What is Heaven? Celestial Realms with Tobias Churton

Ken sits down with returning guest Tobias Churton — historian of Western esotericism, Gnostic scholar, and one of the most wide-ranging thinkers in the field — to explore his latest book Celestial Realms, an ambitious attempt to map humanity’s ideas of heaven across cultures, religions, and time. Beginning with Tobias’s own early spiritual experience, the conversation expands outward into a global survey of how different civilisations have imagined the afterlife — from ancient burial rites and Mesopotamian pessimism to Egyptian moral judgment, Eastern philosophies, and the evolution of heaven as both a metaphysical reality and a psychological projection. What emerges is a sweeping and often provocative exploration of heaven not as a fixed destination, but as a mirror of human consciousness, culture, and desire. Along the way, the discussion touches on psychedelic interpretations, near-death experiences, religious power structures, and the uncomfortable possibility that our visions of the afterlife reveal more about us than any ultimate truth. This week: Tobias Churton’s new book Celestial Realms The first global history of heaven across cultures Ancient burial practices and early afterlife beliefs Mesopotamian pessimism vs Egyptian moral judgment Heaven as projection: “as below, so above” Near-death experiences and personal encounters with the divine Psychedelics and the idea of a “backdoor to heaven” Eastern perspectives: Hinduism, Buddhism, and liberation beyond heaven Chinese cosmology and the bureaucratic heavens The role of power, hierarchy, and politics in shaping heaven Why most early cultures believed heaven was not for humans The evolution of moral reward and spiritual aspiration Imagination, culture, and the limits of describing the infinite Heaven as hope, illusion, or something more  People, books, and concepts mentioned: Tobias Churton – Celestial Realms Aleister Crowley – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Plato – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato Carl Jung – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung Jacob Boehme – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_B%C3%B6hme Nisargadatta Maharaj – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj George Harrison – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Harrison John Lennon – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon Gautama Buddha – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha Vajrayana Buddhism – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana Tantra – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra Nirvana – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana Moksha – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha Near-death experience – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience DMT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine Ancient Egyptian religion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion Mesopotamian religion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Mesopotamian_religion Chinese mythology – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology Comparative religion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_religion Afterlife – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife Heaven (concept) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven Hell (concept) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell Collective unconscious – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious    Tobias Churton Official Website https://tobiaschurton.com Books https://www.amazon.com/stores/Tobias-Churton/author