Before language, before heartbeat, there was rhythm - the pulse that shaped both cosmos and consciousness. In this episode of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the hidden architecture of the mind’s music: the neural oscillations and neurochemical cadences that give rise to awareness itself. Drawing on research by György Buzsáki (New York University), Earl Miller (MIT), Christof Koch (Allen Institute for Brain Science), Laura Colgin (University of Texas at Austin), and Patricia Locke (UCLA), Dr. Rey examines how gamma, theta, alpha, and delta waves synchronize the brain’s electrical ensembles with the biochemistry of gamma-aminobutyric acid, glutamate, and acetylcholine. Through this rhythmic interplay, thought becomes chord, perception becomes phrase, and emotion becomes harmony. From Miller’s discovery that working memory depends on oscillatory phase-locking, to Colgin’s finding that hippocampal rhythms toggle between recalling the past and composing the future, we begin to see cognition as a living composition - part science, part symphony. Listeners are invited to consider a provocative question: what if consciousness is not computation but composition? When neurons resonate in phase, awareness coheres; when coherence breaks, selfhood dissolves into silence. Neural Oscillations and the Biochemistry of Rhythm reveals the mind not as machinery but as music - an improvisation between ions and intention. Follow Dr. Juan Carlos Rey on LinkedIn and X (@DrJuanCarlorRey), or share reflections at TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com. If the rhythm speaks to you, please leave a review or rating wherever you listen - it helps this inquiry into the measurable and the mystical reach new ears.

A listener writes from Toronto: “I’ve always felt intuitive - but I don’t know how to trust or strengthen it. Is intuition a gift or a skill?” In this episode of The Observable Unknown, I respond with both rigour and heart. Drawing on over two decades of research and training - from neuroscience to somatic practice to symbolic language - I share the system I’ve developed to help intuition become usable intelligence. We explore how the body-brain interface holds predictive power, how the nervous system speaks metaphorically, and how intuition can be taught, measured, and integrated into daily life. The sacred becomes trainable. The incipient awareness becomes architecture. If you’ve ever felt a signal you couldn’t translate, or a hunch you couldn’t trust, this episode invites you to step into the practice of knowing what you already feel.

Astrologer Sam Reynolds returns to discuss not only numerous aspects of astrology that were not discussed previously, but also his forthcoming class on a Basic Introduction to Astrology.

In this profound installment of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the ancient and often misunderstood intersection of erotic performance and spirituality. Responding to a listener’s question from San Antonio, Dr. Rey traces how the language of desire has always mirrored the language of the divine. From Plato’s Symposium to modern neuroscience, Eros emerges not as indulgence but as a way of knowing. Drawing on the work of Jaak Panksepp, Helen Fisher, and Andrew Newberg, Dr. Rey reveals that the same neural circuits governing erotic arousal - dopamine, oxytocin, and the reward pathways of the limbic system - also ignite during prayer, meditation, and states of awe. Pleasure and transcendence, he suggests, are biologically intertwined. This episode also examines performance as ritual: how the body, in conscious movement, becomes both subject and sacrament. We visit the anthropology of Dionysian rites, the psychological insights of Carl Jung, and the somatic therapies of Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine, each pointing toward a single truth - that awareness within desire transforms instinct into revelation. Listeners will discover that sacred sensuality is neither paradox nor provocation, but a form of embodied theology. In Dr. Rey’s words, “To feel is to know, and to know through feeling is to remember what the soul once forgot.” Tune in to The Observable Unknown for this meditation on the chemistry of longing, the neurobiology of transcendence, and the oldest sacrament of all - the consciousness that trembles when it recognizes itself.

What if faith were simply the nervous system daring to trust its own prediction? In this Mailbag installment, Dr. Rey responds to listener DeShawn Carter of Atlanta, Georgia, whose question probes the hidden alliance between free will, intuition, and the brain’s comparator model – that quiet circuit which measures intention against outcome, authorship against experience. From Chris Frith’s neuroscience of agency to the ancient mystic’s surrender, this episode explores how faith and intuition emerge not in opposition to science but as its most mysterious expressions. Can belief be mapped onto synapses? Can intuition be a biological form of grace? Listen as Dr. Rey unravels these questions, reminding us that to know and to trust are not separate verbs but different tenses of the same awakening. Submit your question: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text line: 336-675-5836 Please rate, share, and review this episode wherever you're listening.

What if evolution is not a finished act, but an ongoing collaboration between ancestry and awareness? In this interlude of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the profound intersection between phylogenetic inertia - the evolutionary gravity that preserves our biological past - and epigenetic rewriting, the molecular poetry of adaptation that lets life edit its own script. Through studies by Dr. Samuel Almeida, Dr. Michael Kertes, Dr. Jessica Loke, Dr. Steve Horvath, and Dr. Helena Verdile, this episode reveals how inheritance moves beyond genes: into chemistry, emotion, opportunity, and choice. From prenatal stress shaping neural architecture to trauma accelerating biological age, Interlude XV examines how the genome is less a fixed code and more a living text - revised through experience, reflection, and resilience. The question at its center is timeless: If life remembers itself through us, what might we, in turn, choose to remember for it?   Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text line: 336-675-5836 Please rate this episode and leave a review wherever you listen.

What if memory is not only electrical - but molecular? In this new interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores how experience, stress, and nurture inscribe themselves directly into the genome of the brain. Through the pioneering studies of Michael Meaney and Moshe Szyf, we learn that the nervous system is not a fixed circuit but a living manuscript - continuously edited by love, fear, and time. From the first experiments at McGill University in the early 2000s that revealed maternal care could alter gene methylation in the hippocampus, to the recent findings that environmental enrichment can rewrite those very marks, this episode unveils a profound idea: that the brain is not only remembering life - it is being written by it. Join Dr. Rey in exploring how trauma leaves biochemical footprints, how healing may be an act of epigenetic revision, and how consciousness itself may be a story the genome keeps telling anew. Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text line: 336-675-5836 Listen now on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Podbean Please rate this episode and leave a review wherever you're listening.

What if emotion were an immune response? What if the dialogue between inflammation and thought shaped not only how we heal—but how we hope? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the emerging science of neuroimmunology, where the immune and nervous systems reveal themselves as co-authors of consciousness. Through the work of Ronald Duman (Yale University), Harry Male (University of Illinois), and Jonathan Kipnis (Washington University in St. Louis), we trace how cytokines, microglia, and lymphatic pathways sculpt mood, memory, and meaning. From autoimmune melancholy to the “sickness behavior” that demands rest, this episode unveils the silent director behind cognition itself— showing that inflammation and illumination may be closer kin than we ever imagined. Continue the conversation WhatsApp channel: TheObservableUnknown Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text: 336-675-5836 And wherever you listen, please leave a review and rating - your words help the dialogue evolve.

In this first listener-driven episode, I turn the conversation inward - answering a question from Tanya W (Portland, OR) about what it means to be a moral witness in a world that often rewards unseeing obedience. We invoke Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”, explore the tension between witnessing and complicity, and ask: how do we interrupt history’s momentum? Join me as we reflect on conscience, attention, and the subtle art of refusing sleep in the face of cruelty. How to engage & support the show: • Send your questions for future mailbag episodes - TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com • Text thoughts or reflections directly to 336-675-5836 • Wherever you listen - please leave a rating + written review. Each voice helps this constellation grow.

In this episode, Dr. Rey takes a second opportunity to answer more listener-submitted questions regarding himself and his role as host of "The Observable Unknown" Podcast.

What if intuition… digestion… and belief were all part of the same conversation? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the growing science of the gut-brain axis - where trillions of microbes whisper through the vagus nerve to shape emotion, cognition, and even moral intuition. Drawing on research from Emeran Mayer, Sarkis Mazmanian, John Cryan, and Ted Dinan, this journey reveals a hidden ecology of consciousness - where neurotransmitters, bacteria, and the human nervous system collaborate to compose what we call self. Here, the Observable Unknown is not distant or abstract - it’s inside you. Alive, responsive, and evolving.  Continue the conversation: WhatsApp channel: TheObservableUnknown Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text: 336-675-5836 Wherever you listen, please leave a review and rating - your voice helps others discover the mystery that connects mind, body, and meaning. When you write, tell us: How did you first find out about the show? What’s your favorite part or episode so far? What’s one thing we could do to make the show better? And what’s one thing you’re struggling with right now?

What if every thought, memory, and feeling were a chemical symphony? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey guides listeners through the molecular foundations of consciousness—how neurotransmitters like acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and cortisol shape our choices, memories, and moods. Drawing on Michael Hasselmo’s groundbreaking work on acetylcholine and memory, Hans Krebs’ discovery of the metabolic “Krebs cycle” powering every thought, and the research of scholars such as Wolfram Schultz, Kent Berridge, Robert Sapolsky, Paul Zak, Bruce McEwen, Robin Carhart-Harris, Roland Griffiths, and Gregory Bateson, this episode uncovers the hidden chemistry of our inner life. It’s a journey into the observable unknown where molecules meet mystery—where the self is revealed as a living metabolism of wonder. Continue the conversation: WhatsApp channel: TheObservableUnknown Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text: 336-675-5836 And when you do, please tell us: How did you first find out about the show? What’s your favorite part or episode so far? What’s one thing we could do to make the show better? And what’s one thing you’re struggling with right now? And please rate and review The Observable Unknown wherever you listen—your reviews help other curious minds discover this journey.

What if your most “rational” decisions were already scripted by your bloodstream? In this interlude of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey traces the hidden hormonal currents shaping risk, loyalty, ambition, and status. Drawing on the fieldwork of Robert Sapolsky among Kenyan baboons, Anna Dreber’s research on traders’ testosterone surges, Carsten de Dreu’s discoveries about oxytocin’s double edge, Wolfram Schultz’s dopamine experiments, and anthropological studies from Kristen Hawkes to David Hazlerigg, this episode reveals how biology and culture braid into one force. Testosterone asserts, cortisol constrains, oxytocin binds, dopamine drives - together forming the unseen scaffolding of our choices. By the end, you’ll never look at “free will” the same way again. 💡 Join the conversation: – WhatsApp: The Observable Unknown – Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com – Text: 336-675-5836 And if you do, please tell us: How did you first find out about the show? What’s your favorite part or episode so far? What’s one thing we could do better for future listeners? What’s one thing you’re struggling with right now? Wherever you’re listening, please leave a review and a rating - your support helps other seekers find us.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Shireen Fatemi, a distinguished endocrinologist whose vision of medicine extends far beyond lab values and prescriptions. Raised in a family that blended science with intuition, Dr. Fatemi brings a rare voice to the conversation about the body’s most mysterious messengers: our hormones. Together, we explore how endocrinology illuminates not just physical health, but also mood, memory, and identity. From the impact of cortisol and circadian rhythm, to the cultural overreliance on medication, to the uncharted mysteries of the pineal gland, Dr. Fatemi challenges us to see the human being as both rational and hormonal - balanced, interwoven, and profoundly alive. This is not just a medical conversation. It is a meditation on how hidden systems guide our choices, shape our stages of life, and even open questions of spirit and selfhood.

What happens when individuality dissolves into the crowd? From Durkheim’s collective effervescence to Tarde’s contagion of imitation, from Canetti’s swarm psychology to Girard’s scapegoat mechanism, and from Zimbardo’s situational power to Arendt’s banality of evil, this interlude explores the hidden dynamics of group mind. The observable unknown here is the collective itself: a force that shapes choice, obedience, and even violence, while remaining invisible to those within it.  Join the dialogue: WhatsApp channel: TheObservableUnknown Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text: 336-675-5836 And share with us: How did you first find out about the show? What’s your favorite part or episode so far? What’s one thing we could do to make the show better? What’s one thing you’re struggling with right now?

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?” Napoleon once asked. From collective recollection to sacred ritual, from covert interpersonal dramas to the unconscious resonance of color, from emotional imprints to memetic replication - this interlude explores the hidden architectures shaping what we call freedom. Join Dr. Juan Carlos Rey as he traces Halbwachs, Eliade, Campbell, Berne, Damasio, Lüscher, and Blackmore, revealing how conviction is never solitary but always cultural, emotional, and inherited. Continue the conversation: WhatsApp channel: TheObservableUnknown Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com Text: 336-675-5836 And share with us: How did you first find out about the show? What’s your favorite part or episode so far? What’s one thing we could do to make the show better? What’s one thing you’re struggling with right now? Please don’t forget: please leave a rating or review wherever you discovered this podcast. Every word helps.

In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey steps into the hidden architectures shaping what we call “personal choice.” Drawing on Durkheim, Halbwachs, Berger, Bourdieu, Foucault, Elias, Geertz, Butler, Gramsci, and Meloni, he unpacks how collective memory, power, ritual, and even biology create the stage on which our decisions are performed. Listeners are invited to explore the observable unknown of their own choices - what is inherited, what is suggested, and what may still be truly free. Join the conversation on WhatsApp TheObservableUnknown, email TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com, or text 336-675-5836. Share: – How you first found out about the show – Your favorite part or episode so far – One thing we could do to make the show better – One thing you’re struggling with right now Because freedom itself begins with seeing the pattern.

Davin Stronk is an erotic performance artist working within the adult entertainment industry and the intimacy trade, serving as a professional purveyor of desire in both its artistic and economic expressions. In this episode of The Observable Unknown, we explore with him how intimacy, performance, and cultural imagination converge - revealing how desire itself becomes art, commerce, and a mirror of our deepest longings.

Can memory be inherited? Can trauma echo across generations? And do our most private choices carry the weight of ancestral shadows? In this interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores the mysteries of phylogenetic inertia, epigenetic conditioning, and genetic memory - tracing how our biology remembers more than we realize. From Darwin to Jung, Holocaust studies to modern neuroscience, we uncover how memory may stretch not only backward into the lives of our ancestors, but forward into precognition and the sense of future time. What begins in science moves into philosophy, psychology, and the paranormal: retrocognition, metacognition, and precognition. Together, these open a startling possibility - that the mind itself is an heirloom, shaped by unseen inheritances and predictive forces. The Observable Unknown is where knowledge and wonder meet. Step into this space… and consider what within you is truly your own.

In this solo interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey traces how culture, persuasion, ritual, and engineered messaging shape what we take to be “our” decisions. From classic lab findings on conformity and obedience to modern persuasion tactics and the neuroscience of suggestion, this episode maps how choice is constructed long before it reaches consciousness. If you’ve ever wondered why you clicked, said yes, or changed your mind without knowing why, this is the episode for you. Listen, reflect, and learn simple practices to notice the nudges that shape your life.

Tonight’s Interlude IV of The Observable Unknown traces the living tension between free will, agency, and the brain’s hidden predictive machinery. Drawing on Libet’s timing experiments, Wegner’s critique, Friston’s predictive-processing, the comparator model, and mirror-neuron research, this episode shows how agency is constructed across layered neural processes: pre-reflective feeling, reflective judgment, and social resonance. We explore the veto as a final sanctuary for conscious intervention, attention’s role as a spotlight, and perception as controlled prediction. Poetic yet practical, the piece invites listeners to reimagine freedom as a skillful, trainable practice rather than absolute sovereignty - urging conversation, curiosity, and compassionate self-reconstruction.

The guest for this episode is Dr. Daniel Jorgensen, a distinguished scholar of Religious Studies whose work has illuminated the esoteric scene, the cultic milieu, and the occult Tarot. His research has expanded the sociology of religion beyond institutional boundaries, into the rich and often misunderstood margins where seekers continually redefine meaning and identity. Our conversation will explore not only the frameworks he’s developed, but also the questions they raise for the future of religious studies: What does it mean to live at the edge of tradition? How do symbols shape social life? And why does the study of esotericism matter - not only for scholars, but for all who are searching for meaning in a fractured age?   Join the conversation! - WhatsApp: TheObservableUnknown - Email: TheObservableUnknown@gmail.com  - Text: 336-675-5836

In this Interlude, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey traces how three great thinkers sought the Observable Unknown in their own fields. Max Müller uncovered forgotten meanings buried in language, Konrad Lorenz revealed the instinctual patterns beneath human behavior, and Claude Lévi-Strauss exposed the hidden structures shaping myth. Together, their work shows that mystery is not distant - it lives in the words we speak, the instincts we carry, and the stories we inherit.

In this interlude, host Dr. Juan Carlos Rey explores how the observable unknown reveals itself in the hidden life of the mind and the shared structures of society. Drawing on the insights of Freud, Jung, Julian Jaynes, Adler, and Peter Berger, this interlude traces how unconscious drives, archetypes, inner voices, human striving, and cultural meaning-shields shape our lives. What emerges is a portrait of mystery not as something to be feared, but as the ground of our humanity—seen in dreams, myths, relationships, and the sacred canopies we build to endure existence. Join the journey into psychology and sociology’s deepest questions: How do we live with what can be seen but never fully known?

In this special Interlude of The Observable Unknown, host Dr. Juan Carlos Rey steps away from dialogue to offer a sustained philosophical reflection on the very title of the show. Through the lenses of Kant’s tension between phenomena and noumena, Heidegger’s play of truth as both revealing and concealing, Aristotle’s vision of wonder as the root of philosophy, and the profound wisdom of Taoist, Vedantic, and Buddhist traditions, this interlude explores how the observable unknown is not merely a poetic phrase but a condition of Being itself. This lecture invites listeners to slow down and reflect - not only on what is seen, but on what forever withdraws, calling us deeper into the mystery. It is an offering of thought, crafted to sit alongside the conversations you already know and love on this show. The Observable Unknown is not only about voices in dialogue - it is also about pausing, listening, and letting mystery speak.

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Robin Hager - a clinician whose path began in the labs and lecture halls of the University of Arizona, and was forever changed when she stepped into her first healing-touch class. Her journey is a story of integration: from writing medical protocols that saved lives, to guiding patients and families through plant medicine ceremonies with shamans in Peru. From the halls of hospital administration to the sacred breath of vibrational sound therapy, Robin’s life is a testament to what happens when intellect bows to intuition - and when science and spirit agree to walk hand-in-hand. This is a conversation about courage, about healing beyond the prescription pad, and about rediscovering medicine as service - not just business.

In this episode, we welcome a woman whose life’s work has bridged journalism, cinema, and memory. From the anchor desk at BBC World News to the frontlines of conflict, from digitizing the testimonies of Armenian genocide survivors to directing films that confront the darkest truths of our history - Dr. Carla Garapedian has carried voices the world tried to silence back into the light. Her new project, Nemesis 1921, revisits a Weimar-era trial that shaped how we think about law, justice, and accountability - offering not just history retold, but a mirror to our present moment. She is also the filmmaker behind Screamers, a landmark documentary interweaving the testimonies of survivors with the urgent voice of System of a Down, and she continues to lead the search for Auction of Souls (1919), the first cinematic rendering of the Armenian genocide, long thought lost. Carla is not only a filmmaker and journalist - she is a guardian of memory, a steward of stories that demand to be heard. It is an honor to welcome her today.

Fereshteh Forough, founder of CTI (Code To Inspire), discusses her journey, obstacles, and vision for the future.

In this episode, I'll be answering personal questions submitted by listeners and clients through our website, crowscupboard.com

On this episode, we meet Samuel F. Reynolds, president of the International Coalition of Astrology Educators, whose contributions have been honored with the International Society for Astrological Research’s 2022 Community Service Award.

There are people who do not simply work in the world… they bend it, ever so gently, toward growth.  They design experiences that don’t just inform but awaken. They educate, they mold, they transform whatever they hold.  They leave behind no statue, no symphony, no temple of stone—  and yet they build invisible cathedrals in the lives of those they touch. My guest today is one of those people. For nearly two decades, Margie Dillenburg has walked alongside leaders who imagine new futures,  from the heart of social impact to the restless edge of for-profit innovation.  She knows what it means to help something small become something world-changing—  and to carry a full heart into spaces that can sometimes forget they have one. Today, we look past the résumé and into the mystery.  Who is the designer behind the experience?  What moments of doubt, wonder, heartbreak, and transformation made her the guide she is today?  And what is the hidden current—her own private dialogue—that flows beneath all she does?

A person who discovers himself through the process of transformation, not the goal, Todd Bloom broadens our view of what life can be and contrasts that with what it should be.

William Love discusses his role as a Motivational Speaker, Coach, and Education Specialist. His own past as an adoptee plays a significant part in how he connects with people, how he encourages them, and the wounds he heals in himself through service to others.

Dr. Wesley W. Detwiler. Based in Palm Springs, California, Dr. Detwiler is a licensed psychologist and counselor who has dedicated his practice to supporting individuals navigating the labyrinth of addiction, identity, and mental health.

In our Pilot Episode, Alexandra Gersten Vassilaros discusses her Make Meaning Workshop and how she was inspired to create it.