PT466 – John H. Buchanan, Ph.D. – The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead: Understanding Reality and the Psychedelic Experience

<p>In this episode, Kyle interviews John H. Buchanan, Ph.D.: certified Holotropic Breathwork practitioner; contributing co-editor for <em>Rethinking Consciousness: Extraordinary Challenges for Contemporary Science</em>; and author of the new book, <a href="https://www.processingreality.com/" target= "_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Processing Reality: Finding Meaning in Death, Psychedelics, and Sobriety</em></a>.</p> <p>Recorded shortly after a week-long philosophy and breathwork conference which they both attended, they mostly dig into the challenging philosophical concepts of Alfred North Whitehead: how everything is made up of a feeling; how everything is relational and we all feel each other’s experiences; how Whitehead defined occasions and how moments of experience are accessing the totality of the past; and how neurology and the mind-brain interaction impacts human experience. This analysis leads to a lot of questions: Is the past constantly present, in that it is an active influencer on all our actions? When we relive a past event, where does that live in our minds vs. bodies? Are we tapping into a universal storehouse of past events, or are we tapping into past lives (or into others past lives)? When we sense that someone is looking at us, what is that?</p> <p>He also discusses his realization that the experiential element of non-ordinary states of consciousness was the most important; his entry point into breathwork; why breathwork creates a perfect atmosphere for conversation; reincarnation and the idea of being reincarnated into other dimensions; the concept of objective immortality and how ripple effects from a single moment continue onward; and the fallacy of misplaced concreteness and psychoid experiences: Are they real beyond our psyche?</p> <p><a href= "https://psychedelicstoday.com/2023/12/05/pt466-john-h-buchanan-ph-d/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to head to the show notes page.</a> </p>