check out his new book, co-authored with Seth Porges: Our Polyvagal World: How Safety and Trauma Change Us.

Dr. Amelia Barili is faculty at the UCB Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and professor emerita from the University of California at Berkeley. Learn more about her work on her website and check out her YouTube channel the new paradigms.

We also highly recommend the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor.

We've had a lot of new listeners join us of the past year, so while we're hard at work on our next season, we thought we'd share some favorites you might have missed from the archives.

As a society that fears death, we tend to avoid the subject. But the key to having a positive end-of-life experience might come in doing just the opposite. 

On this episode, we’ll hear from philosopher Simon Critchley, Boston-area chaplains Ruth Delfiner, Sarah Byrne-Martelli, and Maude Quinn, and Threshold Choir singer Leigh Davis about what makes a good death, and the many rituals, spiritual or secular, that ease our transition out of this world.

Simon Critchley is the author of many books about death, including The Book of Dead Philosophers and How to Stop Living and Start Worrying. Find out more about his other work, including his most recent book, Bald, on his website.

In addition to her work as a chaplain, Sarah Byrne-Martelli is the author of Memory Eternal: Living with Grief as Orthodox Christians, due out this summer.

Find out about Leigh Davis’s art on her website, where you can also see some of her collaborations with the Threshold Choir. Find out more about the Threshold Choir here. See Threshold Choir song credits here.

Episode info and transcript available here.

We’ve all heard of spiritual experiences – moments of feeling intense awe and deep love and connection. People who’ve had them – and it’s a lot more than you might think – see them as some of the most profound moments of their lives. Moments that change them for the better in enduring ways. But what’s going on in our brains when these experiences happen? Do you even need religious beliefs to have them? And, if you’re so inclined, how might you start?

Episode Guests:

David Yaden is Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Find out more about his research here.

Robert Forman is a former Professor of Religion and author of many books about spirituality. Find out more about his work here.

Today we’re featuring an episode from the new PRX podcast Mother is a Question.

What is Unteachable about Mothering?

Our journey into this territory of mothering begins. Tasha searches out someone whose deep wisdom about mothering was totally lost on her when they first met ten years ago. Back then, Teourialier Johnson—who Tasha met as “T”—was a teacher of motherhood in an unlikely context. Now, for us, she’s a teacher of so much more, opening to transformation even when it seems all has been lost. Join us as “T” navigates some of the greatest challenges a mother can face, and shares how she attunes to the eternal dance of mothering another human: the graceful movement between listening and guiding, giving and taking, the known and the unknown.

Around the world, gender diversity isn't the exception; it's fairly common. It’s also not a new invention. Many indigenous societies have long recognized a wide variety of gender expressions, and given leadership roles in spiritual life to gender fluid people. And while colonization has often influenced gender norms, leading to discrimination and violence, many of these traditions are still very much alive. Join Dave as he explores the history, present, and future of life beyond the binary.

Episode Guests:

Dr. Sharyn Graham Davies is Director of the Herb Feith Indonesia Engagement Centre at Monash University. Her research focuses on gender, sexuality and health in the Asia-Pacific region. Read more about her work among the Bugis community of Sulawesi here.

Marca Cassity is an enrolled citizen of the Osage Nation and a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in LGBTQ and Native American trauma. A songwriter, performing under the non-binary version of their name Marx Cassity, their forthcoming album, which can be heard throughout this episode, is steeped in themes of queer and indigenous visibility and resilience.

This episode also benefited from the research of historian Gregory D. Smithers. We highly recommend his book: Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America.

This episode mentions some forms of violence and trauma, and discusses the existence of ideas and terms that could bring up painful issues for many gender nonconforming people. If you or someone you know is struggling with notions of self-harm or suicidal ideation, please reach out for help. A list of resources for LGBTQ2S people is available here. The phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK)

Christianity and Judaism have had long standing theological concerns with LGBTQ+ issues. BUT from the Vatican to certain Jewish denominations, there are movements afoot to be more open, tolerant, and accepting. In the first of a two-part series on gender and spirituality, we’ll talk with Father James Martin and Rabbi Shira Stutman about the history of discrimination in their traditions and how that’s starting to change. We’ll also take a look at the science behind how religion can directly impact people’s attitudes toward LGBTQ issues on an emotional level, and hear from Meli Barber, the president of Dignity USA about her difficult experiences with the church and her hopes for change.

Father James Martin’s new book Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’s Greatest Miracle is now available for purchase. For more information on his ministry and work providing resources for LGBTQ Catholics, visit the Outreach website.

Rabbi Shira Stutman is a nationally known faith-based leader and advocate for LGBTQ rights. Check out her wonderful podcast, Chutzpod! here.

Meli Barber is the current president of Dignity USA, an organization for LGBTQIA+ Catholics. Learn more about their work here.

Read Dave’s paper about the influence of emotions on implicit biases here.

When’s the last time you actually heard silence? We’re flooded with noise everyday, so much so that we don’t even realize it. And it's not just bad for our ears, it's not great for our health or wellbeing either. We’ll take a look at how noise (and its absence) affect the workings of our mind and our emotions. Why silence can make us feel more connected to ourselves and one another, and how spiritual traditions seek to create silent spaces for contemplation and growth. We’ll also ask the question: If college is supposed to prepare students for a better life, should universities take inspiration from their monastic origins and teach students to cultivate silence as one way to grow in mind and spirit?

Episode Guests:

Justin McDaniel is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Professor of the Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Visit his website to learn more about his work.

Justin Zorn is the co-author, with Leigh Marz, of the book Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise. Visit his website to learn more about the book and Justin’s other work.

How God Works is coming back to your feed on September 24th! Tune in this season as we tackle topics like the value of silence, how different faiths view gender and sexuality, the power of mystical experience and connecting to the breath, and much more.

And in the meantime, feel free to catch up on older episodes, and rate and review the show wherever you listen. 

Every year, thousands of people head to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for a week at Burning Man. And while from the outside, it might seem like a place for partying, drugs, and debauchery, to many, it offers something deeper, even life changing.

We’ll ask neuroscientist Molly Crockett and Episcopal minister Alex Leach, both burners themselves: Is Burning Man a new type of spiritual gathering? How and why does it deeply move people? And should more traditional faiths aim to have a bit more Burning Man in them? After all, Jesus went to the desert to find himself. Maybe we should too.

For more on Molly’s research, visit her website or read her article in The Guardian. Alex Leach’s camp at Burning Man is Religious AF. Special thanks to Alex for recording interviews and ambient audio for this episode at this year’s Burning Man.

The lights are dimmed, candles are lit, bodies begin to sway together as the voice from the stage says a spirit-lifting, soul-stirring affirmation…and then screams “Now sprint for 10!”.

Group fitness classes have, for many, become something more than just a good way to get the blood pumping and pounds dropping. On this episode we take a look at why exercise classes from Soul Cycle to Crossfit have become some of the most fervent venues for secular spirituality and how some religious leaders and institutions are re-discovering this age-old symbiosis of body and spirit -- ones that use the body to change what we feel, how we connect, and what we believe.

And we'll learn some of the science behind why sweating together brings us closer together.

Episode Guests:

Casper ter Kuile is the author of the book The Power of Ritual. Find out more about his work on his website.

Emma Cohen is a Professor of Cognitive Anthropology at the University of Oxford, where she leads the Social Body Lab.

Rabbi Jaymee Alpert is the co-creator of Neshama Body and Soul, a practice that combines exercise with prayer.

It's not news that the US is becoming more secular. People have been drifting away from religion for decades, and that trend is accelerating right now in people under 40. But there is a small but growing trend in those same generations of people who are seeking just the opposite. These people are looking to older and more orthodox forms of faith to find meaning, purpose, and community even in the face of what many might consider to be more sexist and less tolerant ideas.

Join Dave as he talks to two Millennials who have converted to more traditional forms of faith about the reasons for their choice, how it affects their lives, and why they believe these more ancient forms of religiosity have value… perhaps now more than ever.

Kelsey Osgood is a writer and convert to Modern Orthodox Judaism, currently working on a book about religious conversion among women, scheduled to be published in 2024. Find out more about her on her website.

Julia Yost was raised Catholic, but transitioned to a more traditional form of Catholicism as a young adult. She is a senior editor and regular contributing author at First Things magazine. She also authored this opinion piece about young converts in The New York Times.

This episode is an edited version of a live event held at WBUR’s Cityspace on May 15, 2023. A full-length video of the event is available here.

For decades, studies from around the globe showed that happiness followed a U-shaped curve across the lifespan. For many people, the teens and twenties were some of the happiest and most carefree times of life — a period to be enjoyed before happiness began to drop and hit its low point around 50. BUT, over the past 10 years, a seismic change has taken place. The front end of the happiness curve collapsed, meaning that teens and twenties are now the most unhappy time of life.

From the increasing use of social media, to being isolated from friends during the pandemic, to the academic pressures of applying to college, to growing up in a world that feels threatened from climate change, gun violence, and political strife, the reasons for this crisis in mental health are many. The solutions, however, have been few.

But there’s a growing sense (and data) that when it comes to finding a way through challenging times, looking back at ancient wisdom for strategies on how to thrive — how to find joy, peace, empathy, and meaning — can help.

Join Dave and a panel of experts and voices from Gen Z to explore the science behind when and how secular and spiritual practices might help young adults (and really any of us) deal with the stresses and disconnection of modern life, whatever our spiritual beliefs (including none at all).

Guests:

Dr. Laurie Santos is the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She hosts The Happiness Lab Podcast and created the record-breaking courses “The Science of Wellbeing” (the most popular course at Yale) and “The Science of Wellbeing for Teens.”

Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University and at MIT — a role in which he supports the ethical and communal lives of nonreligious students. He’s also the author of the New York Times bestseller Good Without God, and recently served as president of Harvard University's 40+ chaplains.

Tyler VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he directs the Human Flourishing Program. His work has been internationally recognized for illuminating the factors that underlie health and wellbeing in adolescents and adults.

We've had a lot of new listeners join us of the past year, so while we're hard at work on our next season, we thought we'd share some favorites you might have missed from the archives.

For centuries, many cultures have used psychedelics to induce mystical states. And while in the US they’ve mostly been used as recreational drugs, interest in their power to offer a rapid route to transcendence has recently been growing. But in our haste to use these chemicals to alter, and perhaps even heal, the mind, we might be losing sight that with speed comes risk.

Join Dave as he talks with author Michael Pollan and researcher David Yaden about the nature of self-transcendent experiences, the science of how psychedelics can bring them on, and the dangers of disregarding centuries of shamanic knowledge about how to use them wisely.

Episode info and transcript available here.

Hate and prejudice based on ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation are all too common in our world. But are we doomed to be this way? Or is it possible to create a world where cooperation and peace are the norm?

Join Dave as he talks to NYU professor Jay van Bavel about the deeper mechanisms at work when it comes to group conflict (and how to avoid it), and with Zen Buddhism teacher Larry Ward about how the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village Tradition can help all of us to heal and foster a more equitable and caring world.

Jay Van Bavel is co-author (with Dominic Packer) of The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony. Find out more about Jay’s work on his website.

Larry Ward is a co-founder of The Lotus Institute and host of the podcast Beyond the News, which explores current events through the lens of Buddhism and neuroscience. He is also the author of America’s Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal.

The gathas heard in this episode are taken from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Peace Is Every Breath: A Practice for Our Busy Lives. Dave also makes reference to the 14 mindfulness trainings, which can be found in the book Interbeing, 4th Edition: The 14 Mindfulness Trainings of Engaged Buddhism.

Music has the power to transform and connect us, no matter our native tongue. In many ways, it's a language unto itself. It ties us to memories...to people....to places. It heals us, promotes compassion and empathy.  It unites us not only to each other, but according to many people, perhaps even to something greater.

On this episode we’ll take a look at what’s going on in our brains and bodies when we sing sacred songs together... or listen to jazz. And why from Jewish nigunim to John Coltrane, music can deepen our connection with the divine, each other, and even with ourselves.

Episode guests:

Dr. David Michael Greenberg is an award-winning American psychologist, social neuroscientist, musician, and entrepreneur. Find out more about his work on his website.

Rabbi Deborah Sacks Mintz serves the Hadar Institute as Director of Tefillah and Music. Find out more about her, and her music, on her website, or listen to her on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music, or YouTube. Find out more about Hadar’s Rising Song Institute here.

His Eminence The Most Reverend Archbishop F. W. King D.D. is a leader and co-founder of the Saint John Coltrane Church in San Francisco.

What do we get out of making things with our hands? Traditions the world over incorporate crafts into their religious practice, and for secular people, that experience of getting “in the zone” while weaving or working with wood or clay can also feel meditative, even spiritual.

So maybe it’s worth asking: Is there a craftsperson in all of us that we should occasionally step away from our devices to nurture? And could craft, even for the non-artist, be a way to connect with spirituality for us all?

We’ll talk to Claremont Graduate University psychologist Jeanne Nakamura about what characterizes the experience of “flow” that so many makers experience while they work. And we’ll talk to Stuart Kestenbaum, poet and former director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, about how people of all skill levels can benefit from working with their hands.

We’ll also hear from two renowned makers: Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary and Tibetan mandala master Losang Samten.

To learn more about Jeanne Nakamura’s research on flow, click here. And have a look at this TED Talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the founder of the study of flow.

Find out about Haystack Mountain School of Crafts’ programs here, and read about Stuart Kestenbaum’s work as a poet here.

Visit Preston Singletary’s website to learn about his practice and see some of his work. See some of Losang Samten’s mandalas and learn more about his story on his website.

Were the Earth and all its resources created just for our benefit? Do plants and animals exist solely for us to consume? Or should we be viewing our role on this planet differently? When it comes to protecting the environment and addressing climate change, religion has had mixed results. Why is that?

With Earth Day almost upon us, we thought it would be the perfect time to take a look at how religion plays into our relationship to the Earth. We’ll talk to psychology professor Jesse Preston about how the way religious people practice their faith may influence their environmental attitudes and behavior. And we’ll speak to the Reverend Dave Bookless about the theological case for Christians to go green and how to make environmental action a spiritual practice.

Jesse Preston is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Warwick. Learn more about her work here.

As the director of theology at A Rocha International, Reverend Dave Bookless is helping to advise and lead many Christian-inspired environmental projects around the globe. Learn more about what he does here.

Our show website is now live! You can check out our full catalog of episodes, read transcripts, and get updates on upcoming live events.

Awe fills us with wonder -- we feel small in the face of things that seem vast, inspiring, almost beyond comprehension. So it makes sense that spiritual experiences often inspire awe. But new science is showing it can also work the other way around.

Awe from any source -- nature's beauty, art and music, even others’ noble acts -- can actually nudge us toward becoming more spiritual -- toward believing in the divine. And along the way, awe offers a host of benefits to support us. From reducing stress, to improving health, to even reducing loneliness, awe soothes our souls, and if we're open to it, pushes us to connect with something greater.

Dacher Keltner is the author of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life. Find out more about the book and Dacher’s work here.

To find out more about Piercarlo Valdesolo’s research, visit his website.

Season 4 is coming on Sunday, April 2!

Can learning to experience awe more often be good for us? Does learning to make pottery, sing in a choir, or play a group sport give us some of the same benefits as being part of a religious community? Does being Christian make you more or less likely to taking a stand on climate change? What does Buddhism have to teach us about healing the divisions in this country? And do spiritual traditions hold any answers for addressing the massive mental health crisis among teens and young adults today?

Join us this season to find out.

While we’re working on Season 4, we wanted to share a special episode from another podcast we love, The Happiness Lab.

On The Happiness Lab, Dr. Laurie Santos explores all the ways we get our happiness wrong and what we can do to really feel better. She walks through the latest evidence-based strategies for improving your mental health, sharing practical advice on what will really bring more joy.

In this episode, Laurie looks at what a centuries-old Sanskrit text, The Yoga Sutras, can teach us about improving both the body and mind. The author, Patanjali, makes clear that the poses and stretches are only part of the picture - we also need to be kind, contemplative and grounded. Jessamyn Stanley (yoga teacher and author of Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance) takes Laurie through Patanjali's text, saying its lessons "can be applied in every circumstance, no matter who you are or where you are."

Hear more from The Happiness Lab at apple.co/happinesslab.

What do we owe future humans? In principle, it seems obvious that we should do what we can to make life better for the generations that follow, just as our ancestors did for us. But while most of us agree that doing this is the right thing, it can be hard to put into practice while also avoiding some of the pitfalls that often afflict growing philosophies like effective altruism and longtermism.

Join Dave as he speaks to Harvard psychologist and philosopher Joshua Greene about what drives our moral instincts, and to futurist Ari Wallach about how tapping into spirituality and emotion can help us become better ancestors to those yet to be born.

Find out more about Joshua Greene’s work, including how to buy his book Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, on his website. Also, check out Giving Multiplier, a donation system Josh co-created based on research about how to improve charitable giving decisions.

Ari Wallach is the author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs. Find out about the book and Longpath in general here. You can also read Ari’s article for Wired about addressing short-termism, or watch his TED talk.

Other interesting readings on the topic for this episode: The Big Thing Effective Altruism (Still) Gets Right, by Ezra Klein for the New York Times, and Effective altruism gave rise to Sam Bankman-Fried. Now it’s facing a moral reckoning, by Sigal Samuel for Vox.

Sooner or later, most of us experience grief from losing someone we love. It’s always painful, and sometimes even debilitating. But there is plenty we can do to help ourselves and others be resilient. Join Dave as he talks with Columbia University psychologist George Bonanno and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl about ways to promote a healthy mourning process and find a path back to life.

George Bonnano’s book The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss, is available on his website. Find out more about Rabbi Angela Buchdahl here.

If you ask people what they think about religion, you often get one of two answers: Religion is the source of war, violence, abuse, and hypocrisy OR a route to love, kindness, tolerance, and mercy. Put another way, it’s either what divides us or it’s the thing that can actually bring us together. In a country deeply divided over social, political, and moral issues that seems to be moving further apart by the day, the answer’s not likely to be a simple one.

How God Works held its first live event in December to explore just that. Why does something that has the potential to connect us so deeply also have the ability to divide us so profoundly? And, regardless of what we believe, is there something we can learn from what religion gets right to find a way to come together?

In a wide-ranging and often moving discussion, Dave spoke to a panel of leading spiritual thinkers and social scientists who have experienced both sides of the issue, including Central Synagogue Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, award-winning author and Christian Historian Diana Butler Bass, The University of North Carolina’s Deepest Beliefs Lab director Kurt Gray, and The Aspen Institute’s Religion and Society Program’s executive director Simran Jeet Singh.

This podcast episode is an audio recording of the event in its entirety. If you’d rather watch than listen, a video of the event is available here.

We've had a lot of new listeners join us of the past year, so while we're hard at work on our next season, we thought we'd share some favorites you might have missed from the archives. Since this episode was first published, the Surgeon General has issued an advisory about the effects of social media on youth mental health, and, more recently, called for warning label on all social media platforms. 

Time with family, friends and loved ones is supposed to be at the center of the holiday season … but in our screen-dominated world, how many of us can say that’s still true?
Our devices are purposefully designed to monopolize our attention and make themselves hard to put down. So even though we know that spending too much time staring at screens is bad for us, the addiction can be hard to break. With the New Year almost upon us, why not try to make a new start? Join Dave as he tries to put down his phone and find a little spiritual renewal with advice from marketing professor Adam Alter and Tech Shabbat advocate Rabbi Sydney Mintz. 
Adam Alter is the author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. To find out more about Adam’s work, including his forthcoming book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough, visit his website. 
In addition to serving as the Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco for 25 years, Sydney Mintz is also an activist, writer, and performer. Find out more about the many projects she’s involved in on her website. 
Find out more about the ideas behind Tech Shabbat in Tiffany Shlain’s book 24/6: Giving Up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection. To learn more about the spiritual aspects of Shabbat, Rabbi Mintz recommends reading The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Time with family, friends and loved ones is supposed to be at the center of the holiday season… but in our screen-dominated world, how many of us can say that’s still true? Our devices are purposefully designed to monopolize our attention and make themselves hard to put down. So even though we know that spending too much time staring at screens is bad for us, the addiction can be hard to break.

With the New Year almost upon us, why not try to make a new start? Join Dave as he tries to put down his phone and find a little spiritual renewal with advice from marketing professor Adam Alter and Tech Shabbat advocate Rabbi Sydney Mintz.

Adam Alter is the author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. To find out more about Adam’s work, including his forthcoming book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough, visit his website.

In addition to serving as the Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco for 25 years, Sydney Mintz is also an activist, writer, and performer. Find out more about the many projects she’s involved in on her website.

Find out more about the ideas behind Tech Shabbat in Tiffany Shlain’s book 24/6: Giving Up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection. To learn more about the spiritual aspects of Shabbat, Rabbi Mintz recommends reading The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

‘Tis the season for giving and…forgiving. But while forgiveness is something to which we often aspire, it can be harder than it seems at times. It's human to feel the tension between the urge for revenge and the intent to forgive, especially when the hurt or betrayal is great. That tension shows up in many religions too, though forgiveness usually wins. But it’s not just a religious ideal, it’s also a biological necessity.

We’ll talk to evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough about the evolutionary case for forgiveness and why it’s a show of strength, not weakness. And theologian Miroslav Volf about the Christian foundation for forgiveness, and the tools religion can offer when forgiveness feels impossible.

Michael McCullough is a Professor of Psychology at UC San Diego. He is author of the book Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct. Find out more about his work on his website.

Professor Miroslav Volf is founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Read his book, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, and listen to the Center’s podcast For the Life of the World.

Join us for the very first How God Works live event this Wednesday, December 7th at 7:30pm, at The Greene Space in New York.

For tickets and more information, click here.

If you can’t make it in person, not to worry, we’ll be livestreaming the event here.

Work is becoming a “religion” for many people these days. It’s worship of the efficient, productive, and almighty dollar. But that doesn’t make people very happy. And organizations filled with miserable employees aren’t ideal for making the world a better place either. Can anything be done to fix it?

We’ll talk to Sacred Design Lab co-founder Angie Thurston about how to make workplaces more spiritually nourishing, and to theologian and consultant Curtis Chang about what it means to align the values of a business with a spiritual tradition. We’ll also talk to business professor Subi Rangan about how CEOs and managers can balance profit with doing good. 

Visit the Sacred Design Lab website to find out more about Angie Thurston’s work, including publications on how secular spaces are fulfilling spiritual functions, and how to design more soulful workplaces. Visit this link for more information on the Harvard Business course The Spiritual Lives of Leaders.

Learn more about Curtis Chang’s faith-based consulting work here, and check out the podcast he co-hosts: Good Faith.

To find out more about Subi Rangan’s work, visit his website and check out the group he initiated, The Society for Progress.

Can you pray with a robot? Will people worship AI like a god? It's not science fiction. It's starting to happen now. But what does it mean if robots become priests, or AIs start offering ethical advice? And how do we know when to trust them?

We’ll talk to MIT social roboticist Cynthia Breazeal about how technology can manipulate our minds and emotions for good or ill, and with religion professor Robert Geraci about how technology is being used in religion, and why AI may need some spiritual training itself.

Watch Cynthia Breazeal’s TED talk here, and find out about her work on the MIT Media Lab website. Find out more about Robert Geraci’s work on his website.

Meet the robots: Nexi, Mindar, and SanTO.

Have you ever heard a voice, seen an image, or felt a presence around you that you couldn’t explain? If you have, you’re not alone. More people than you might think report having these kinds of experiences. For some, it can be easy to write these off as tricks of the mind. But for others, especially the religious and spiritually-inclined, these events are often transformative and can profoundly alter the way they feel about their faith.

So how is it that gods come to feel real to people? What do these experiences do for those who have them? And why, sometimes, does it feel like the supernatural world is connecting with us out of the blue?

Episode guests:

Tanya Luhrmann is an anthropologist at Stanford University. Find out more about her book, How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others, on her website, where you'll also find links to her other writing and media appearances.

Michael Ferguson is a neuroscientist at Harvard University. Find out more about his research and teaching through his website.

Reverend Liz Milner is ordained in the Episcopal Church. She works with prison inmates in northern California.

Join us for the very first How God Works live event on Wednesday, December 7 at The Greene Space in New York.

For tickets and more information, click here.

If you can’t make it in person, not to worry: we’ll be livestreaming the event too.

Every year, thousands of people head to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for a week at Burning Man. And while from the outside, it might seem like a place for partying, drugs, and debauchery, to many, it offers something deeper, even life changing.

We’ll ask neuroscientist Molly Crockett and Episcopal minister Alex Leach, both burners themselves: Is Burning Man a new type of spiritual gathering? How and why does it deeply move people? And should more traditional faiths aim to have a bit more Burning Man in them? After all, Jesus went to the desert to find himself. Maybe we should too.

For more on Molly’s research, visit her website or read her article in The Guardian. Alex Leach’s camp at Burning Man is Religious AF. Special thanks to Alex for recording interviews and ambient audio for this episode at this year’s Burning Man.

How God Works will be back with Season 3 starting October 16th! This season we’ll continue to explore some of life’s deepest questions through science and spirituality.  But we’ll also have another big question in mind - What comes next?

As a society that fears death, we tend to avoid the subject. But the key to having a positive end-of-life experience might come in doing just the opposite. On this episode, we’ll hear from philosopher Simon Critchley, Boston-area chaplains Ruth Delfiner, Sarah Byrne-Martelli, and Maude Quinn, and Threshold Choir singer Leigh Davis about what makes a good death, and the many rituals, spiritual or secular, that ease our transition out of this world.

Simon Critchley is the author of many books about death, including The Book of Dead Philosophers and How to Stop Living and Start Worrying. Find out more about his other work, including his most recent book, Bald, on his website.

In addition to her work as a chaplain, Sarah Byrne-Martelli is the author of Memory Eternal: Living with Grief as Orthodox Christians, due out this summer.

Find out about Leigh Davis’s art on her website, where you can also see some of her collaborations with the Threshold Choir. Find out more about the Threshold Choir here.

Threshold Choir Song Credits:

Beyond Weeping

Rest in each breath

Words and Music by Annie Garretson for Threshold Choir

Sung by Dorothy Calvani, Leigh Davis, Winnie Lee & Marcia Picciotto

Calming, Resting, Breathing

Words and Music by Patricia Hallam for Threshold Choir

Sung by Leigh Davis, Mckendree Key & Georgia Elrod

Ocean Breath

Rest Easy

Words and Music by Helen Greenspan for Threshold Choir

Sung by Pittsburgh Threshold Choir

Hey Listeners, as we plan future seasons, we'd love to know what you appreciate most about the show... and what you think we can improve or would like to see us cover. If you have five minutes to spare, please consider responding to our audience survey. Thanks!

Sooner or later, most of us experience grief from losing someone we love. It’s always painful, and sometimes even debilitating. But there is plenty we can do to help ourselves and others be resilient. Join Dave as he talks with Columbia University psychologist George Bonanno and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl about ways to promote a healthy mourning process and find a path back to life.

George Bonnano’s book The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss, is available on his website. Find out more about Rabbi Angela Buchdahl here.

Data shows that for many people, happiness takes a big dip around 50. But aging doesn’t have to be a crisis if we can figure out how to embrace who we’re becoming rather than hanging on to who we used to be. If done right, midlife can actually be a time of deepening joy and satisfaction. Join Dave as he talks to The Atlantic columnist Arthur C. Brooks and Swami Tyagananda, head of Boston’s Vedanta Society, about how to move into the second half of our life with grace.

To find out more about Swami Tyagananda, visit the Vedanta Society’s website. Click here to buy Arthur Brooks’s book From Strength to Strength and learn about his podcast and other writings.

To hear Hollywood tell it, good sex is a clothes-ripping race to the finish line, often between people who barely know each other. But the version we’re getting from movies and pop culture isn’t what it takes to build real intimacy, trust, and connection in the long term. On this episode, we’ll talk to Rachel Alba, a clinical sexologist with a master’s in theology, about the connection between sex and spirituality, and why exploring that link may be key to developing a deeper, more fulfilling relationship with your partner, and maybe even the divine.

To find out more about Rachel Alba’s work, visit her website, Sex With Spirit.

The definition of a “good” marriage has changed drastically over time and today it seems our expectations for our partner are higher than ever.  We want a best friend, intellectual equal, lover, and for many, a sensational co-parent who can also touch our soul. Which is a lot of pressure to put on one person! On this episode we'll talk to psychologist Eli Finkel, author of The All or Nothing Marriage, about the history, workings, and complications of wedded bliss. We’ll also hear about why the secret to a healthy marriage might not be what you think, and how intimacy might be an important way to meet even our spiritual needs.

For more on Eli Finkel’s book, The All or Nothing Marriage, visit his website.