Why do people across cultures report encounters with spirits, deities, ancestors, demons, angels, or other seemingly independent beings? And how might the science of predictive processing and active inference help us understand these experiences without simply dismissing them as “mere hallucinations”? In this episode, I speak with Zach Buck about spiritual entities, psychedelic experiences, and the predictive mind. We explore why the brain may sometimes model invisible agents as real presences, especially in altered states of consciousness, ritual contexts, contemplative practice, and emotionally charged moments. Rather than reducing these experiences to pathology or treating them uncritically as literal encounters, Zach offers a middle path: an active inference account that asks how perception, culture, expectation, embodiment, and uncertainty work together to shape experiences of spiritual agency.
