The Illusion of Separation with Jonathan Bricklin

The Illusion of Separation with Jonathan Bricklin

Jonathan Bricklin, former program director of the New York Open Center, is a scholar of William James. He has written numerous academic papers and two acclaimed books: The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time: William James’s Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment, which explores James’s philosophy of consciousness. He lives in New York City, where he continues to investigate the frontiers of philosophy and consciousness studies.

Jonathan Bricklin shares his transformative mystical experience that dissolved his sense of separation and led him toward the philosophy of William James. He explains how states of pure consciousness, beyond self, will, and time, reveal a deeper unity underlying existence. Drawing from both personal experience and James’s radical empiricism, Bricklin discusses free will, precognition, and the timeless ground of being.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:39 Early life and search for direction
00:06:02 Mystical breakthrough at meditation retreat
00:12:12 Life review and transformation of suffering
00:26:30 William James and the question of free will
01:02:00 Precognition and the anesthetic revelation
01:18:00 Unity, Parmenides, and the center point of being
01:35:00 The Absolute, Whitman, and the play of existence
01:58:20 Conclusion

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He currently serves as Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.

(Recorded on September 3, 2025)

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