In Episode 111 of the Good Scribes Only Podcast, hosts Daniel Breyer and Jeremy Streich go deep—this time not into a specific novel, but into something much more personal: their own beliefs about spirituality, rationality, and what it means to feel connected to something beyond ourselves.
What begins with a humorous aside about imaginary friends and gaslighting dogs turns quickly into a thoughtful, sometimes vulnerable discussion about faith, science, nature, and the human brain’s desperate need to explain everything. It’s a meditation on the mysterious, with both hosts reflecting on their evolving spiritual worldviews and how peak experiences—from hikes in nature to yoga classes—often defy explanation.’
The central question posed: What does it mean to be spiritual in a modern world dominated by rationality? For Jeremy, it starts with nature:
“When I’m out in a particularly beautiful natural place… I do feel a kind of transcendent—it’s just not my normal experience.”
While he stops short of attributing these moments to a higher power in the traditional sense, Jeremy does describe a kind of earthbound divinity—a view that aligns closely with panpsychism, the idea that consciousness might exist in everything, from trees to rocks.
Dan agrees that there’s more to life than what rationality alone can explain. Though once a staunch materialist, he admits he’s softened over time:
“I’ve moved from the far, far side of basically saying I reject all questions… to being more humble. There’s a lot we might not understand.”
The episode unpacks the blurred boundary between spirituality and religion. Is spirituality inherently tied to religious practice, or can it exist independently?
Jeremy offers a useful frame:
“Someone can be deeply religious and not spiritual—or spiritual without being religious. To me, spirituality is about questioning.”
Dan adds that organized religion often claims certainty, whereas spirituality—at least in their view—requires humility and openness to the unknown.
An intriguing thread throughout the episode is how physicality intersects with the spiritual. Both hosts describe moments of “peak experience” tied to the body—yoga, sports, even writing—and acknowledge the possibility that these sensations might be biochemical in nature.
Still, as Jeremy puts it, there’s something real about how those moments feel:
“Maybe it’s all oxytocin. Maybe it’s just chemicals in your brain. But that doesn’t make the experience any less profound.”
The episode doesn’t offer answers so much as it embraces the questions—and that’s the point. In a time when people are either clinging to dogma or rejecting meaning altogether, Good Scribes Only carves out space for the messy, personal, often contradictory process of figuring things out.
“Spirituality, at its best,” Dan reflects, “is about being willing to ask the hard questions—even when the answers never fully come.”
From imaginary dogs to Oscar Wilde, this episode has range. But at its heart, it’s a genuine conversation between two friends trying to understand the world—and themselves—a little better.
