Navigating Consciousness with Rupert Sheldrake – Details, episodes & analysis

Across decades of reading and travel, something has struck me again and again: wildly different traditions, from Daoism to Hinduism to Christianity, converge on a threefold or Trinitarian model of ultimate reality. In this talk I trace that pattern through philosophy, theology, and modern physics, and suggest it reflects something fundamental about the nature of things.

Many churches will be celebrating the Holy Trinity on Sunday May 31, Trinity Sunday.

This talk was recorded live at St James’s Church London, May 13th, 2026 as part of the Alternatives programme. The full video with human readable transcript is available on substack.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0_Lkku3QH-c

What if gratitude isn't just good manners, but measurably changes your wellbeing? What if the medieval Christians were right about nature being alive, and we've spent the last 400 years getting it fundamentally wrong? And why are half a million people now walking ancient pilgrimage routes across Europe when rationalist materialism promised to free us from such "superstitions"?

In this wide-ranging conversation at Hampstead Parish Church, I explore these questions with Dr. Jessica Harland, touching on everything from my early crisis of conscience in a vivisection lab to discovering LSD at Cambridge, from the Protestant Reformation's assault on pilgrimage to why your GP should probably be prescribing forest walks. We go into the scientific evidence behind spiritual practices—yes, there are thousands of peer-reviewed studies—and discuss why saying grace before meals, walking to holy places, and reconnecting with the living world aren't quaint relics of the past, but practices our secular age desperately needs to rediscover.

Whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, or simply curious about why these ancient practices refuse to die, I hope you'll find something here that sparks your imagination—and perhaps your own spiritual journey.

Recorded at The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead, October 2025. If you're in London, I highly recommend coming by to experience choral evensong.
https://www.choralevensong.org/uk/the-parish-church-of-st-john-at-hampstead-27.php

A dialogue with Marc Andrus, former Bishop of California, at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. Our ancestors’ lives from birth to death were shaped and structured by spiritual traditions but today many people are no longer connected to religious festivals or practices.  This loss of religious faith in unprecedented, and in 2016 in the UK a survey showed that for the first time in history a majority of the population say they have no religion.  In this dialogue Rupert and Marc discuss the possibility of reconnecting through festivals, pilgrimages and sacred places. 

Rupert answered this question during a talk given at Hollyhock in 2014. Might dreams tell us something about what happens when we die?

The full talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxsNpMpPT3Q

A talk at the University of Northampton given on the 27th of November, 2018 - Morley Room, Waterside Campus.

Video of the talk: https://youtu.be/JtW-FowdF44

Thanks to The Psychedelic Society (http://psychedelicsociety.org.uk) for this excerpt from a  conversation between Rupert and Robin Carhart-Harris, with Stephen Reid hosting. Recorded on the 26th of June, 2019 at EartH, Hackney, London, UK.

The full talk: https://youtu.be/l4HuFHWPc6k

Rupert’s keynote address at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS https://noetic.org) 18th International Conference in Santa Clara, California, July 19th, 2019.

Video of the talk: https://youtu.be/8F1AsThU3_I

The books:
Science and Spiritual Practices
https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/science-and-spiritual-practices

· Meditation
· Gratitude
· Connecting with nature
· Relating to plants
· Rituals
· Singing and chanting
· Pilgrimage and holy places

Ways to Go Beyond And Why They Work
https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/ways-to-go-beyond-and-why-they-work?yt=IONS2019

· The Spiritual Side of Sports
· Learning from Animals
· Fasting
· Cannabis, Psychedelics and Spiritual Openings
· Powers of Prayer
· Holy Days and Festivals
· Cultivating Good Habits, Avoiding Bad Habits and Being Kind 

An excerpt from a longer conversation between Rupert and philosopher Tim Freke (https://timfreke.com), an internationally respected authority on world spirituality and the bestselling author of more than 20 books.

Watch the full conversation: https://www.sheldrake.org/videos/sheldrake-talks-with

Dr Williams responds to Rupert's talk on spiritual practice, starting at 33:20.

Rupert speaks with Dr Rowan Williams, noted poet and translator of poetry, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Learned Society of Wales. In 2013, he was made a life peer, becoming Lord Williams of Oystermouth, in the City and County of Swansea.

Recorded in January of 2020.

This is an excerpt from an episode of the South Bank Show on Blake originally broadcast in 1995. Watch the full documentary here: https://youtu.be/Qvx0on0Hj2I

The image being discussed is Blake's painting of Newton from 1795: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_(Blake)#/media/File:Newton-WilliamBlake.jpg