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Deep Psychology Podcast with author Ross Edwards New episodes Wednesday; snippets on Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday Explore my 200-episode archive by category: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Follow my fortnightly newsletter: https://eepurl.com/iQjAiw My books & music: https://deep-psychology.com
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Deep Psychology makes metaphysical and scientific assumptions visible by testing them against immediate experience.
Ross Edwards turns first-principles questions into patient solo inquiry. He asks what it means to call the universe physical, whether an external world can be proved, how the sense of self and other develops, and what brain activity can actually explain about experience.
A friend says they're home, and suddenly your certainty about the external world has homework.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient challenge to the reality you think you have already proved.
Ross Edwards takes a familiar question and keeps circling it until it feels newly unsettled: whether a sense of an external world is the same thing as proving that the external world exists.
A patient challenge to the idea that the world is only matter.
Ross Edwards builds the episode around a plain but stubborn question: what does it mean to call the world physical? He draws on familiar examples such as pens and water, then pushes at the materialist view that matter alone explains reality.
A patient argument that turns a strange question into a careful study of how self and other come into view.
Deep Psychology starts with a question that sounds unlikely, then uses it to unsettle assumptions people usually carry without thinking. Ross Edwards moves from family, friends, colleagues, and the basic fact of other people back toward how the sense of self and other comes into…
A steady case for reading some resolution failures as developmental limits rather than simple discipline problems.
Ross Edwards closes out his January resolution series by treating failure less as a sign of weak discipline than as a developmental limit. The piece keeps circling a plain question about how much a self can hold at any given stage, and that gives the argument a calm, coherent…
A season-by-season history show pairing dramatized Rasputin and Salem narratives with historian interviews.
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Weekly Portuguese-language sermons from Pastor Pedro Bastoge on scripture, end times, and church life.
MJ Dorian's solo deep dives trace genius through Blake, McQueen, da Vinci, and Jung's Red Book.
Two Methodist pastors and guests work through forgiveness, control, and grief in scripture.
The host introduces the Deep Psychology Podcast, recommends four key episodes for new listeners to understand his approach to spirituality, philosophy, and psychology, and provides scheduling details.
This segment explores the motivations behind spiritual teaching, suggesting that many teachers do it because it makes them feel good and provides an addictive, elevated state, while students often idealize them without seeing their full humanity.
The speaker discusses the inherent assumptions in teaching, particularly in spiritual contexts, using the example of teaching guitar to illustrate the knowledge gap between teacher and student.
The segment discusses how beginner meditators often reject the present moment and use meditation as a means to an end, such as for relaxation or escape, rather than resting in the present.
The host introduces an episode discussing the limits of spiritual teaching and learning, with promotional content about podcast scheduling and episodes.
This segment explores the idea that true spiritual awakening comes from fully embracing the present moment and recognizing oneself as pure experience, rather than seeking fulfillment elsewhere.
The speaker advocates using the word 'recognition' instead of 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' to describe a grounded, non-miraculous understanding of one's true nature and present experience.
This segment critiques the term 'enlightenment' for creating misleading expectations of a single climactic event, arguing instead that it is a gradual, ongoing process akin to learning an instrument, with practical transformation and insight at its core.
This episode explores why many meditators fail to progress deeply in their practice despite meditation's proven power for spiritual awareness and awakening.
This segment discusses how the word 'enlightenment' accurately captures the transformative and insightful aspects of spiritual awakening, as observed in changes in behavior and personality.
This segment discusses the early stage of meditation, where it is viewed as an active practice requiring effort, with awakening seen as a distant, mythic future event and insights like impermanence being understood conceptually rather than experientially.
This segment discusses the late stage of meditation, where one realizes that awakening is not a goal to achieve, the self is an illusion, and all experience is interconnected.
This episode introduces the concept of meditation as a developmental journey with three stages, focusing on spiritual insight rather than just practice metrics like calmness or duration.
The host discusses the complexity of answering the meaning of life, rejecting oversimplified or cliched answers like love or family.
The speaker discusses how questioning the meaning of life is often misinterpreted as nihilism or depression, emphasizing that this attachment to meaning is a human tendency that doesn't necessarily imply negativity.
The speaker critiques simplistic and overly complex answers to the meaning of life, rejecting clichés like love and family as insufficient and warning against ungrounded, complicated explanations.
This segment discusses how personal meaning in life is highly individual and cannot be dictated by others, drawing parallels to evolving personal tastes in food.
This episode explores the psychological barriers to setting and maintaining New Year's resolutions, focusing on autonomous goal achievement and habit formation.
This episode introduces a series on why New Year's resolutions often fail, focusing on psychological insights and strategies for maintaining goals and habits over time.
This episode segment introduces a discussion on Christmas symbols, highlighting it as a controversial topic within a psychology-focused podcast series.
This episode explores the concept of Christ as one's true nature, connecting it to Christmas and Christianity through a psychological and spiritual lens.
This episode discusses how to celebrate Christmas from a mystical perspective, exploring deep psychological and spiritual insights.
This episode segment discusses how partners in a relationship see everything about each other, emphasizing its importance for self-understanding and relationship dynamics.
This episode segment introduces a deep dive into romantic infatuation, exploring its personal, cultural, and psychological aspects as part of a November series on relationships.
This episode introduces the concept that intimate relationships act as a 'furnace' where partners face intense challenges and must either sink or swim together.
This episode concludes a series on integral spirituality by providing practical guidance on self-assessing one's spiritual development and determining if one is truly an integral spiritual practitioner.
The host introduces a spiral dynamics test episode, promising to analyze the question of determining one's developmental stage rather than providing a simple checklist.
This episode segment introduces the practice of Integral Spirituality, discussing how different developmental forms of spirituality differ from each other.
The host discusses how long-term yoga practice does not guarantee spiritual growth or transformative experiences, expressing personal frustration with spiritual traps in practices like yoga.
The segment discusses how new meditators often have unrealistic expectations, such as immediate calm and transformation, influenced by marketing promises.
This segment explores the inherent limitations of learning in spirituality, arguing that it creates a false separation between subject and object, such as constructing a teacher, which contradicts the ever-present knowledge of one's true nature.
The speaker criticizes the education system for producing science teachers and lecturers who uncritically accept and repeat information without questioning its limits, likening them to parrots in an echo chamber.
This episode introduces a series exploring the philosophical assumptions and critiques of science to encourage independent and critical thinking beyond accepted scientific dogma.
The host discusses how the term 'enlightenment' is misleading in spirituality, suggesting it implies a grand transformation when it actually refers to a quieter, more ordinary recognition of one's true self.
The mid-stage of meditation involves thoughts losing authority, leading to a dissolving identity and faster-resolving emotions due to reduced resistance.
This episode segment emphasizes that individuals must take responsibility for their own speech, behavior, communication, emotions, and thoughts in intimate relationships, rather than relying on their partner.
This segment argues that developing self-other consciousness is a necessary developmental capacity for functioning in reality and society, similar to learning to speak.
This episode introduces an advanced, spiritual perspective on Christmas, exploring its meaning, Jesus, symbols, and how to celebrate it authentically.
This episode concludes a series on intimate relationships by summarizing key principles and emphasizing the importance of practice for personal growth.
The host explores the philosophical concept of naive realism—the assumption that a permanent physical world exists beyond our perception—and argues it's an unprovable but useful assumption rather than proven reality.
Host Ross Edwards explores the philosophical question 'Is the world physical?' by critiquing the materialistic paradigm with arguments about the unprovable external world, atomic emptiness, and dream reality, while also acknowledging the practical utility and experiential reality of physical behavior.
Ross Edwards opens with the episode's blunt question.
Ross Edwards wraps up his January series on keeping New Year's resolutions.
Ross Edwards opens by saying he is covering deep questions about life and reality.
This episode explores the developmental psychology of self and other, arguing that our fundamental sense of identity is not innate but a constructed capacity that emerges in childhood and solidifies in adolescence.
The host presents three essential critiques of materialism, arguing that our common-sense view of a solid, external physical world is problematic.
Host Ross deconstructs the standard paradigm we hold about other people—that they are separate, independent beings with their own minds and experiences.
The host presents a philosophical and scientific critique of the materialistic worldview, arguing that our direct experience of a physical world does not logically necessitate materialism as an ultimate truth.
The host explores the philosophical question of why we believe in materialism, arguing that while the paradigm can be critiqued, its undeniable utility and alignment with our everyday physical experiences provide strong reasons for its acceptance.
Ross Edwards examines science's bias toward models, explanations, and first causes, using Einstein's relativity and brain activity as examples.
Ross Edwards challenges the claim that brain activity explains experience, using fear responses and the amygdala as his central example.