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#488 — Ego, Ecstasy, and Equanimity episode artwork

Aug 4, 2026 12 min

#488 — Ego, Ecstasy, and Equanimity

from Making Sense with Sam Harris

Sam Harris speaks with Neal Brennan about the experiences that shaped his life and work. They discuss Sam's mother's television career, growing up with an absent father, his struggles with perfectionism, his first experience with MDMA, dropping out of Stanford, meditation retreats, spiritual charisma and claims of psychic powers, the illusion of self, the limits of pacifism, deleting Twitter, Trump and the politics of shamelessness, hypocrisy and vice signaling, the future of American democracy, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

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#488 — Ego, Ecstasy, and Equanimity

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