18Forty Podcast16 Dec 2025

Philip Goff: Consciousness, Mysticism, and God [Mysticism III 2/3]

Check out our new series in partnership with SHARE, 18 Questions, 40 Jewish Mystics.

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we speak with Philip Goff—a philosophy professor who devotes much of his work to investigating the ultimate nature of reality—about consciousness, mysticism, and God.

We also hear from Rabbi Eli Rubin about the possibility of “Jewish panpsychism.”

In this episode we discuss:

What is the relationship between consciousness and scientific observation?
How should people find purpose in their lives?
How does a secular philosopher make the decision to turn to religion?

Tune in to hear a conversation about whether mysticism has scientific credibility.

Interview begins at 9:22.

Philip Goff is a philosophy professor at Durham University, UK, where he devotes much of his work to investigating the ultimate nature of reality. He publishes weekly interviews and articles on his Substack. Goff is known for defending panpsychism as the best available theory of consciousness; his TEDx talk, "Is there consciousness beyond the brain?" presents this view to a wider audience. His recent book, Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023), explores panpsychism as a middle ground between traditional belief in God and secular atheism. He is a recent convert to a form of “heretical Christianity".

References:

Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity by Eli Rubin

Galileo's Error by Philip Goff

My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman

The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Tanya Chapter 2

Why? The Purpose of the Universe by Philip Goff

Mind & Cosmos by Thomas Nagel

Purpose in the Universe by Tim Mulgan

Universes by John Leslie

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