The Great Updraft

Ross Edwards

13 episodes listed below

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Psychology, science, and awareness examined plainly.

The gist

The Great Updraft is a reflective education show about psychology, philosophy of science, and direct experience. Its episodes move from plain definitions into deeper questions about habits, identity, models, reality, and spiritual awareness.

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About The Great Updraft

The Great Updraft is a long-running reflective show about psychology, science, spirituality, and the structure of human experience. It starts with simple questions and refuses to leave them simple. What is psychology? Why does a person have the habits, goals, relationships, fears, strengths, and blind spots they have? Why does experience appear at all? Recent episodes use those questions to move between ordinary self-understanding and much larger claims about reality. The style is patient, spoken, and iterative. Ideas are tested from several sides rather than delivered as polished slogans. The show is especially interested in the gap between useful models and ultimate truth. Scientific explanations are treated as powerful tools, but not as final descriptions of what reality is. A dopamine explanation for distraction, for example, may be useful if it helps someone change behavior, yet the show resists turning that explanation into a complete account of the person. The same pragmatic standard appears in examples about tablets, diet advice, and psychological work. If a model helps, it can be used. If it pretends to explain everything, it gets questioned. The spiritual episodes push even further, arguing that concepts cannot fully capture direct awareness. Guided exercises ask listeners to notice current experience, sensation, emotion, imagination, and the difficulty of finding anything outside the immediacy of awareness. That gives the show a distinctive rhythm: practical one moment, metaphysical the next. It can be blunt. It can also be careful, especially when separating diagnosis, personal practice, and philosophical speculation. Ross Edwards is named in one episode as the host, and the recent run also references books, newsletter projects, Wednesday long-form episodes, and shorter snippets. The show fits listeners who want self-inquiry without motivational gloss, and philosophy of science without classroom distance. Its central concern is not winning arguments about science or spirituality. It is asking what each lens can actually do for a person trying to understand life.

Made for: For listeners drawn to practical self-inquiry, philosophy of science, non-duality, and careful challenges to reductionist explanations. It suits people who want reflective depth without a purely academic frame.

What sets it apart: The show treats scientific models as useful instruments rather than final answers, then tests them against direct experience and spiritual awareness. Its episodes move from everyday examples to existential questions without dropping the practical thread.

In their own words

The Great Updraft means sweeping upward growth. The name is a metaphor for the journey towards our greatest expression. My goal is to help you live a full life.I’ll help you become satisfied on all levels: psychological, social, financial, spiritual, professional, and more, integrating the many threads into a sublime whole.The GU is the set of tools you need to unlock your full potential.Visit my site

psychology as self-understandingphilosophy of sciencescientific models and slogansdirect experiencespiritual awarenessnon-duality exerciseshabits and recurring life patternspragmatic use of science

Talks about

Best episodes of The Great Updraft

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

What is Psychology?May 6, 2026

A practical doorway into psychology that values clear thinking over classroom polish.

The episode opens a psychology series for the month with a practical question about what psychology is and what psychological work means. It moves from broad framing into questions about why people excel at certain things, how different viewpoints shape explanation, and what…

If Science Isn’t Ultimate, How Should We Use It?Apr 29, 2026

A practical case for keeping science useful without treating it as the whole map.

Ross Edwards closes his April philosophy of science series with a plainspoken case for treating science as useful without making it the only way of knowing, especially when it sits alongside spirituality and everyday judgment.

What If Experience Is Fundamental?Apr 22, 2026

A forceful meditation on why experience is treated as primary.

The episode makes a clear case for experience as primary and treats the scientific model of reality as incomplete. Its strongest stretch comes when it shifts from theory into a guided check, asking the listener to look for anything outside current experience.

Podcasts like The Great Updraft

Episodes

  1. 1

    Psychology = Why You Are As You Are

    May 7, 2026·5m
  2. 2

    What is Psychology?

    Ross Edwards, host of the Deep Psychology Podcast, opens his psychology series with a practical definition: psychology is 'the study of why you are as you are,' covering habits, worldview, defenses, communication style, and the full inner world.

    May 6, 2026·48m·3 clips
  3. 3

    Spiritual Awareness is Ultimate

    May 5, 2026·3m
  4. 4

    The Problem With Scientific Slogans

    May 3, 2026·8m
  5. 5

    Science is an Ever-Improving Approximation of Reality

    Apr 30, 2026·3m
  6. 6

    If Science Isn’t Ultimate, How Should We Use It?

    Ross Edwards closes his April philosophy-of-science series on the Deep Psychology Podcast by addressing how to use scientific knowledge without being captured by its absolutistic claims.

    Apr 29, 2026·51m·3 clips
  7. 7

    What Science Misses About Experience

    Apr 28, 2026·9m
  8. 8

    Guided Exercise for Recognising Non-duality

    Apr 27, 2026·10m
  9. 9

    What is Experience?

    Apr 23, 2026·4m
  10. 10

    What If Experience Is Fundamental?

    Hidden gem

    In this episode of the Deep Psychology Podcast, host Ross argues that experience—not the physical world—is the primary reality, and that science's materialist paradigm adds 'conceptual fog' onto something more fundamental.

    Apr 22, 2026·58m·3 clips
  11. 11

    Why Models Obscure Understanding

    Apr 21, 2026·5m
  12. 12

    Does Science Actually Describe Reality?

    This snippet explores how science approaches reality by breaking down complex entities like human beings into simpler components such as cells and molecules, highlighting its reductionist tendencies.

    Apr 19, 2026·6m
  13. 13

    What Models Actually Are & Their Fundamental Flaw

    This snippet explains that models are broad sets of observations or propositions used to describe phenomena, with examples from science, psychology, and spiritual practice.

    Apr 16, 2026·7m