Jesus didn’t become aware of his direct intimate connection with God, the Father, through going to a rabbinical seminary. He had an overwhelming mystical experience at the moment of his baptism when he was immersed in the river Jordan by John the Baptist and came up out of the waters again. And I think this kind of immersion by baptism produced a sort of near-death experience through drowning. So I think Jesus had an overwhelmingly powerful mystical experience. And then went on a 40-day vision quest fasting in the wilderness.

–Dr. Rupert Sheldrake

The Weekend University Get early access to our latest psychology lectures: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 Dr. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 85 scientific papers and 14 books. He is a leading researcher into anomalous phenomena and was named among the top 100 Global Thought Leaders for 2013. He studied biology and biochemistry at Cambridge University where he earned his Ph.D., followed by a fellowship at Harvard where he spent a year studying philosophy and history. In this session, we discuss Rupert’s latest work on scientific approaches to spirituality, why they work, how they improve psychological wellbeing, and how you can use them – even if you do not identify with any kind of religion. This interview was recorded as part of our 2020 Holistic Change Summit, which featured sessions with 25 world leading psychologists, neuroscientists and authors, who shared their latest evidence based approaches to behaviour change. If you’re interested in getting lifetime access to all 25 sessions, please click here for more info: http://bit.ly/hcs-2020