What happens when certainty loosens—and experience takes the lead?

In this episode of The Thinning, Steven Martin sits down with Hope Fitzgerald for a wide-ranging conversation about intuition, change, and what it means to stay fluid in a world that often rewards rigidity. Hope reflects on her decades-long journey through spiritual study, dowsing, and end-of-life work, including a series of formative experiences that reshaped how she understands consciousness, surrender, and responsibility.

Together, they explore the tension between skepticism and trust, the risks of projecting authority onto spiritual teachers, and why genuine transformation often requires letting go of achievement-driven spirituality. Along the way, they discuss dowsing as an ancient technology of attention, the metaphor of the “Infinity Wave” as a way of navigating change, and how moments of profound experience don’t remove us from ordinary life—but ask more of us within it.

This is a conversation about discernment rather than certainty, practice rather than performance, and whether our ways of making meaning actually help us live with more openness and care.

What if inner peace has nothing to do with spiritual experiences, self-improvement, or finding the “right” path?

In this episode of The Thinning, Steven Martin sits down with trauma recovery guide Laura Giles for a wide-ranging, grounded conversation about why so many sincere seekers still feel unsettled—and what might actually be missing. Laura challenges the culture of instant gurus and peak experiences, arguing that peace isn’t something we acquire from outside ourselves, but something that emerges when we feel safe, connected, and no longer alone with what’s happened to us.

Together, they explore how everyday experiences like bullying, emotional neglect, and disconnection shape the nervous system; why trauma is less about what happens to us and more about facing it alone; and how attachment, not enlightenment, may be the real foundation for healing. Drawing from animist perspectives, trauma science, and lived experience, the conversation asks a quieter but more demanding question: does our spirituality actually help us live better with one another?

A thoughtful episode for anyone wary of easy answers—and curious about what peace might look like when certainty loosens.

A deep conversation between two pastors about a profound psilocybin experience in a Johns Hopkins study and its impact on spirituality, preaching, and understanding of consciousness.

Host: Steven D. Martin

Guest: Rev. Kerra Becker English

What happens when our explanations fall short—but the experience remains?

The Thinning is a new long-form podcast exploring the edges of human understanding: consciousness, near-death experiences, anomalous encounters, and the questions they raise across science, psychology, and culture. The show isn’t interested in hype or easy answers. It’s interested in how people make meaning when certainty loosens—and how those moments quietly change the way we live.

Listen to the trailer, then join the conversation where curiosity leads and the veil feels thin.