See See by Ceci

Let yourself be drawn into the world of one of the most prolific, shape- shifting presences in 21st century music. Vijay Iyer is a Grammy-nominated composer, pianist, bandleader, and the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University. He is a MacArthur Fellow, described by The New York Times as “a social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway.”

In a profound conversation, Vijay Iyer takes us on a journey of discovery, into what embodied cognition truly means and where music begins. He invites us to explore the extraordinary phenomenon of synchrony: how musicians lock into pulse together, and how an entire audience can exhale as one at the close of a performance.

Iyer speaks of live music as a form of ritual, a collective agreement to step out of everyday life and into something else, together. He also reflects with great warmth on his collaborations with artists such as the drummer Tyshawn Sorey and the legendary trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, describing the deep listening, humility, and compassion that make their music possible. He opens our eyes to think deeply about jazz, “not as style of music but an act of freedom.” Music, he insists, should truly be listened to as a human action, asking ourselves who made it, where they were, and how they found each other.

This episode is a powerful and loving reminder that music is, first and foremost, a live, shared, visceral, mutually embodied experience, and that within it lies the recognition of a deep longing we carry always: to come back to the experience of that timeless space where two souls meet in the act of listening.

In this episode of See See by Ceci, we journey hundreds of thousands of years into the past, to the flickering firelight and painted depths of Ice Age caves.

What did it mean to live embedded in the landscape, wearing it “like a big cape”? How did the mastery of fire reshape not only our bodies but our minds? And what can we learn from the haunting images left deep within caves—some meant to be seen, others engraved in darkness, never intended for any eye but the spirit world?
From the earliest trace of aesthetic awareness, a pebble that looked like a face, carried home, to dots, stencils, animals, geometric forms and so much more, we explore how symbolic culture emerged not from necessity but from play, imagination, and the suspension of ordinary reality. We consider how caves themselves became spaces of meditation and transformation, how music and birdsong may have shaped early consciousness, and what these first leaps into abstraction reveal about the origins of art, religion, and the human mind itself.

In conversation with Paul Bahn one of the world’s leading authorities on prehistoric rock art, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and author of over one hundred publications including the award-winning Images of the Ice Age, and Elle Clifford, psychologist and researcher specializing in Ice Age life whose work on cave art and mythological worlds illuminates the social and psychological dimensions of our earliest ancestors. Co-hosted by acclaimed Italian landscape photographer Domingo Milella, this episode invites us to stand face to face with those who came before, and to see ourselves reflected in the first marks they left behind.

In this episode of See See by Ceci, we journey hundreds of thousands of years into the past, to the flickering firelight and painted depths of Ice Age caves.

What did it mean to live embedded in the landscape, wearing it “like a big cape”? How did the mastery of fire reshape not only our bodies but our minds? And what can we learn from the haunting images left deep within caves—some meant to be seen, others engraved in darkness, never intended for any eye but the spirit world?
From the earliest trace of aesthetic awareness, a pebble that looked like a face, carried home, to dots, stencils, animals, geometric forms and so much more, we explore how symbolic culture emerged not from necessity but from play, imagination, and the suspension of ordinary reality. We consider how caves themselves became spaces of meditation and transformation, how music and birdsong may have shaped early consciousness, and what these first leaps into abstraction reveal about the origins of art, religion, and the human mind itself.

In conversation with Paul Bahn one of the world’s leading authorities on prehistoric rock art, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and author of over one hundred publications including the award-winning Images of the Ice Age, and Elle Clifford, psychologist and researcher specializing in Ice Age life whose work on cave art and mythological worlds illuminates the social and psychological dimensions of our earliest ancestors. Co-hosted by acclaimed Italian landscape photographer Domingo Milella, this episode invites us to stand face to face with those who came before, and to see ourselves reflected in the first marks they left behind.

What is the mind? Where does it begin, and where does it end?
Season IV of See See by Ceci takes you on a 16-episode journey through the mysteries of consciousness: from the first spark of awareness in prehistoric caves to the frontiers of AI and the future of human identity.
Featuring Harvard neuroscientist Rudolph Tanzi on Alzheimer’s and the self, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist on the divided brain, Pulitzer finalist Andrew Solomon on the shadows of the mind, global mental health pioneer Vikram Patel, and trauma specialist Richard Mollica on invisible wounds and healing. We explore intelligence beyond the human: Toby Kiers reveals the hidden networks of fungal intelligence, Carl Safina takes us into the beautiful wild minds of animals. Jazz visionary Vijay Iyer shows us the music within embodied cognition, while four-time Grammy winning drummer, producer and conceptualist Terri Lyne Carrington explores rhythm as the mind’s ancestral gatekeeper. Philosopher Katherine Hayles traces the posthuman mind from bacteria to AI, Stephen Cave examines intelligence and immortality, and neurosurgeon Eben Alexander shares what lies beyond, when the mind becomes unbound. From choreographer Alexander Whitley on digital bodies to photographer Domingo Milella on caves as timeless mind spaces, and archaeologists Paul Bahn and Elle Clifford on humanity’s first leap to consciousness. At a moment when technology is reshaping who we are, when mental health has become a global reckoning, and when the boundaries between human and artificial intelligence blur, we ask: what awaits our species? And what kind of mind will carry us forward?

In this final episode of our third season GUTS, we dive deep into the mysterious world of parapsychology with one of the field’s foremost experts, Dean Radin, Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and Associated Distinguished Professor of Integral and Transpersonal Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Known for his pioneering work on real magic and mind-matter interactions, Dr. Radin explains what real magic truly is and why psi phenomena—like telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition—continue to occur in our everyday lives, yet remain taboo subjects in modern science. He shares how his fascination with these phenomena developed and how he’s approached them through rigorous scientific study.

Also in this episode, Dr. Dean brilliantly explains the idea of a multi-dimensional reality within the framework of quantum mechanics, shedding light on how parapsychological phenomena fit into a new understanding of the universe. Dr. Radin also gives us an inside look into the StarGate Program—a classified program by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that took place during and after the Cold War- while letting us glance an eye into the exploration of real psychic abilities and the delving into the issue of whether psi skills are inherited or can be cultivated through training.

During a fascinating conversation, Dr. Radin also discusses his lab’s groundbreaking experiments, like the intriguing gut feelings experiment dubbed “Telly-Belly”, or those exploring psi genetic characteristics, including those performed through CRISPR and RNA technology for gene editing.

Join us in this fantastic closing episode in a mind-expanding conversation with Dean Radin through which he helps us uncover the science behind the seemingly impossible and challenge our understanding of reality and ourselves.

*Dr Dean Radin is a leading expert in the field of parapsychology. His research has included studies of individual and collective mind-matter interactions, precognition, clairvoyance, distant healing, and telepathy. He served five times as President of the Parapsychological Association, an elected affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was co-editor-in-chief for the Elsevier journal Explore, from 2009 to 2022.