Risa interviews professor of neuroscience and tarot reader, Dr Siddharth Ramakrishnan, about what happens in our brains when we divine, the evidence for collective conscience, neuroforecasting, how different animals move through the world, and what plastic is doing to our experience of time.
Siddharth Ramakrishnan, PhD is a neuroscientist, artist, and educator. He is the Chair of Neuroscience and Professor of Biology at the University of Puget Sound and a recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award. His research spans developmental biology, neuroendocrinology and neuroethics. A Fellow of the UCLA Art|Sci center, his collaborations with artists have led to exhibitions and documentaries that blend the worlds of art and science highlighting topics like Hox genes, animal umwelts and biomimicry. He was also a Fellow at the Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit at Montreal (2019). He has had exhibits at MOCA Taipei (2013), the New School of Design (2012), Microwave New Media Festival (2011) and Symposium on Human-Dog Coevolution (2011).
An avid Tarot reader, he has designed and created the NeuroTarot deck based on the major arcana of Tarot and infused with neuroscience. He was the keynote speaker at NWTS 2023 and a panelist at the Masters of Tarot workshop (2023) with Mary K. Greer at Omega, Rhinebeck NY. His book "The Neuroscience of Tarot", is out Fall 2024 with Llewelyn Worldwide.
About The Neuroscience of Tarot:
"What happens inside your brain when you look at a tarot card? How do you attribute significance to symbols? In this book, Siddharth Ramakrishnan, PhD, answers these questions and more as he explores the neuroscience behind intuition and proves that tarot readers aren’t just making up their results.
Siddharth unveils the fascinating dance between your body and brain that occurs while delivering or receiving a reading. Learn how this unconscious synergy allows you to process tarot imagery, attach personal meaning, and elicit emotional responses, laying the groundwork for prediction. Filled with dozens of journal exercises and full-color images, this book makes it easy to understand what intuition is scientifically and how to enhance it for more accurate readings from both sides of the table."
Transcript
Dr Rama
[00:00:00] Risa: I didn't give you a fair warning and I meant to, it's probably fine. I'm obviously super bald. I'm, I am like six months into chemo sometimes that can be, I don't know, emotional or I should have warned you, but anyways, I'm fine.
[00:00:15] Dr. Ramakrishnan: How is the chemo going?
[00:00:17] Risa: I'm okay. II had my last dose.
[00:00:19] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Congratulations.
[00:00:20] Risa: Thank you. Yeah, I am like just resting, recovering before radiation, so that starts soon.
[00:00:28] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Do you have to have surgery after or
[00:00:30] Risa: I did surgery before.
[00:00:31] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Okay.
[00:00:32] Risa: Yeah, I had surgery in the summer, then I'll do radiation and then there'll be one more surgery, but probably not for another like six months
[00:00:40] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Okay.
[00:00:41] Risa: Yeah.
I grew up in a medical family, Unbothered. Yeah, mostly people have not, I was gonna say not cared, but that's not true. People have been very caring, but been unbothered. But I can imagine a scenario where it would be like hard, you know?
[00:01:00] Dr. Ramakrishnan: you are in Montreal.
[00:01:02] Risa: I'm north of Montreal.
[00:01:04] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Okay.
[00:01:04] Risa: Yeah. I'm in, the Ian Mountains near, if that means anything to you?
[00:01:09] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I stayed in, I lived in Montreal for three months, a couple of years back, but didn't travel venture out much, so
[00:01:16] Risa: You didn't come up into the hills over here.
[00:01:18] Dr. Ramakrishnan: No.
[00:01:20] Risa: Where you at? Miguel?
[00:01:22] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I was at this, IRCM, it was this hospital, but I was trying to do neuroethics. So the idea that, more and more we had to talk about end of life issues or like abortion issues, like fetal consciousness and all these ethical quandaries that are there. And I teach neuroscience and we never are trained to talk about this as scientists.
So I think it's very important for teaching young kids like how to talk about it, how to navigate the question of ethics. So I came there because there's a big ethics institute there, and I kind of want to get a, get a training on how to, how to talk about it. And we did a really cool speed dating event for, neurodivergent individuals. So the idea is you bring in autistic folks, clinicians, social workers, and kind of have this, kind of a speed dating event where you have progressive dialogue on how to interact with one another and kind of get everybody's inputs on what works for dealing with neurodivergence.
[00:02:38] Risa: Wow, that's fascinating.
[00:02:40] Dr. Ramakrishnan: It is really great because we also kind of put these, charts in front of people so people are also drawing as they were talking.
So the conversation kind of progressed with the drawings and especially people who didn't wanna make eye contact were able to draw stuff.
[00:02:55] Risa: Hmm.
so it was much better. It kind of worked out much better than I anticipated That's interesting. Yeah, I was thinking, I had a situation with a doctor where I called to express that I hadn't slept in two weeks 'cause of the hot flashes caused by the chemo and there was sort of like a broken telephone that happened going to the doctor. And so by the time the nurse told the doctor about it, it didn't sound very serious.
And so I was told there was nothing that could be done. And, I talked to my mom about it and my mom was like, well, you probably were too hysterical. Like you have to just be really calm and like really kind of masculine and list your, how it's impacting your income or whatever.
And I was like, that's so unfair. Like, that's so gendered and so unfair. Like, why couldn't they hear when I was here in my panic that there was something wrong? And I have a cove mate who, because of trauma in their experience, describes like, lying on the floor, because of medical trauma in a doctor's office.
To try to ground herself. That was necessary, you know? So, so, so kind of exciting to hear you talk about a conversation where people could share those different ways that our brains and body are bringing, bringing us into communication with doctors in ways that's making us not communicate very well, you know?
[00:04:18] Dr. Ramakrishnan: There's a whole new field of feminist biology that's, I dunno about if it exists in the US anymore, but it,
[00:04:24] Risa: Right. Deleted. Yeah.
[00:04:26] Dr. Ramakrishnan: it was cropping up. There was a really good fellowship at University of Wisconsin where like even, if you're working in the emergency room, and if you're a woman who is saying, you know, do this right now, you know, because it's a, it's a serious
[00:04:41] Risa: Yeah.
[00:04:42] Dr. Ramakrishnan: They are considered labeled like bitches as opposed to men who give the same instructions and so they have to tone it down. They have to kind of co constantly self check. Right. But they should not be, should not be doing. And, it's all my complete social conditioning for all of this, so,
[00:05:00] Risa: Wild. So Dr. Ram Krishnan, am I pronouncing that correctly? First question. Great. And is it Sidharth or Sidharth?
[00:05:11] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah, Sadar.
[00:05:11] Risa: I'll stick with Dr. Ram Krishnan, but if I get real comfortable,
[00:05:14] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Sudar is fine.
[00:05:17] Risa: Oh, thanks. I'm Risa.
Okay. I'm just gonna take a deep breath and acknowledge that, you know, as you suggest in your book, we walk into a reading with our own sort of baseline feelings in our bodies and it's worth noticing what those are because they can impact how we are able to meet each other in a space and, listen to each other.
Often when I edit these podcasts, I catch moments where I'm like, man, I wish I had been more on the ball to notice how wise that was. Or there was a follow up question I wish I could have asked. That's life though, I guess. Always wishing you could loop back in. I just wanna welcome listeners witches.
Welcome back to The Missing Witches Podcast. As we've always said, we're science loving witches. Here we are. And, we're really, really so excited to get to talk to Dr. Ramma Krishnan about their book and their work. It's really exciting to me to meet somebody who is living in this space between art and intuition, divination and science.
I wonder if as a means of introduction, you would give us a little bit of a life story. Like how did you become interested in neuroscience and what specifically are you interested in there? What are your specialties? And then how did you become a tarot reader and interested in divination, and how is it for you living between those two worlds?
[00:06:55] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I did my undergrad back in India in computer science. And then I moved to the US for a master's in computer science. But then I think in the back of my head, I knew that if I wanted to do a career change, I had to leave India because it's very difficult once you get on a path.
I promised myself every semester I would take a biology elective. And the first semester I took an elective on animal behavior we went, out in the field and we used to observe wolves mating and prairie chickens running around. then we used to come back to the lab and look at brains and see how it all worked together.
And so I completely fell in love and I said, I can't, I can't do computers anymore. And I struggled to finish my master's, but I moved over to a PhD in neuroscience. Working on snails and cockroaches is what I was working on. I don't normally talk about my computer background to people.
I still work on snails. I work a lot on how plastics affect brain development and animal behavior and reproduction A lot to do with how environment controls behavior is what I'm really, really fascinated about. at the same time, when I started my PhD back in 2000, my sister gave me a deck of tarot cards.
I'd grown up a lot with astrology, but tarot was not very familiar medium for me. Because of astrology, the science and mysticism as like the dichotomy didn't really exist. I went to a school, like my primary and secondary education was in, Anglo Vedic school where we literally performed fire rituals.
We invoke the fire every Saturday. We used to sing mantras and chant, and then the next day we'll go back and do frog dissection and rat dissection and stuff like, sort of like this, it was not, it seamless, completely seamless. And so that mysticism. And the science were not really, separated out in my life growing up.
So the tarot was really fascinating for me because I, I've been looking at the images for a while and wondering like, how, how do we tap, use this for tapping into intuition? And, around 2018, I kind of felt disconnected from the world a little bit and I want to get back into my own art practices, which made me really delve into, okay, I want to design a set of tarot cards and it has to be a neuro tarot deck.
And so I started, looking for people to design, draw these things for me, and I said, oh, you know what? I wanna do it myself. But that really led me down to, okay, what am I looking at? Why is this image evoking so much in me? And so what is the science behind it? I started looking at, all of that at that point.
[00:09:39] Risa: Um, We did a reading today in one of our circles and we pulled out your book on a couple of occasions. I really love the way that you've mapped some concepts from neuroscience onto the major arcana. I. really like, kind of exciting interpretations of some of those archetypes.
So thanks. I wondered if you could talk a bit about what is happening in a tarot reading from the perspective of a neuroscientist. What, what's happening in the brain, maybe specifically when you're doing a reading for yourself. Like, why do we think what is happening? what is going on with our intuition?
what do we think about precognition? what really occurs when we look at those images?
[00:10:23] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah, it's amazing. Like if you look at a card or any image, it is just a bunch of squiggly lines but somehow our brain is able to. Make sense of what they are or trying to make a sense of what figure it represents. Either it's, a person or a dog or a cat or a son.
So it first needs to kind of put the objects together. So first, the information travels me eye to the back of your head. It's almost like a taking a picture of the image that you see in the back of your head, but at that point you don't really recognize what it is. And then it starts adding layers saying, okay, now I have the picture.
What does it mean? So for that, you're kind of delving into your memory to say, okay, have I seen this before? if there's a nose and two eyes, that probably represents a face. So you start adding meaning to the pictures. All of that is kind of happening, kind of like in the area, right above my ears, right where the headphones are, that's your temporal lobe with the memories.
And that's kind of adding like, okay, I've learned in the past that this means it's a dog, or this is a table, or this is a chair. So using that information from the past to kind of add those labels. And then the part up here is kind of giving you information on, well, is this person moving? Is he walking, is he standing?
You know, what am I thinking about? All of that, is the boat progressing? So all those kinds of, movement information and location based information is kind of getting added up here. And then we move into metaphors and association. So if you see A cat, did you have a pet in your life?
You know that that's really meaningful to you. So you start adding like more associations with it. Maybe you feel warm and cuddly towards something like that. As opposed to me when I was, very young, I was chased by a Pomeranian when I was four years old. So I'm deadly scared of dogs even today.
And So dogs have a very different meaning for me. So my associations with some of those, symbols are going to be different. So you are adding that. in that next level, And that is happening in a place of your brain called the cingulate cortex.
Which is right about, the connection between the left and right brain, the cerebral commissure, right above that is your cingulate cortex. And that's where that, metaphors and association, the kind of tangling up together. And so that is the first step. Pretty much, it almost instantaneously happens in all of us where we are immediately forming these associations and meanings for anything that we see.
The intuition bit is the next layer that's added on top where, you are then asked to make a choice or, okay, what does this mean? How do I interpret this? So that, intuition bit is kind of the next step where you are. Also using emotional centers. So you are trying to, use your current state of mind, and also if this particular object is evoking certain specific emotions in you, you're using that to then make that intuitive leap.
The problem with the intuition bit is that a lot of the information is unconscious and you have intuition because we've evolved to make those very quick split second decisions, so that you know that if you're faced with danger, whether you have to run or stay or if you are eating something like is this poisonous or not, you have to make those very quick decisions so that circuitry is there in you to make those very quick decisions.
And. It may not always be the right decision, but in that instance, it gives you the sense of what is called cognitive ease. You feel, you know what, I'm done. I've made my decision, I'm moving on. And you might think back later and wonder why you did it, but at that moment in time with all this unfiltered information, you're just like saying, okay, well what, I'm just gonna make this choice right now.
That's what the power of intuition is and what they found is, the intuitive decision making is about 15 to 20 seconds faster than logical, step-by-step decision making, which could be life or death in a lot of situations. they've done most of this, research on athletes and doctors.
So if you're a surgeon cutting into somebody, and suddenly something goes wrong, you can intuitively process, okay, that's probably the artery that was cut, and I'm gonna plug that in. As opposed to a new surgeon who's following the rules of the book, it's almost like a tarot reader looking at the little white book, and saying, oh, you know what, if I do this, then this is gonna happen, then this is gonna happen.
So this, there's a delay in thinking about that logical step by step processing.
[00:15:03] Risa: That was something I found really, surprising in the book, because, you know, the back of the book sort of promotes that it's about discovering the science behind the art of tarot reading, which it totally is. But once you're deeper into the book, you realize, it's a handbook for an experienced tarot reader to become a better tarot reader.
There's so many, what did you call them in the book? Like my brain, just blanking. Yeah. Worksheets. Is that what they're called? Yeah. Like
[00:15:34] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I.
[00:15:35] Risa: Exercises. Yeah. There's so many exercises and doing them is so interesting, like really to see, well, where does my body respond to a particular image? Or, what did I think, you know, when I did, I did the one where you, you talked about using, a divinatory practice that you're not familiar with, and then going back to the cards and then compare, like what did you think the answer was to those two?
Two questions. Can you open up the way that you're, you're listening? Can you talk about some of where those exercises come from?
[00:16:08] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I think it comes from me being a neuroscientist is, by training, I'm a reductionist. So, instead of thinking about, when you think of consciousness, a lot of people will be like, okay, where's the mind? how do we explore outside? A neuroscientist will be like, okay, how do we break this down into the smallest bits and pieces and then, try and see if we can build it up again.
Right. In fact, a lot of the exercises are kind of almost, stopping at every step and like kind of finding other nuances. And I think part of the thing was that when I was doing my own readings, I was thinking, okay, why am I doing this right now? Like, what is going on? so I think, some of those exercise breakdowns are coming from the fact of my own training as a reductionist.
But at the same time, I found that, a couple of the readings I've done, scientific readings I've done, have constantly hammered home the, opinion that, if I look at something and you look at something, even though we are looking at the same exact, image, what we observe is going to be entirely different.
And, and it's been proven there is a social cultural divide in, in what people observe and what they take out of images. So I was thinking if, if that works with, you know, just simple, observation skills, it's probably also going to have, something different with different divinatory practices as well.
And. I also think that if, especially if you're an expert tarot reader who's so used to doing, you get attached to certain interpretations that you might overlook, certain new ways of looking at things. And I feel like coming at it from a different angle, where you're comparing and contrasting between two different things might actually... and almost, you know, why not be a novice in a new practice.
I mean, it's something to think about. 'cause I just recently heard about the Leman and I'm like, whoa, what is that? And then, you know, trying to get into that a little bit. So it's always fun to think about it that way.
[00:18:05] Risa: Could you give an example of some of your favorite exercises or one for developing that? Yeah, that, that like next, that next kind of intuition or like, for being able to like, go past your first instinct with a card.
[00:18:21] Dr. Ramakrishnan: One of the favorite ones I've been doing a lot is, taking the card and the first day I write down the first five things I notice about it. Um, Even from memory and then picking the same card again the next. Stay and then forcing your eye to notice something different about that card.
So it cannot be the same four symbols that you saw the day before. It has to be something different. And then thinking about, okay, with these, would your interpretation of the same card be different or not? And then kind of repeat that either with the same card for a few days or trying a new card.
And again, seeing if the different symbols in it would actually alter the way you look at that particular, particular card is something to think about. And then I think that particular exercise really helps you, especially if you always have a sinking feeling when you see the devil card or something like that, it really pushes you past that to think about, okay, what other things can I notice about this that would, change how I look at this particular thing?
[00:19:22] Risa: Can you also talk about the, exercise that you have around kind of cleaning your palate and why that works?
[00:19:29] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah, I mean, this is something we, the new neurons get, what are called habituated. So when you walk into a room and you have this sense, this overpowering smell, after a few minutes you stop smelling it. It's because your neurons are getting fatigued by, by that, and they kind of stop responding to that particular signal.
And so that's what happens in an aroma tasting event where you walk in and they have five different scents. And in between those, you kind of give you a little bit of coffee beans or something to kind of smell, to kind of, cleanse your palate almost. and that way you are resetting, you're resetting your neurons to, to think about it.
So I was thinking if. when you look at an image and it's evoking certain narratives in you, then think about, looking at a blank page or something completely neutral that would then reset your visual imagery. And so the next time you look at the image, it's almost like you're, starting from blank slate instead of being, biased by something that came beforehand.
And I mean, we are all human and you know, even if we say we are, making interpretations completely unbiased, that's not true. we are putting our own thoughts and biases into it at every point if you're agitated and do a reading that reflects on it. So, I was hoping that this kind of a cleansing actually would help us, get into that.
[00:20:49] Risa: Yeah, that's one that I was enjoying playing with. Like what, what do I see in a card if I take like a, I don't know, a mental break, you, you have us look at a blank page and then come back to that reading. I'm especially interested in, yeah, how do we,
acknowledge bias or, find our ways around it. I mean, you can't escape the moment that we're meeting in, you know, the political global moment that we're meeting in. You also talk in the book about how people turn to divination when they experience a loss of control and we're gonna see a whole lot more of that, right?
Fascism and a politics of fear does remove our control, our access to control. And so people will turn more to their spiritual tools. How do we use those tools in a ways that can confront our bias, can increase our empathy, can not drive us maybe more towards conspiracy thinking, but towards care towards each other.
[00:21:54] Dr. Ramakrishnan: that's a fascinating. Question. the scientific research has shown that the trends towards, belief in science versus belief in esoteric practices clearly diverge when there's that feeling of uncertainty. When the financial crisis happened in 2008, there was a big increase in, spiritual practices, mainly because people are wanting to know, you know, am I going to be okay?
and I think that's kinda where maybe, that divide you're talking about maybe bridged because ultimately at the basics of it, the questions that are being asked. to a tarot reader or other divination expert is going to be, am I going to be okay? Or, you know, is my family going to be okay?
You know, and those kinds of questions are the most human, human level, basic ones. And, I respect to a political, you know, whether your client or who is coming forward, you, wherever they're coming from, that level of humanness, humanness is there. And I think that's kind of what, we need to approach it with, but I also think that, with some other practices in the book especially, where you are able to, not only think just about spirituality, but also about science. You can also extend that belief in the scientific system, which is also slowly being eroded, like the lack of faith in the scientific process or the lack of faith in medical, folks.
I think that, the hope is, you can kind of bridge that gap a little bit. I think it is going to be bridged with all these new technologies and tools that are gonna come, we are gonna see more explorations, of, psychic practices and other kinds of practices because we are gonna, I think, develop better tools to examine them in the near future.
It's gonna be very exciting, I think, for us to see some of the questions that people have been using, or I mean, or the mental tools that people have been using to come forth. Like, you know what, wow, what I said was actually true. It actually works.
[00:23:52] Risa: I found that part exciting in your book. It was nice that you were optimistic. It's nice to hear that you're optimistic now, I like hearing the excitement that there are places that science can go, that you see it on the horizon that will allow us to. Bridge this gap in some ways to let us kind of come closer that things that we've wondered about from an esoteric perspective might be taken seriously from a scientific perspective.
I wonder if you could talk about, in particular this idea that parts of making a guess about the future are happening in a really deep level of consciousness. And so the idea that there might be a connection there, with a larger sort of spiritual mind, or to see it on an energetic level, it might be worth exploring even scientifically.
[00:24:41] Dr. Ramakrishnan: So our brains are predictive machines. Like we have to make predictions in order to just do everyday tasks. So if I'm walking down the road, I need to know, if something is going to approach me or not. I'm kind of constantly calibrating that. But more and more there's evidence that, even if not in the individual mind, the collective mind of across people are actually able to predict events that might happen six months down the line or a year down the line.
And in fact, if you really think about farmers or agricultural practitioners from before, they were kind of like, you know, they were looking at certain cues and predicting, they're forecasting, what might be happening. And so there's a new field of neuro forecasting that's kind of talking about, if I pull everybody now in this group as to which, song is gonna be the most popular six months down the line, even though consciously you might say it's gonna be Song X if I pull your unconscious brain, it's actually going to point towards Song Y and all of you're gonna get a consensus on that.
[00:25:42] Risa: How do you poll our unconscious minds?
[00:25:46] Dr. Ramakrishnan: So they have these, MRI machines where they are scanning specific areas of your brain, your insular, which is, where you have your internal body representation also points towards, negative aversion.
So if all of us hate something, but you don't wanna say it out loud, you know that insula is gonna light up like a flash. And similarly, if all of you, love something, and you don't wanna say it out loud, the nucleus accumbens a different part of the brain is gonna light up.
So it's kind of like the interplay between these two is kind of, what's going to help you decide whether you're going to have a positive effect, a positive, thing towards a particular object or a negative, reaction to a particular object. right now it's all in the MRI machine, but I guess going forward there, you can have like helmets or something going around, where these things are being pulled, I guess.
A good friend of mine, Victoria Wesner, UCLA has developed these octopus, headsets, where it's a EEG headset on your head and it changes colors and when two people's brainwaves synch, they form the same color basically. So I think those kinds of, technologies can be developed and become cheaper.
But, but yeah, so that it exists, it's, it that collective mind pointing towards something is, is there in us. And I think the larger questions in science, like. What is consciousness, what is God?
And those kinds of things cannot be answered by scientists alone. It's just not possible. Because I, I can dig how what I want deep and, you know, and break things apart, it's just not gonna answer that question. We just started a major in my university on neuro spirituality where, students have to take hardcore science courses, but also take hardcore religion courses and then, kind of blend it into two.
I think those kinds of, areas are where we are going to get those larger questions answered.
[00:27:37] Risa: You're at Puget Sound. Right?
[00:27:39] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah.
[00:27:39] Risa: Just for people listening who are like, sign me up, folks wanna find you and study with you. Will you talk about this concept of the, umwelt and
[00:27:51] Dr. Ramakrishnan: this concept.
[00:27:52] Risa: Okay. Get into it for me.
[00:27:54] Dr. Ramakrishnan: So it's a German word, it's an, it's like, it's an, on top that u and it's. This thing of how you are entirely dependent on your sense organs to, perceive the world around you. So, humans are very visual creatures, but we are very limited visual creatures in the sense we can only see from, blue to, red and we can't see the ultraviolet or the infrareds.
you are sharing your space with all these other animals, which have. Completely different sensory, in fact, a much more wide ranging sensory processing associated with it. Like ants, can see infrared ray and they are navigate using infrared ray . , so they know exactly where their home is because they're using different strategies to kind of find their anthill.
And, bees can see ultraviolet. So while we see a white flower, they see these deep purples in the center of the flower. And, so you have your sensory world and then all these animals have their own sensory worlds around you. So it's almost like multiple universes of sensation that exists around us, which we have no concept of.
I mean, I guess some of us who have pets like dogs, we clearly know that a dog cannot only smell. And, they can smell things like, which we can't, but they can also smell the past, like things that have happened like three days ago and stuff. So their level of sensation is just amazing.
so that's concept of umwell is this, this world, the surrounding worlds and how it's, we, have the, we have this intersection of multiple creatures, which are making up our, sensory spaces, basically.
[00:29:40] Risa: Within humans, do we have different umwelts?
[00:29:44] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Oh, that's a great question. I think we all, I mean, definitely if you, if you think about synesthetes, they probably have a different, different world around them because not only can they smell things, but they can also see the smells, as different colors. If you're not as visually inclined, then you probably have a better sense of space in terms of your, your sounds.
So, you can train yourself to become more aware of some of these things. if you start listening to your body when you see something and is your heart beating faster or not? So kind of training yourself to feel more of those, mechanical changes that are happening in your body when you perceive things.
I think we all do it, but most of us are not just aware of it at all. So, I have actually not thought about it, the way you asked me, and it's a really, really fascinating question if we have individual umbels floating around us. But my answer probably would be yes.
[00:30:50] Risa: Feels like, yes, but I don't, I mean, I live with a 6-year-old and, um, you know, I've told her that she has more taste buds than we do, or that she probably has better eyes than we do. we're pretty old pairs. And so she'll share that with us. Now in return, she'll be like, yeah, of course I can see that I have better eyes than you.
I do feel like I'm living with a very vibrant, different world. I love this concept because I'm really interested in, human animal connection, human animal communication. Not just, you know, as a vegan, but I just think We live in a world where we've sort of pushed animal experience as far away from our consciousness as we can so that we don't have to really acknowledge how much suffering we're causing there.
if it's possible to enter into their lived world experience more or to make connection across those divides, then maybe that's a path to kind of undoing some of the damage that we're doing there.
[00:31:57] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I did a project called the Sniffing Boot where we kind of had these thermal ink cards, which were placed along different parts of a room and, you had to breathe on it. The thermal ink would kind of make objects up here, and the idea being that it would kind of like the dog would've probably smelled it even before, but then for you had to kind of literally like physically go and do something to figure out what was in that particular location But we also have this, my collaborator Victoria Vesner at UCLA, who I mentioned before, she and I started this project called the Hawks Zodiac, HOX Zodiac. And the idea being that, the genes that control your body plan, whether you have one head, two hands, or like an elephant, have a long trunk or a python having a long, body.
The genes that control that are called the hawks genes, HOX hawks genes, and the same eight genes control the body plan of every single animal that we see around us. So we see this morphological, variation around us, but if you look at it underneath all we are all the same eight genes.
It's like how they are activated, whether, you know, you are activating more of the body or more of the nose, you know, that is different, but it's just the same gene that are controlling all of us. And so we kind of been using this, we ask people to come to this dinner table as a, as their Chinese zodiac animals and partake in food.
And then we start talking about how we animals are our pets, our mythological creatures, our lab experiments, our food. And then we start talking about the similarities and also the variations and the cultural differences in how we approach different animals.
So it's a, it's like a fascinating project that's been going on for some time.
[00:33:52] Risa: It sounds like you guys throw a fun party.
people come and then we talk a lot about molecular genetics, but also about, you know, just animals. Oh, that's so cool. I'm really excited by this approach in your work. Okay. I wanna read a piece, so gimme a second. I'm just gonna pull it up and then I wanna ask you questions about it. So this is from, the Neuroscience of Tarot by Dr. Rama Christian with Forward by Mary Kay Greer.
[00:34:18] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I met her at a conference and she was so unusual, assuming I had no idea who she was. We were just like redoing readings for each other, and then everybody's like, that's Mary Greer. I'm like, oh,
[00:34:29] Risa: Yeah.
[00:34:31] Dr. Ramakrishnan: yeah.
[00:34:31] Risa: Yeah. And she wrote a beautiful forward. Okay, so this sort of is talks about what we were just touching on and I just wanna sort of dig into it a little bit more. This is in a piece called Worlds Within Worlds in your book. We live in a world, but actually we live in multiple perceptual worlds defined by other creatures and individuals We share spaces with.
This concept is called the umwelt or surrounding worlds. My experience of my surroundings is entirely dependent on my sensory organs, how I perceive the world. How I see, smell, taste, and hear. It is very different from an ant when I look outside and see some flowers. I'm just skipping 'cause you just described that about ultraviolet and polarized light.
You might notice grass, blue skies, reds, and pinks for a bee, the same scene has shifted and they can see contrasting planes of lights and shadows. Intense differences within the worlds of the flowers and distances measured in dance movements. For a dog, the scenario can be layered with traces of smell, bringing in a rich history of animals that have visited the location over the last three days. But such differences in perception do not just extend across species. What scientists are now discovering is that cultural upbringing and early childhood experiences change what humans notice and observed. that you have smelled, tasted and interpreted before is poured into one cauldron to give you a recipe for noticing things and finding meanings and associations. Thus, it is your world and it has a meaning of its own for you. This is what we've been talking about, and I just think it's such a beautiful. of the way you're describing tarot reading that it is this meeting of two worlds. Can you talk more about what's happening when we're sitting down with someone who's asking us for reading and how we're sort of trying to enter into that person's world, how they're sort of deconstructing what we're saying while we're saying it and building up their own story?
[00:36:33] Dr. Ramakrishnan: This part was fascinating for me. it's a concept of social cognition. The fact that we are able to interact with other people. And so we are wired for it. when you first meet someone, or when a client is sitting in front of you or someone is asking for a reading, you are observing them and you are.
First of all, perceiving what they're about. And then you almost internally mirror them. So you, even if you're not physically assuming a defensive posture or an open posture stance, you are internally mirroring what they look like. So, and then it's almost like you're creating a go of them inside your head, it's called mentalizing, where now that you have an image of this person, you are then, instilling aspirations and desires and what are their motivations.
So you are kind of immediately forming a mental picture of what this person is going to be doing This is not just a tarot reading. you're doing this all the time. based on that, you're then saying, okay, this person is going to be doing this, or that. and that is kind of how we are.
We are almost judging the other person in terms of what are they gonna be doing next or what are their hopes and desires? so in a reading that's kind of what's happening where this person comes to you and you are creating this mental image of their hopes and desires.
And then the story that's laid in front of you with the cards is allowing you to guide, answering those questions. I just did a talk, at the, star Con in Florida, and, I first asked people to just, look at the other person and offer their. First impressions of the other person. And I got complete silence.
And then I asked them to use the cards and then offer the, their impressions of this person's, motivations and desires. And then people started like chatting. And then what they told me was without the cards, it was almost like feeling like they were offering judgment on the person.
But the cards almost give you permission to state more and almost say, you know, it's not me. I'm not saying this, the cards are saying this. So the cards are giving you the permission to talk about what was going on in your head I hadn't heard that before and it was really fascinating for me to hear that, the permission of the cards,
but then it's a two-way street. So when I am listening to, if you are giving me a reading and I'm listening to you, I have my own, sense of self. So the default mode network inside me is my sense of self. But it's not just the current self. The default mode network also helps me, think about me in the future.
It's the one that allows me to plan for like, say five years down the line or two years down the line. And so I, when you are narrating a certain, reading to me, it. I'm then processing it with my own, expectations of my future with my default mode network.
And then there's a part of me in the front, the front of parietal network, which is saying, which will kind of deny things that are like, if I'm not interested in what you're saying or if I don't, if it doesn't gel with my own plans, I'll just ignore it or be like, oh, I didn't like that reading.
It's, this is just not correct. And so you can just ignore it and, move on. Almost. So it's almost like having a plot and having a range thrown in the plot and you're like saying, you know, that doesn't work with me and just gonna stick with my own, beliefs. So.
[00:40:03] Risa: Can you talk more about the default mode network? I remember reading that, magic mushrooms, certain other drugs, part of what they do is kind of turn down or turn off the default mode network. And the implication in the article was that this allowed us to connect with more maybe of a universal consciousness or like to connect, be less of an ego and more collective.
Is that how that works? Is that part of it?
[00:40:26] Dr. Ramakrishnan: That's what it implies, I think, even meditation is supposed to turn down the activity in the default mode network. it's called a default mode network because not just one part of the brain. There are like multiple parts, there's one part, right.
In the front here. And then there's a part which is kind of up here, these two areas. And it's supposed to, give that strong sense of like, this is me. And then when you meditate or when the Sufi dervishes, do the whirling ish, again, it's supposed to like completely like toned down when they're doing that.
and then as you mentioned, when you're doing the magic mushrooms, the activity in this particular area, quietens. And so you're kind of thinking beyond just yourself at that point is what they think is happening.
[00:41:14] Risa: Another piece I found so beautiful in the book you talked about, the hormone melatonin, which you know, we might be familiar with is, it helping us to go to sleep, like helping us to go into dream. And you talk about this, I think this is what you said, that this is the hormone that animals used to find their way home.
And so I love this sort of idea that like going back into dream is sort of like going home.
[00:41:40] Dr. Ramakrishnan: It's not even just going home, it's migration. Like when birds fly from the north to the south and go back exactly to the same location, the melatonin is supposed to be the one that's driving them to back to that particular location and. We still don't know completely.
For us, we know that it's used in the circadian rhythm, like the day night cycle, but we don't know the full extent to which, melatonin is used in us. So it might be kind of really fascinating to see, you know, if, if it, if it is got something to, with your own internal homing mechanism is something that I'm, I'm, I'm curious about actually.
[00:42:35] Risa: Can you talk more about hormones? I'm asking this obviously from a very, personal perspective. I have a very hormone positive cancer. So I don't know what that's gonna mean for me. You know, going forward, what does that change in how my brain works? What does that change in the type of person that I am?
Or for somebody going through transition where they're, also maybe taking hormone suppressors or changing their hormone balance, what do we know about how that changes how we think or how we feel or intuit.
[00:42:48] Dr. Ramakrishnan: So the main controller of hormones in US is a region called hypothalamus. So if I took a pencil and I shoved it up your nose, that's where the pituitary is. Don't do it at home, anyone. That's where the pituitary is. And if you go further up there, it's your hypothalamus and that's your master hormone regulator.
The hypothalamus then is kind of sitting there and then it communicates with the pituitary, which then releases hormones into your bloodstream. so that's where the sex hormones, are mainly located. And then when you're giving birth and that whole oxytocin is being released to allow the labor contractions or milk production, and oxytocin is also called the bonding hormone for paternal and maternal bonding.
So all that is being released from the pituitary into the bloodstream. In that, in that location, appetite, your level of control of hunger and hunger management is also being released from there, growth. So pretty much all the, the hormones that are important for, your bodily functions is, is being controlled by the hypothalamus in the pitu.
So. When you see, in terms of tarot interpretation and stuff, so when you're seeing an object and that's evoking, some kind of an emotional response in you, it's actually also causing a physiological response where your heart might beat extra or your lung capacity might change, or you might have a clenching in your stomach.
And that's actually also being driven by the hypothalamus, which is, triggering your autonomic nervous system to do all these physiological changes. And then that might result in a large scale hormonal reaction of, flooding you with adrenaline or excitement or happiness and things like that.
What they found is, even after, hormone therapy of different kinds, right now, you shut down your hormones. it takes a little while to recalibrate because it's a very homeostatic thing where, the hormone fluctuations actually suppress itself.
So it, it produces stuff and then when you have more of it, it then goes back and says, okay, I have enough of this. Shut it down. So that feedback loop takes a little while to reset itself. While to kind of fluctuate before your body says, okay, this is the, the right calibration or hormones I need, to respond to situations.
So if you find yourself responding, either too low or too high to situations, give yourself that, you know, it's okay, you know, I'm just gonna take a breather right now and think about, you know, maybe I'm not just settling back at my, my thing now. so be much, much more, gentle with yourself with regards to that.
I would say, because it's almost a process of that recalibration, it takes us while to get to that,
[00:45:33] Risa: So are you saying that if, example, in my case I have estrogen and progesterone turned off in my body, they're gonna try to keep it off for the rest of my life. My body will calibrate other hormones to try to help me have that emotional balance. If I can't use those ones, it'll use something else.
[00:45:54] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I don't think you specifically need, I think basically you'll still have like GnRH and, the luteinizing hormone, which will still be being produced. So I think over time you'll just learn to use those for your own emotional needs But it's just gonna take a little while for it to understand what's going on in terms of responding from your body, as to how to use them, is what I would say.
Yeah. And also we shouldn't forget that, the brain itself locally produces hormones. So it's not just your body is producing estrogen, there's local production of estrogen and progesterone also in your brain. So that itself might be, recalibrated if it's not getting enough stuff from the body.
[00:46:45] Risa: One of my sort of favorite things about this very fucked up experience that cancer is, is that being, is being reminded how adaptive. The body is, you know, how adaptive the brain is. you must see it all the time in your work, but to be really forced to encounter how you can heal, how you can adapt to things, especially given all the sort of terror of the news these days to know like, we're gonna adapt, we're gonna be okay, is, is pretty reassuring.
I wonder what you think the next couple of years looks like from your position as a scientist in the states working on brain work, looking at how things are going down. Do you wanna, you could pull a card if you think it'll help, or you can just tell me what you think it looks like.
[00:47:30] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I dunno, I'm feeling like immediate impact. Like I, I teach a bunch of undergraduates and already, you know, internships are being canceled there. A lot of them had lined up work and that's all been canceled and you can kind of see that it's going to, by the time everything settles back, it's gonna be a while.
There's gonna be a whole new generation of people who are just graduating, who are going to be kind of wondering what they're gonna do. I think. And whether they're going to pursue science or not is, is a, is is gonna be a question. If it's gonna be that uncertain, maybe they won't even go into it.
Yeah, it's just as we just spoke about the body being a homeostatic mechanism. the hope is, you know, the country as a whole, if you think of it as an organism, will, maybe the pendulum has just swung too much and it's gonna hopely kind of, swing back. I'm already an immigrant who moved to this country almost 25 years ago, in some ways, I do have other places, I could go, but at the same time, I'm also gay and not that many places I can go. so being brown and queer has another layer of thing associated with it. So been thinking about, how many places are welcoming enough for something like that.
and I have a 4-year-old daughter, and when we think about women's rights in the US it's like, it's scary to think about it and how fragile everything is. Like you just need one person or a couple of people to just destroy, destroy everything. Come teach in Canada, someone says, come teach in Canada.
[00:49:09] Risa: Yeah, I would, I would say the same. I mean, it's not the answer, right? Like, not everyone who is unsafe right now can come to Canada. I wish you all could. You're, you could come stay at my house. But it's not the answer for what's gonna, what's gonna fix the rise of fascism in America. I mean, we're gonna need to see resistance.
I'm sorry to bring that up and I'm sorry that it's scary. I wish that I could fix that for everyone.
Will you interpret this, card for me? I loved your interpretation of the magician, but I need you to explain. "The Magician follows the Fool and has all the agency to take action and move things forward. Every action we take, every breath, each thought is a product of signals that cascade through neurons called action potentials. These are essential for every function in us and our fundamental energy." need you to unpack many of the phrases in there.
[00:50:18] Dr. Ramakrishnan: You have electricity flowing in your neurons, right? the neurons are almost like a charged battery, waiting for some kind of signal to act. when they get the signal, they're going to send this cascade of, electricity down them.
you can't stop it. Once it starts, it just goes. this is called the action potential, where once the neuron decides to fire, you can't stop it. it's like a flood of, positive ions that come into your neuron flood. The positivity goes in and then zooms in.
Down the whole, the whole cell. And I kind of think of the magician as that that point of you having that agency and once you get that right trigger, you just like act and just move forward with your action. Yeah.
[00:51:12] Risa: Can you say more about how they are fundamental energy and why this is the magician?
[00:51:18] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I think of it to the fundamental energy because nothing in, you can function without this, this, this, this movement of this electrical. Energy. Basically it's any thought process, any, anything like movement. It's, it's all because of this. And it's because of the neuron is charged, if I uncharge the neuron by injecting like, like random, you know, salts into us, we will just become this dead battery almost.
So it's that life force that's existing in order for every single thought and movement that's in us, which is why I think it's a fundamental thing that's there. and I also think that it almost gives that sense of agency of, having that, ability To move forward with things and then almost this single-mindedness of moving forward. I also think of it as magic in a way. and that's kind of why I associate with the magician that sense of both the agency and this sense of wonder like, wow, this thing can just go and do so many different things. Is kind of why I also associate that with the magician. Yeah.
[00:52:27] Risa: Yeah. That idea that like agency our will, able to do something to shape the world is really what we're talking about when we talk about magic a lot of the time. I'm gonna open it up to questions before I do that, do you wanna tell people how they can follow you, find you support your work?
[00:52:48] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah, so my website is, brain mystic.com. That's brain mystic.com. And, you can also find me on Instagram at Sid Bits, S-I-D-D-B-I-T-S. I do have a YouTube channel, again, brain Mystic. Or you can email me at neuro tarot@gmail.com. I'm happy to respond to emails as well.
I have a second book contract on Wired for Magic. So I'm kind of writing about, how your brain is wired for rituals and, what happens when you say words The power of words, the power of rituals, the power of faith, and all that. I would love to pick brains about, what you do in your magical rituals and stuff like that.
and think about how our brains processes all of that.
[00:53:33] Risa: Oh, I'll have to have you back you can come brainstorm inside the coven with us
[00:53:37] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Oh, that'll be great.
[00:53:38] Risa: Yeah, we'd love that. That'd be dope. All right. Here, let's do this. I'll start with April's question. April. I will read it out unless you want to, unmute, but I assume because you wrote it in that you want me to do it.
[00:53:55] April: You can read it. I'm like at the beach, so it's kind of windy, so I
[00:53:59] Risa: Ooh, you. Do you want go ahead and ask, I like the sound of you at the beach.
[00:54:04] April: Oh, okay. So like this, it's like, it's kind of like dark humor, but also not, you mentioned kind of in the beginning that you were studying plastics.
[00:54:16] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah, that that's correct.
[00:54:17] April: Okay, thank you. So I wanted to go back to that because I have been chronically ill for like 15 years and like I recently got a test done to see what toxins are in my body.
And supposedly this test actually could detect that there were like microplastics in my body. and I've heard a lot of people talk about they're finding microplastics in every organ of the body, including the brain. So my question was just how many years of critical thinking do we have left before our brains are full of microplastics?
And I was thinking of what you would call this, like a Barbie brain syndrome or something like that.
[00:55:10] Dr. Ramakrishnan: I love the way you're thinking. Yeah, I mean, they found a whole spoonful of microplastics in somebody's brain. It's really scary 'cause, so I work with a kind of plastic called Bisphenol a, it's used in a lot of polycarbonate bottles, hard plastics. It used to be used a lot in baby bottles, but thankfully there's been a ban on that of using BPA there now.
, you might be interested because, it was invented as a birth control pill, so it's an estrogen, but then they desire to make plastics with it and it leeches out at room temperature from plastics. so I've been looking at how it affects, reproduction, and the neurons that control reproduction, but mainly using fish and snail model systems.
But I use like a very low amount, not even microplastics, I even use lower than that. Like a really low levels of it, but chronically exposed my animals to it. And I've been finding a lot of transgenerational effects. So, even creatures that have not been exposed, but their parents or grandparents have been exposed, like how it affects them
[00:56:14] April: Wow. It's like intergenerational plastic exposure trauma.
[00:56:18] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah, it's there. I would just say don't heat up stuff in plastics. Try and use glass, when you're heating up food. Try and use stainless steel water bottles when you're drinking water, you know, as much as possible, especially with your kids.
Or grandkids. Try and use, non-plastic when you're heating up stuff or, drinking water is kind of what I would say. We are exposed. I mean, there's, there's no avoiding it. it's just our sad state of affairs right now.
[00:56:45] Risa: I'd love to hear the follow up question about like, and I guess maybe tell us how it's affecting snail generations. Like how do you think it is affecting our brains or our patterns, our lives, how we live and act.
[00:56:58] Dr. Ramakrishnan: So, In the fish I used to study, they accelerated development. So the fish used to hatch faster, mature, enter puberty faster. Everything about them, their whole life was almost compressed in some levels. And then even, progeny of fish that were exposed were never the, the new babies were never exposed to plastics themselves also showed the same, changes in neural patterns and accelerated development.
Some of them induce anxiety like behaviors. Like more of those, moving about without any, so that's kind of how you, you look at animals and the way you assess anxiety is if they are doing movements or they're not moving to look for food and things like that. So they induce a lot of anxiety, like behaviors in a lot of the animals.
In snails, what we are looking at are these in embryos. They rotate in the embryo. They kind of spin around to get maximum oxygen and nutrients, and the plastic exposure slows down that entire process. And then because of that, a lot of these snails don't hatch.
in other, animals, they've been shown to induce, early onset puberty affecting a lot of the reproductive hormones and things for that.
[00:58:14] Risa: Does it affect their lifespans?
[00:58:16] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yeah. And the fish, they died, younger. They, it's almost like the entire lifespan just got constricted, on some level,
[00:58:22] Risa: Yeah. I was wondering like, are we trying to reproduce faster because we're not gonna live as long? Do you know what I mean? Like on a instinct level?
[00:58:28] Dr. Ramakrishnan: it's much more difficult to separate out that the plastic is the only criteria in humans, but it's there in Japanese women, it's been directly, there's a lot of fat, deposits with the plastics in them, and it's been directly linked with miscarriages and, genetic malformations that's led to the miscarriages, basically.
[00:58:48] Risa: Yeah. And cancers too, I think, right?
[00:58:51] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Yes.
[00:58:52] Risa: So that was good and uplifting. Know. I'm glad we're talking about it. Thanks, April.
Thank you all for being here in the unknown with us. In the scary parts and the grieving, all of us united by the little bits of plastic in our head or by the collective consciousness that we can tap into. I know that when my times were the darkest, I certainly felt you all there. So that concept is not abstract to me in any way anymore. And, bless a fucking bee, Dr. Ramakrishnan. We will certainly reach out to, have a conversation about ritual and the way that we think about ritual within our coven. You are welcome to be the question asker and we will do our best to be oracles if you'd like, or we could just play with those ideas together.
[00:59:54] Dr. Ramakrishnan: Thank you. Thank you so much.
[00:59:56] Risa: Thank you so much and thanks for your wonderful book. I really have enjoyed learning with it, and I really appreciate that you took the time to write it. Thanks, everybody. Be safe out there.
