The Soul with Emile Alexandrov

Summary

Psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove and philosopher Emile Alexandrov trace how the idea of the soul has shifted across Greek, Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, Enlightenment and modern thought. They contrast the Greek view of the soul as a fragment of cosmic reason, Aquinas's eternal individual soul, and the Buddhist doctrine of no-self that still allows for rebirth. The conversation reaches parapsychological evidence for survival after death and the Russian Cosmist dream of resurrecting every human who has ever lived, while asking whether whatever survives death remains an individual.

Key takeaways

• 1Emile Alexandrov is the author of 'Metaphysics and the Ineffable' and 'The Other Platonist Beginning', an assistant professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, and a visiting scholar at the University of New Mexico
• 2Al-Farabi (c. 870-950) held that the two-stage process of making meaning applies only to the embodied soul, and that after death only pure intellect remains
• 3Buddhist rebirth is explained without a soul: a 'life stream' of karmic residue carries clinging from one life to the next, and the Buddha is said to have recalled millions of past lives
• 4Mishlove cites the case of 'Dr. Lang', a deceased eye surgeon who allegedly worked as a spirit guide performing healings for decades; Lang's daughter reportedly left much of her estate to the medium channeling him
• 5Ian Stevenson's research on children with detailed past-life memories is discussed as possible evidence of survival, or of a transfer of memory and information
• 6Alexandrov lectured to the Mormon Transhumanist Association, and Nikolai Fedorov's Russian Cosmism is described as calling for the 'common task' of universally resurrecting all ancestors and expanding into space

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

Of course, you know, like I said with the Greeks, it's not so decisive that they have a concrete entity to soul. Mhm. I mean the the Christians certainly read them as saying that that is the case but it isn't so much. Um whereas the Buddhists they take this as a starting point and they do this because they want to to narrow in meditation to the point where you no longer are aware of externals. So you're silencing. They're seeking that silencing. >> Right? So in so doing you have to silence quite literally every aspect of human experience. >> But the ultimately positive message of this is that it is not annihilation. This is what frightens a lot of people. They think about oblivion >> right >> or an abyss. It's not >> for the Buddhists. The idea is if you do silence all of this it is an unimaginable bliss. >> Yeah. >> Keep watching to learn more. The new Thinking Aloud magazine issue 10 on UFOs and UAP is now ready for free download and you can also order beautiful printed copies. Go to newthinkingaloud.org. New thinking aloud is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body, and spirit. the topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parasychology and the paranormal. Visit their website at cihs.edu. >> Book four in the new thinking aloud dialogue series is Charles T. Tart 70 years of exploring consciousness and parasychology now available on Amazon. >> >> Thinking Aloud conversations on the leading edge of knowledge and discovery with psychologist Jeffrey Michionlo. Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Michionlo. Today we are going to talk about the soul. ...

Excerpt from New Thinking Allowed, Aug 28, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.