The Observing I Podcast

The Future That Makes Us: Nick Land and Hyperstition

Can the stories we tell about the future actually help bring it into existence? In this episode of The Observing I, I explore the work of philosopher Nick Land, accelerat

October Hangout

As it’s Halloween in a few days, I decided to focus on Edgar Allen Poe and the Tell-Tale Heart for this months live session. There’s a reading of Poe’s magnificently unhi

What Do We Want from Monsters?: Noël Carroll and the Paradox of Horror

There's something rather strange about watching a horror film and complaining that it wasn't frightening enough. We spend much of our lives trying to avoid danger, discom

L’Appel du Vide and the Trouble with Being Free

Warning: This episode includes discussion of intrusive thoughts around self-harm and suicide. So, if you’re struggling with that, or if you’re really not feeling it right

Monster of Will: Aleister Crowley and the whole of the law

Aleister Crowley was a magician, occultist, self-proclaimed Great Beast 666, and a man the British press famously dubbed “The Wickedest Man in the World”. But behind the

The Malignant Malfunction: Thomas Ligotti and the Horror of Consciousness

Most horror stories try to convince us that the monster is out in the woods or lurking behind a cellar door. It’s a comforting setup, because it means you can turn the po

September Live Hangout

On the last Tuesday of the month, I do a live session with whomever wants to drop in. There’s a short essay to start, and then a casual Q&A. It’s more of a hang out with

René Girard and the Trouble with Other People’s Desires

Why do we never seem to want anything until someone else tries to pick it up first? In this episode, we look at the work of French thinker René Girard and his unsettling

Epictetus and the Things You Can’t Control

Epictetus is usually reduced to one clean Stoic idea: focus on what you can control and let go of the rest. But his actual philosophy is stranger than that, especially on

The Anti-Guru: U.G. Krishnamurti and the End of Seeking

U.G. Krishnamurti spent most of his life chasing enlightenment, then decided the entire search had been a mistake. He rejected gurus, methods and the promise that enough

Weaponising Self-Awareness: The Mind That Can Catch Itself

What happens when the mind catches itself in the act? This episode explores self-awareness, metacognition and the strange moment where a thought, reaction or impulse beco

I Never Asked for This: Anti-Natalism and the Ethics of Birth

What if having a child is a moral decision we rarely treat like one? Anti-natalism begins with an awkward fact: nobody consents to being born, every life contains some de

The Return from the Peak

You can dissolve the self, touch the infinite and return convinced you have seen behind the curtain. Then the tea goes cold, someone still deserves an apology, and the eg

Ken Wilber and the Trouble with Everything

Wilber’s four quadrants begin with a persuasive idea. A human problem has an inside and an outside, and it belongs to an individual as well as the world around them. Thi

Bernardo Kastrup: Is Consciousness Fundamental?

Bernardo Kastrup argues that consciousness may not be something the brain produces, but the reality within which brains, bodies and the physical world appear. In this epi

Donald Hoffman's Desktop of Reality

We like to believe that our eyes are honest, that the world we see is a reasonably accurate representation of what is actually there. But the math suggests a different st

Christof Koch and the Problem of Other Minds

Waking up is a slow return, a flicker of weight, a point of view, the sudden, jarring realisation that you're here again. It's the most basic fact of your existence, yet

What the scanner cannot see: David Chalmers and the hard problem of Consciousness

There is a gap between the brain scanner and the experience it measures. David Chalmers calls it the Hard Problem, and it is the question that will not go away no matter

No Exit, No Problem: Pema Chödrön’s Inner Frontier

In this episode of The Observing I, we enter the work of Pema Chödrön, exploring shenpa, groundlessness, tonglen, and the uncomfortable spiritual practice of staying pres

The Unconscious Has Bad Manners: Stanislav Grof and the Psychedelic Psyche

In this episode of The Observing I, we enter the work of Stanislav Grof, the Czech-born psychiatrist whose psychedelic research led him to a stranger view of the unconsci