Essentia Readings

Welcome back everyone! Today’s article is a fascinating deep dive into the subject of morality and the neurological mechanics of our joint human condition. It is an eye-opening presentation of how we actually relate to each other, and what this could mean for the future of our collective consciousness. Join me, for a fittingly wholesome start to the year.  

In the best episode of 'Essentia Readings' yet, Nadia Hassan reads Dr. Donna Thomas's 'Re-thinking identity: Children’s experiences of self.' Nadia also introduces us to her young niece, a child who very matter-of-factly states that she is aware, during sleep, of the fact that she is asleep. This suggests that our original, natural sense of self and consciousness, before culture tells us how to think about both, is much different than our adult understanding.

Today’s article delves into a phenomenon that has been largely dismissed. One’s position regarding these events tends to encapsulate a person’s view on the fundamental nature of life, as it deals with its apparent end: death, or a close brush with it. We’ll be looking at the scientific research into the phenomena of NDE’s (Near Death Experiences) and what this can tell us about human consciousness as a whole.

Today’s article poses the million-dollar question: “What is consciousness”? A much debated matter among academics, scientists, and thinkers the world over for centuries, but the burning curiosity germinates in us all and from quite a young age, as soon as we start to wonder who we are, why we’re here, and every other run of the mill existential question. Answers to these questions have been attempted by the religious, the atheist, sometimes by the downright eccentric. Many people look to science and today’s author comes from the world of medicine. What can neuroscience tell us about the nature of consciousness? Let’s find out.  

The article I’ll be presenting today is by an author whose work has been focused, in part, on the psychology of consciousness and psycho-semantics, problems of the unconscious, altered states of consciousness, ethnic and cross-cultural psychology, and the philosophical issues of psychology. In what I’ll be reading, he explores our current understanding of the collective unconscious, how it functions, the value it presents for humanity, and what we can unlock if we are able to tune into it more actively. 

Hello and welcome to the Essentia Readings podcast. My name is Nadia and I’ll be bringing you content from a wide range of contributors: scholars, journalists, philosophers, scientists, and academics. All to do with that ineffable thing we call consciousness. What is the underlying nature of reality? How do we explain our experience of the world and others? And what are the real implications of viewing existence from an idealist perspective, rather than the prevalent metaphysical model of materialism? These questions and more will be tackled in the episodes to come, and so whether you’re savvy or simply curious, I invite you to join us on this journey of discovery. The article I’ll be presenting today is actually the first one I read back when the Essentia Foundation website was launched. As soon as I saw the tag “Mythology”, I couldn’t click fast enough. As a longtime lover of mythology and fantasy fiction, I knew that was where I should begin, and so it seems only appropriate that we begin here too. Fellow geeks, this one’s for you.