Aaron Beck, who died today aged 100, was the founder of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) — arguably the most influential and ubiquitous form of talking therapy today, one in which the NHS has put billions of pounds. CBT personally helped me to recover from social anxiety in the early Noughties.
Read MoreProfessor Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, who died this week aged 84, was one of the world’s best-known psychologists, famous for developing the concept of ‘flow’. I interviewed Csikszentmihalyi over the phone about his latest essay, ‘The Politics of Consciousness’, published in a new collection of essays called Well-Being and Beyond.
Read MoreAbout a decade ago, I was on the London Underground, when a beautiful woman got onto my carriage and sat a few seats down from me. I felt instantly drawn to her and did something I have never done before or since — I spoke to someone on the Tube.
Read MoreMy oldest friend is back in town this week. Yesterday we met for a drink in London Bridge. ‘I have a treat for you’, he said.
The treat turned out to be a bundle of emails I’d sent him in 2000, the year after we left university, when I was living in Seville, trying to write a novel.
I remember that as one of the hardest times of my life.
Read MoreI carried out an online survey of over 500 people, to see whether they ever found dreams useful in their life, and to test out Jung’s theory of ‘big dreams’ — unusually vivid dreams which occur in times of transition and crisis, and which offer helpful support or guidance.
Read MoreOne of the things I’m wrestling with at the moment is hierarchy in spirituality, and the idea of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’.
I’m writing a book that looks at evolutionary spirituality, and its tendency to elitism and authoritarianism. Many leading figures in the New Age of the 1880s to 1930s preached the coming of an evolved spiritual elite which, they sometimes added, deserved to dominate and control the rest of humanity.
Read MoreI read the anecdote in a biography, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, by Robert D. Richardson. James has long been my favourite philosopher and psychologist. But after reading this biography, I love James for his personality and life-philosophy.
Read MoreAbraham Maslow was one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, who helped create humanistic psychology, transpersonal psychology, and the human potential movement. He believed he’d forged an empirical spirituality which would save the world from the modern crisis of valuelessness and meaninglessness.
Read MoreIn 1841, a young Danish intellectual called Soren Kierkegaard abruptly broke off his engagement to his fiancé, the beautiful Regine Olsen. They were very much in love. So why break up?
Read MoreI’ve been considering the mental health impacts pf the COVID pandemic, and wondering how governments and organisations can support people’s mental health in the difficult months and years ahead.
One big lesson from the lockdown is that when emergencies hit and the state wobbles, people often find ways to cope. Self-help and mutual aid have flourished in the last three months. People have found solace in baking, cycling, pets, gardening, online courses, prayer, Tik-Tok dancing and volunteering.
Read MoreThe old religions said life inevitably involves suffering. The new religion of health and well-being says ‘you should be happy and healthy. If you’re not, that’s a disorder. Here’s some CBT or some pills. Now you should be happy and healthy.’
Read MoreIn Oregon, there is a honey fungus that is four miles wide and possibly 8000 years old. It appears in our reality as small white mushrooms.
Read MoreIf you’re in one of those moments where it feels like gravity has increased and the universe is taking a dump on you, here are my three best techniques for getting yourself through difficult times.
Read MoreWe’re in the vale of ambiguity. Things are not clear in this dimension. That’s part of the agony and excitement. It’s like the early stage of a romance, when it’s not clear if it’s a serious relationship or not, or is it perhaps the relationship…or is it just a rush?
Read MoreWe’re constantly getting hooked by our thoughts, beliefs and feelings, getting lost in the drama. But luckily, there’s a host of defusion techniques we can use to defuse, from ACT, CBT, Stoicism, Buddhism and many other therapeutic traditions. Here are 10 of my favourite.
Read MoreLast week, I saw a good talk on somatic experiencing therapy. I’ve heard about it, and in some ways what I heard was quite obvious, but it was good to have it spelled out.
Read MoreApologies for the delay in writing. I’ve been in California for the last three weeks, immersed in preparing for Burning Man, then going to Burning Man, then recovering from Burning Man.
Read MoreLast weekend I went to a seminar on dying at the Garrison Institute. That might seem a rather Gothic weekend, but I don’t think it’s that weird. Socrates said: 'To philosophize is to learn how to die.'
Read MoreLast week, if you remember, I was at a Buddhist seminar in the Colorado mountains, taught by a Tibetan Buddhist lama called Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. This was quite different to other Buddhist retreats I’ve been on. There wasn’t much meditation, instead there was four hours of teaching every day, over nine days.
Read MoreI’ve come to Boulder in Colorado, to hear a talk by the American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. As I’ve previously written, I picked up Chodron’s book, The Places That Scare You, while on an ayahuasca retreat, in between two rather scary ceremonies.
Read MorePema Chodron's book, The Places that Scary You, has been extremely helpful to me over the past six months. I came across the book in the Amazon jungle, when I was on an ayahuasca retreat last October.
Read MoreOn a recent retreat I met Joe, an artist in his mid-20s. Joe reminded me of an Elizabethan artist – it might have been his goatee, or his air of punchy independence mixed with free-wheeling romance.
Read MoreMindfulness has become such an unobtrusive part of our cultural landscape that we can forget how radical and counter-cultural Buddhism really is. It’s become subsumed into the well-being movement: if we take five minutes to close our eyes, breathe slowly and relax, then we can live our normal lives on a slightly happier and more even keel. That’s the promise of mindfulness.
Read MoreI’m back from a 10-day meditation retreat, at Vajrasana in sunny Suffolk. That might seem a bit of a doss, but it’s also an investment – I really want to improve my meditation practice, for my benefit and others', and it’s ten times easier to learn on retreat than at home. It’s like trying to light a match indoors versus trying to light it on the top of a windy hill.
Read MoreThis week I saw Tenzin Palmo speak at the Rigpa centre in London. She’s a remarkable woman, the daughter of a fishmonger from East London, who left Bethnal Green at the age of 20 to learn about the dharma in northern India. She became a Tibetan Buddhist nun – the second Western woman ever to do that – and then spent 12 years meditating in a Himalayan cave.
Read MoreThe only thinker whose popularity on YouTube comes close to prophet-of-rage Jordan Peterson is Alan Watts, the British popularizer of Eastern wisdom. Watts’ talks from the 50s, 60s and early 70s have millions of views on YouTube, and are often edited to the accompaniment of orchestral or ‘chillstep’ soundtracks and jazzy collages of modern life.
Read MoreHere is part 2 of my interview with pioneering researcher Milan Scheidegger, who works in the psychedelics lab at University of Zurich. You can read part 1 here. In this half of the interview, we discuss how to translate aspects of indigenous ayahuasca rituals - such as the shaman or sacred plant songs - into the context of western healthcare. We also discuss Milan's plans to establish a psychedelic healing clinic in Switzerland.
Read MoreA friend emailed me asking about retreats, whether they're useful, and how one goes about picking one.
Read MoreI went to India for the first time last year. I'd always been drawn to ancient Indian philosophy, but had put off visiting the country until I had some time to dive in. It was, I guess you could say, 'spiritual tourism': travel for the purpose of spiritual growth.
Read MoreI've believed in reincarnation longer than I can remember. It must have started in a previous life. I've never really examined my core belief. It's just been there, part of the furniture. But a new book has stung me into examining that comfy old sofa. Do I really need it? Is it time to chuck it out?
Read MoreLast month I attended a conference at Oxford University's Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion called Religion, Society and the Science of Life. The premise was that there is something called the 'new biology' which is perhaps more sympathetic to religious or spiritual views of existence than the 'old biology'.
Read MoreYesterday, I was at a panel on mental health in India, at a conference in Goa organized by UCL. One of the speakers – Ratnaboli Ray, who runs a mental health NGO called Anjali in West Bengal – asked for anyone in the audience who’d ever had mental illness or been on psychiatric drugs to raise their hands. For a few seconds, no one did. And then about 10 of us did, in a room of around 100.
Read MoreLast Sunday I finished a 10-day Vipassana retreat, at a monastery in Sweden. This was my third attempt to do a monastic retreat - I’d done a runner from both previous efforts, from a Rusian monastery in Lent 2006 (the head monk kept trying to convert me to Orthodox Christianity) and from a Benedictine monastery on the Isle of Wight in January 2013 (I was bored). This time, I vowed not to do a runner.
Read MoreWatch out folks. There is a murky world lurking behind the scenes, a sinister cabal of policy-makers, psychologists, CEOs, advertizers and life-coaches, watching you, measuring you, nudging you, monitoring your every smile, all to try and make you happy. We must resist. This, broadly, is the message of sociologist William Davies’ book, The Happiness Industry: How Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being.
Read MoreThis weekend, I was at a conference in Boston called the International Symposium on Contemplative Studies. I know - sounds pretty niche, maybe two monks, a chakra healer and a shaman with maracas? Well, it was enormous - 1600 people, 300 presentations, including ones by some of the leading psychologists in the world, and the Dalai Lama.
Read MoreIn my review of Sam Harris’ Waking Up two weeks ago, I wrote this sentence: "Spiritual experiences tell us something about the cosmos,...the experience of infinite loving-consciousness is a glimpse of the very ground of being, also sometimes called God, Brahman, Allah, the Logos, the Tao, the Buddha-realm."
Read MoreI sent out a tweet last week asking to interview someone who'd found mindfulness useful for coping with depression. Mary got in touch and told me her story, which was fascinating. I thought I'd share it for this week's newsletter.
Read MoreDear Jules, I have been going through a really rough time lately and it is quite similar to your experience. I was quite a happy go lucky person through life until I had a bad terrifying trip on weed (my first time trying) I took way too much and freaked out and that traumatised me - having very anxious scary thoughts like what if I harm my self, what if I harm others - what is the meaning of life and whats the point of it all.
Read MoreI went to the book-launch of a new book on well-being policy yesterday, which brought together some leading figures in this nascent movement - including David Halpern of the government’s ‘nudge unit’, Canadian economist John Helliwell, psychologist Maurren O'Hara, and Juliet Michaelson of the new economics foundation.
Read MoreApologies for the lack of newsletters recently - I’ve been in the depths of a project to design and teach a course based on Philosophy for Life. This month, I started teaching it in three organizations - a mental health charity in London called Manor Gardens; Saracens rugby club; and Low Moss prison in Glasgow (via New College Lanarkshire, which runs learning courses there).
Read MoreThis year I got some funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to teach a course in practical philosophy with three partner organizations - Manor Gardens, a mental health charity in North London; Low Moss prison in Glasgow; and Saracens rugby club.
Read MoreLast weekend I had a glimpse of the future. I spoke at a New Age festival in Holland, a country where just 39% of people belong to a religion. According to the British Social Attitudes Survey released this week, that’s where we’re heading too. Thirty years ago, 68% of Brits said they belonged to a religion. Now it’s just 52%, of which less than half are Anglican. We are about to become a post-religious society. So what does that look like?
Read MoreI’ve just re-read William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, which he gave as a series of lectures in 1902. It is a marvelous book, in which James attempts to take a pragmatic and empirical approach to religious experiences, remaining open to the question of where such experiences come from, and evaluating them by looking at their impact on people’s lives. In other words, he looks at the fruits, not the roots, of religious experience.
Read MoreWe've all hallucinated during sex, haven't we? Or...is it just me?! Well I have anyway, on a couple of occasions. Once was back in 1996. I had just left university, and broken up with my girlfriend in the clumsiest and most insensitive way imaginable.
Read MoreHere are some quotes from my favourite living artist, David Lynch, about the creative process. They're from Chris Rodley's book, Lynch on Lynch:
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