PZ's Podcast

An interesting new book from Germany has just been translated into English and a review of it in the Times Literary Supplement (August 21, 2026) concludes with a most consequential sentence. The book is entitled Soul Magic: A Century of Psychotherapy, and the author is Steve Ayan. The consequential sentence at the end of the review, which was written by Jack Goulder, is this: "Ayan finishes with some reflections on the notion that the various different forms of psychotherapy all seem to work as well as each other, and that most of this is due to the placebo effect of there being a kindly listener in the room". Now there are at least two big ideas here, with strong practical effects: The first is that in practice almost all forms of psychotherapy work the same. (But hey, what about John and Yoko, and Carl Jung, and Brian Wilson, and ... PZ... and you? The author levels the playing field!) Moreover, he credits "kindly listening" to their shared (albeit flattened) success. That is a huge conclusion, with enormous possible consequences. But second, Ayan believes that "kindly listening" is a placebo. That is to say, kindly listening is sort of a cover for nourishing peace of mind, but it is not a cure! So "psychotherapy", its 'success' rooted in simply the possibility of a troubled soul's being listened to, is not really about healing. It is sort of a cover, for a secondary effect rather than a primary one. This podcast considers Ayan's rather stunning conclusion -- both its relativizing impact, and its diminishing of what actually goes on within a sufferer by means of "kindly listening". PZ disagrees with the latter point. Based on a near lifetime of practical experience, he disagrees with the latter point. He'll wish to quote a classic song here: Roxy Music's "More Than This" (1982). You'll see. (Oh, and didn't The Clash do a song once entitled "Kindly Listener" -- or was it Dave Mason? Or Talk Talk maybe?) LUV U.

'Love is the Answer' to almost all human problems; but more accurately stated, 'Belovedness' is the Answer. Love springs from belovedness, and almost every rock song that has ever been sung echoes this. It's an important distinction, tho', between love and belovedness, because love is almost always a response to belovedness In other words, belovedness comes prior to love. You cannot tell someone to love. But if they feel they are loved, then their love comes naturally. "All I Gotta Do Is/Act Naturally" (The Beatles, 1965). Love always comes from outside yourself. That is not an overstatement. For love to "work", it has to come from outside yourself. You didn't make it happen. Love fell into your lap. Just look at your own experience: "(That's When) I Saw Her Standing There" (once again, The Beatles, 1963). One more thing, tho', and it's important. You can pray for it to happen. Belovedness is not strictly quixotic. If there is not human belovedness in your life, ask God to send you some. I mean that. We know He loves each of us from the bottom of His Heart. I write that with "sure and certain hope" -- and based on long experience. It's a good and almost necessary thing to pray for belovedness to happen. As in Psalm 116: I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell had hold of me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord.... Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears... Ask God to send you some (human) love -- or even more of what you already have. LUV U.

A special cross-posting of PZ's appearance on Directed by God, a podcast and YouTube show produced by and 'starring' Reagan Wells and Seth Farmer. PZ was served as guest host for their episode on The Searchers, the 1956 film directed by John Ford. The episode was filmed in Cathedral Church of the Advent. Watch on YouTube here. Reagan Wells is chief videographer for The Center in Birmingham, which majors in reaching out to men, of all ages, for the Christian Faith.

Here is the first time back after several months,and I couldn't be happier! It took a new computer (and system), acute in-person IT aid from Mockingbird's own Will McDavid; and the moral support of Mockingbirder and friend Hewes Hull. But "I'm Flyin'" ('Peter Pan', 1952) -- again. This brand new episode concerns personal belovedness (i.e., Grace) and its fruit (i.e., Christian compassion and all the dynamism of the Spirit of God). The metaphor -- and more than a metaphor as its magical story is actually true to life -- is from the classic musical "Brigadoon", the movie of which came out in 1955. "Brigadoon" is a wondrous and luminous work of popular art, but the heart of it is the power of belovedness to engender love back (!), the power of belovedness to produce spectacular altruism and other-directedness. The last line of "Brigadoon" is thus one of the two or three greatest endings in Broadway and Hollywood history. _This episode of resurrection is dedicated to Will and Derrill McDavid. _

Why does one love rock 'n roll so dearly? Well, of course, the quality of a given favorite song -- its bass line, the vocals, the guitar solo, etc. -- connects with you(r ears) and makes you love it. But there's more to it than that: The real ground of one's love for a particular song is *Where you were when you first heard it. * And by that I mean: Where you were emotionally when you first heard it. The actual song itself -- superb as it may be -- is made a thousand times more powerful by where you were in experience -- and especially in emotional experience -- when you first heard it. The song itself, in other words, is secondary to the placement of your psycho-dynamic soul when it was first playing in the background of your life. I cannot overstate this truth (of experience): It is not the song itself -- nor, for that matter, the play or the movie or the poem or the painting, even -- which carried "The Weight" (The Band, '68). It was, rather, the contact which the song made with your innermost person, whether you were being loved and accepted at the time, or repulsed and rejected. Therein lies the power of art. (Tell me if this isn't true.) Amazing response recently to an excerpt I played on the cast of an ELO single. It just seemed to blow up one's audience with empathy and exclamatory rejoicings. Note, finally, that there is an explicitly Christian anchorage here: The union we wish so much to feel with another person is the embodiment, in felt experience, of the union we need with God -- that belovedness I talk about so much. I can almost say that a memorable rock song is for many persons the bearer of Christ's One Way Love. Oh, and for the record, the paragraph I read at the conclusion of this episode is from James Hilton's stirring novel from 1934, entitled "Without Armor". LUV U.